Kokusan ignition help

[Düb Lüv]

95 m900 still single phase electrical system.

after a short ride, i was letting the bike idle in the garage. it started to bog down, so i flicked the throttle a couple times and bogged down more then died. started checking everything out. after more fiddling i noticed the negative battery cable wasn't tightened all the way. after tightening the cable the bike started doing funky things.

1. when you turn the key to on position there's one jolt of current that arks out of the sparkplug wire.
2. crank the bike, it will only spark once as soon as you crank it over.
3. one of the kokusan boxes seem to be pregnated comparted to the other.
4. when i swap the igniters the single spark jolt migrates to the other cylinder.

i'm assuming it the pregnant kokusan igniter is causing the problem, but i'm not sure it could be the pickups too. since the price of the piece of shit parts are soo high, i didn't want to take expensive shots in the dark.

thank you for any insight

[koko64]

A voltage spike can take out an ignition box quite easily. The older flywheel pick ups just seem to occasionally fail (by all reports).

Looks like you revealed the problem when you swapped the ignitors. I'm guessing you are thinking about borrowing a set of ignitors to double check considering the replacement price. I recently fitted an Igniteck unit that is half the price of a single Kokusan box (I have been using R plugs with no problems). I now have a rev limiter, facility for my shift light, adjustable ignition curves at the touch of a lap top, lap top diagnostics, easy cold starting (with FCRs) and facility to adjust my ignition whenever I make another perfromance mod. For the price, I will never buy a Kokusan box again.

At least one of my pick ups failed recently and I replaced the pair for $150-00 with an aftermarket set from Bikeboy. Unfortunately my receipt doesn't say what brand they were.

Check your plug wires and plugs now just in case..

[Düb Lüv]

the plugs do need replacing and the wires are still relatively new. when i disconnect the spark plug wires from the coils, the coil arks once where the spark plug wire goes. 

what's the ohms reading suppose to be on the pickups?


i'd love to get the ignitech, but it seems a little intimidating. i'm worried about getting a running base map.

i do have one question for ya KOKO. with having ignitech do you position the pickups at 0 degrees?

[Howie]

You got it right the first time, ignition module is done.  Anyway, 100 + 5 ohms.

[koko64]

Assuming that your pickups are in the stock position, you can just tell the Igniteck unit via laptop that the base advance is 6 deg (the standard minimum) and tune it from there. That's the easy way to do it. If you have stock compression you can use the default map to begin with. Even that will be an improvement over the stock curve which is quite abrupt and contributes greatly to rough low speed running IMO. If your pickups are ok you can leave them alone and forget any tricky stuff. I really only fiddled with mine beacause I had to replace them anyway. If there's an easy way, I try and find it!

I moved my pickups nearly all the way advanced to 10 deg base advance to make starting easier in the cold with FCRs. The pickups went forward with only 1-2mm to go. About 1mm equals roughly .7 deg of advance. It will still start easier with the default map. You don't have to go to all the trouble some of us nutcases do!

If you run hi comp pistons you can try 33 to 34 deg max advance which consistently seems to be the way with the older hi comp motors when I look at MBP and Doug Lofgren's data.

I have read and re-read Brad Black's ignition info many times. 

[Düb Lüv]

thanks for the info guys. the reason i was worrying about the pickups too was that i'm not getting a pulsing spark when cranking on either cylinder.

but one problem at a time. hopefully i can borrow a igniter to be sure.

[Düb Lüv]

i measured the pickups resistance and one read 100.5ohms and the other 101.2ohms. i'm not sure whats the right way to measure the control units, but both came up with the same numbers @ .6ohms. i'm confused since the one is noticeably deformed than the other.
the coils had the consistent readings, but the was unable to get a good reading on the plug wires. the reading jumping around on the wires.

the ignitech system is looking less scary after d-loading the software and toying with it. actually looks quite simple.

[64duc]

i measured the pickups resistance and one read 100.5ohms and the other 101.2ohms. i'm not sure whats the right way to measure the control units, but both came up with the same numbers @ .6ohms. i'm confused since the one is noticeably deformed than the other.
the coils had the consistent readings, but the was unable to get a good reading on the plug wires. the reading jumping around on the wires.

the ignitech system is looking less scary after d-loading the software and toying with it. actually looks quite simple.

 A jumpy reading on a digital multimeter on the resistance scale is an indicator of no continuity, or bad connection between the wire and the meter probes.

[Düb Lüv]

PROBLEM SOLVED

i had either one or 2 bad kokusan ignition modules. the problem was fixed by switching to the ignitech.

thanks guys for the insight.