1981 Suzuki GS450S- Recent Electrical Upgrades w/ photos

[drey6]

I hope you still have the heavy engine groudn strap going to the negative side of the battery?

I ran this to the SPG. But I can do so with ease if it's recommended and I've overlooked that fact. It's closer to battery ground anyways so would be an easy change.

[John Park]

Is there any reason why this GS500 setup wouldn't work for a four? Tell me it won't work so the price of used 500 ignitors won't soar before I can hoard some. Of course, the coils are twin HT and maybe higher draw; does it matter?

[posplayr]

The starter ground strap does not go to the SPG.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?249596-Melted-SPG-R-R-failure

[hannibal]

Thanks for the link Jim lol.

What about his R/R + running directly to the battery (with a fuse)? Is that electrically the same as merging the R/R + with the battery + after the battery's fuse? Aside from the fuse he added between the battery and R/R.

[posplayr]

Thanks for the link Jim lol.

What about his R/R + running directly to the battery (with a fuse)? Is that electrically the same as merging the R/R + with the battery + after the battery's fuse? Aside from the fuse he added between the battery and R/R.

No they are not the same. R/R(+) should go to the "T"

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?152769-GS-Charging-System-Health&p=1138898#post1138898

[Chuck78]

One thing I should add is that the GS500 coils, to my surprise, Dave said have the threaded spike type connection for the plug wires same as the resistor caps on the plug end, so no need to buy the bulk pack of Accel coil terminal crimp-on coil terminals and boots, a very cool feature! Just buy some bulk 7mm solid copper core plug wire, snip, slip on boots, stab & screw on!
I am very tempted to buy a low mileage set of these for my GS425... I may be doing the 4 cylinder GS signal generator swap to wire up some GM HEI modules to build my own ignitor thanks to maybe it was Matchless on here (?) that worked with GPz/HVX Lou on adapting Lou's design over to the GS ignitions...

Good work David, glad you've finally got 2 of the main 3 bikes in your household on the road / trails! The weather the next two weekends is looking much better than this chilly weather we have been having, trail season still runs for six more weeks, gotta use that season pass up plenty! Hopefully next year I will have the '77 PE250 ripping up the dirt and rocks at Wayne National Forest, & the KDX will be the loaner mule!

Everything looks pretty good to me with Jim's/etc clarification. The lack of the big adjustable timing slots on the's ignition pulse generators confused me a bit, however. I'll have to loan you that thrift store Actron timing gun that I picked up. Again. I verified it works correctly, it was a rotor mismatch that had me a bit confused on gun accuracy.

I'm not to clear on how the timing marks work on thise, and I believe I looked it up in the GS500 manual and found next to nothing on setting time. Need to verify it is correct however, even if we have to find true TDC on our own and mark it on the plate for reference.

[drey6]

I'm off work tomorrow thanks to some shift swaps and plan to clean the garage in prep for GS550(my bike!) work that lies ahead. I'll finally get to double checking the ignition plate to see if they are slotted mounting holes or not, my money is that they aren't. Thanks for the follow-up info provided by all and I plan (if time allows tomorrow) to make the 2 corrections that were reccomended by posplayr. Hopefully soon I can start making major headway on my 80 GS550E to have it on the road by spring. Lots of work already done but quite a bit remains. I'd say about 60% there!

[Chuck78]

Keep it up! Just have to maximize your free time when the misses isn't around or is occupied!

I think on that timing plate, there will be a slight bit of slottimg, but not very much. That was the case with the gs650 of your buddy Travis' that I timed. Very minimal adjustment available, but shouldn't need a whole lot really. The early slotted ignition timing adjustment can let you take it so far out of whack it wouldn't even run.