Quick question chaps... if your bike comes with a 12V battery that's rated at 140cca and 11Ah (the manual says this is correct), what's the downside to fitting a battery with say 240cca and 14Ah? I assume it has some affect on the R/R and will take longer for the bikes charging system to recharge the battery, but electrics isn't my strong suit, so happy to hear what people think. Frank
Don't think there will be much downside. I think switching voltage is more likely to cause problems with say fuses because of the direct impact on current than something like this. If it helps: CCA is a measure of the amperage a battery delivers over a time (30 seconds?) without dropping below a specified voltage. So the better the CCA, the better the bike will start. Ah is a measure of the time a battery can last at a fixed discharge rate (8-10 hours), 11Ah would be 1.1 amps for 10 hours, 14 Ah would be 1.4 amps for 10 hours etc. So essentially a better CCA and Ah means you're buying a better battery.
Stu, You're pretty good with electrics, can you have a read of the following and tell me what you think? I posted this on another thread yesterday. It's for a Kawasaki ZXR250; one coil fires cylinders 1 and 4; the other fires 2 and 3 (obviously). On the ZXR their is a RED wire going to both coils and a GREEN and BLACK one going to coils individually. My understanding of electrics is limited, so I'm not sure what to do. I believe the pickup sends a pulse to the CDI and then the CDI tells the coils when to discharge and in what order. As I said limited understanding and I'm not confident using tester. Thanks Frank "Hi All, Thought I'd tack onto this thread rather than start a new one. I have also swapped a C engine into an A frame and after much swearing and head scratching I have spark (thanks Kiffsta). I used the spark plug for cylinder 4 to check for spark. I didn't check the other plugs at the time. The problem I have now is I can only get spark from one coil at a time... I started the bike up today and noticed it was running rough. A quick check of the pipes and 1/4 hot & 2/3 cold. Okay, might be a dead coil, but since I had another C loom laying around I thought I'd try the quickest test and swap the relay at the end of the wire that has the coil wires. Bike wouldn't fire without choke and the exhaust test showed 1/4 cold and 2/3 hot...WTF! I then noticed I'd accidentally partially unplugged one of the wires going to the coil that feeds 1/4. I plugged it back in and tried again. Bike fired up without choke, but was running rough again. Exhaust test...1/4 hot and 2/3 cold! I had a look in the manual and it talks about arcing distance and whole bunch of stuff that might as well be written in Greek (I don't read Greek BTW). Not sure why one coil works when the other doesn't and vice versa. Any help would be greatly appreciated."
Hmm...bit of a brain dump rightly or wrongly. I'm no expert at this I've just done a lot of studying to troubleshoot my little uhh... challenge. Not being familiar with your bike it's a bit hard to troubleshoot without seeing it... but looking at the wiring diagram below it seems to be the same general arrangement as my bike. I'd just go through it step by step... I think coils are either stuffed or they are not. If you can get each one to fire properly (albeit individually) then it's probably not the coils - but have you tried switching the black and green wires to each coil to ensure they both fire from either CDI (IC igniter) output? The coils are identical so it's not really a risk but a good way to confirm the CDI is doing the right thing. Otherwise you may have to go back further to the pickup The reason the manual talks about measuring the arcing distance is because this is really the best way to measure a coil's condition, but you need a tester for that. If you're getting spark from the coils to the plug when the plug is removed it's a bit different to getting spark under pressure and the conditions internal to the cylinder. So considering you are adjusting the choke you could have a fuel supply issue from the carby to the cylinders that are not firing which makes it a bit more complicated. Only other thought is a short somewhere. Simple as it sounds, if a wire is shorting to ground you won't get spark. Did you check the fuses? Particularly fuse #4? Try replacing that... bit of a stab but you never know. I would think that if either coil fires pretty well from either wire from the CDI it's probably a CDI issue. The reason I say that is because if you had dual pickup coils one may be buggered but as it looks like a single pickup at least you're getting spark somewhere.
Check for break from cdi to coils could be just bumping it if nothing I agree look at cdi see if u can borrow one to test out mate
Thanks Stu (& McLaren). I'll have a go at those suggestions. I was only using the choke because the bike wouldn't fire when the coil feeding 2/3 was "active". Fired without choke when coil firing 1/4 was active. I tried switching the connections to the coils, but got popping as I left the plugs in (idiot). I'll have another go soon. Thanks again guys.
