696 COIL WIRES

[DAYS OF GLORY PAST]

I tried to check the coil wires with a meter and found no positve or negitive markings . Does any one know the position right or left for the positive on the coil?

[T. Rush]

http://up.sur-la-toile.com/ihpS  Check out this thread. There is a PDF file with wiring diagrams. Hope this helps.

[Howie]

I tried to check the coil wires with a meter and found no positve or negitive markings . Does any one know the position right or left for the positive on the coil?

Don't know, and I doubt a wiring diagram will help, the bikes in question agreed with the wiring diagram in the owner's manual.  Years ago, Ford had a reverse coil polarity problem.  The markings on the coil were wrong.  An ignition coil is just a step up transformer.   Positive will give you a resistance reading between the small terminals.    Negative will give you infinity between the small terminal and the coil wire terminal wire., or, if your bike has a fixed spark plug wire, the end of the wire.  If you can get your hands on an oscilloscope, the spark line would be going down, not up.  An alternative is just switch the wires and see the bike runs better.

Reverse polarity affects performance when spark demand is high and can not be met.  Though it may not seem so, cruise and slightly open throttle have a relatively high demand, so you may get random misfire.  Just my guess here, but I think what is happening on the 696 is the unburnt gas from the misfire is detected by the o₂ sensors.  The computer sees this as a rich mixture and leans the bike out, causing worse surge, more misfire and high combustion chamber temperature.