Gs 1000 e coil question

[Guest]

HELLO have an issue with the gil coils that were on the bike when i bought it, the bike has been totally re-wired.. and was running well.. but recently after various popping and hard starting problems I decided to inspect the coils... (after a carb tear down) now I am sort of ok with electrics but I have never seen this set up before, two wires, red and white going to the plus side of each coil, red left white right..... and a bridge wire going between the negative sides... So I tested the red wire (in line light bulb tester) and I have power there. but nothing on the white wire, so i put power through the white wire to see if it was earthed and nothing. so if there is no power from it or through it what is it doing ? now my gs is fitted with a non original electric system. which i don't really understand. surely these coils are wired in line ! so is it meant to be firing at every tdc stroke, like a three lost spark sort of thing, or does the magic box do something else...
I have tested the coils primary and secondary windings with a multimeter, got a low reading on the spades and nothing on the ht side ..i have more coils and have tested them too getting 3.5 on the spades and again nothing from the ht side. so I am not so worried about that ! It is just this "white" wire has anybody come across this type of wiring before ? surely the plus side of the coil should be "fed" or does the new electrics work it differently? any thanks for any help or suggestions,Simon

[koolaid_kid]

By mentioning the magic box I take it you have an electronic ignition. You should have battery voltage at the bridged wires (+12V) and the other wires will alternate depending on which coil is firing at the time.
Your coils fire alternately, the 1&4 coil, then the 2&3 coil, then the 1&4 coil, etc.

[tom203]

Yes,this is the lost spark (some call it the wasted spark) method of firing spark plugs- -as stated,1 and 4 fire together, 2 and 3 together. The "magic box" (aka the ignitor) alternately breaks ground to the ignition coils doing the same thing the contact points used to do to produce a sudden spark at correct plug.
your wiring colors seem different. Most have an orange white wire carrying the plus 12 volte to ignition coils, while a solid white wire and yellow/black wire form the negative connection to ignitor to coils.
Best to test ignition coils with spark plug caps removed as corrosion gives poor reading. Primary side should read about 4 ohms ( across spade terminals) while sticking meter probes into plug wires on a coil should give about 12000 ohms

[SIMONK]

Thank you for a fast reply, So just to get this straight in my head...the power goes through both coils from the red wire through coil one + then across the bridge on the negative spades then out and down the white wire to the igniter... so as each the signal is generated by the pick ups it sends a pulse through the lot and bang vroom vroom... have i got it ? or does the white and red wire alternate power supply to each coil in turn ? i suppose what i am saying is do the red and white wire both come from the igniter ? if so that would explain why no juice on white....and is there anyway to test that the white wire has power when it should...
sorry if this makes you take a deep breath and sigh...

[tom203]

12 volt positive is fed to both + terminals on ignition coils . The other terminal on each coil connects (by separate wire) to the ignitor. Basically, the ignitor allows current to flow thru the coil- this builds up the magnetic field in coil. Then suddenly the ignitor opens this current path, collapsing the magnetic field causing panic in the secondary windings which results in large voltage leaping down one spark plug wire and returning thru other plug wire.
go here to follow the explanation......and testing

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/storagecliff/images/electrical_odd-n-ends.html#A17

some of your rewiring will have different colors than refered to in above link .Your red wire seems to be the orange/white that feeds the 12+ to coils.

[SIMONK]

THANKS AGAIN Tom that is how i thought they worked, two separate systems. live feed in on both.. and a wire from each to the points/igniter telling it when to fire... So the bridge between the 2 negative spades is a head scratcher, because in effect it turns it into one giant loop,i could understand it if they went to the igniter or even to earth, but thanks for that link i shall run through those tests as soon as it stops raining.