TOPIC:

I JUST finally got everything ready to go last night after my big bore install, valve job, etc.

I start her up today and am really stoked because she starts as easy as she ever has, even though different carbs, pods, bigger bore.. great!

I get out to the main road (about .4 miles) and turn and start going and she feels great! I discussed break-in in another thread though.

All the sudden as I'm accelerating I feel the big go BAWWWWWwwwww out of nowhere an initiall I though it was a lean patch, but I look at the tach and its DEAD on zero. I pulled in the clutch and surely it was dead.

My first thought was "oh god catastrophic engine failure!" given the nature of what I had done to the bike. However I realized that the engine was coasting down fine.. and doing the exact same thing it does when I've flicked the kill switch on deceleration in the past(don't ask why.. you know why)

The engine cranks over fine with plenty of gusto, and the battery has been on a tender all winter. The thing is, the tach needle does not even bounce when I crank it, as I used to. The tach seems dead.. and it is an electronic tach which operates off the coil pulses. So usually, it bounces on cranking, and it is definitely dead. I pulled the #4 plug (easy access at the roadside) and it didn't produce any spark on the cylinderhead. Either the coils are not getting charged, or they are not discharging.

I assume if they are not getting power, that's an easier fix (I'm hoping it's that). On the flip side, if they are not discharging, then it must be the pickup coil or the ic ignitor?

So I'm here right now because I need batteries for my multimeter.. but this thing has new dyna coils, wires and ngk plug caps as of last summer, and new plugs as of this week, and the WiredGeorge coil power supply relay setup in installed on it. Other that that, it has the stock pickup coil and the stock IC ignitor box. I recently had all that stuff disconnected when I cleaned and painted the battery box and brackets and stuff this winter, but everything went back together right, and obviously it ran great, for 1.4 miles.

I got the kill switch housing apart and it looks good to go, as does the connectors for the pickup coil, the IC ignitor, and the wiredgeorge coil relay. However I need to check em.

Okay, an electrical problem is greatly preferable to a mechanical problem, so there's that to be thankful for!

Here's the big, dumb, obvious question: Did you check all the fuses? If they're all good, go through and recheck all your connectors, look for melted insulation, you know the drill.

Congrats on 1.4 glorious, triumphant miles!

oh ho ho.. nope I didn't check the fuses!

Maybe the vibration from all that new horespower just shattered whichever pertinent one would cause this..

I did look at the in-line fuse to my WG coil power relay and it was good though.

A guy I worked with said it was probably the ignitor box, and that they all do that at one point or another.

I did recently clean up the aluminum housing that physically is the IC Ignitor, using a small wire wheel and a dremel. It was really pretty scuzzy and corroded looking on the surface. I made sure not to get too close to any non-metal parts like the wiring and insulation. I don't recall it really getting hot in my hands from the work either, but I didn't even think about that at the time.

Trav, FIRST check the fuses.

Second... if the coil mod was done and the bike turns over, it should be running. Check to see if you have power to the coils. I bet you do NOT. Check the fuse used in the coil mod. If the fuse is good, then the problem is there is no trigger. The trigger goes from a fuse to the ignition switch and out to the kill switch. Out of the kill switch, it comes back to the relay.

I bet that if you started checking for voltage first at the fuse, then at the ignition switch (connector), then at the connector to the right switch gear, then at the kill switch and then at the relay itself, I'll bet you would soon find where the disconnect is occuring. You could even use a trouble light to do this.

Most likely, the problem is that a connector is loose or that the kill switch is flakey.

Well, before reading all of that, I got my multimeter out and tested the kill switch (OK) the pick-up coil resistance (OK) and the IC Ignitor (NO GO!) According to the manual, power on, sparkplug on the cyl head and touck the pick-up coil core with a screwdriver for the corresponding coil. There should be a spark, and there wasn't, for either coil.

Not wanting to accept that just yet, I started checking continuity all over the place, from the power wire to the IC Ignitor to the relay, from teh coils to the relay, from the kill switch to the relay. I found that I wasn't gettin any continuity from the relay wire to the coils, or to the IC Ignitor (they both get their power from the relay, it was just easier that way as they both were tied at the same place to the kill switch)

Long story short, I traced it to being the connector for the power wire going to the coils, from teh relay. I finally got fed up (because who believes it would just be a connector?) and snipped it off, and sure enough I got great continuity immediately.

I put on a new connector, hooked it all back up, did the IC Ignitor test and lo, spark from both coils.

I'm going to go see how (IF?) she runs..

It blows my mind really how that connector could 'go bad' and it's only two years old. There are plenty on simple connectors on that bike that could 'fail' I guess and they are 20+ years old. I checked for continuity across the connector after it had been removed from the wire and STILL don't get any, except occasionally very weakly if I burrow the probe into the wired end.

This was a 'good' weatherproof connector too with heat shrink-able shrouding around the whole thing. It is translucent too, and I can see that it looks fine inside. Blows my mind..

So if I understand correctly, this is a push-on connector, right? I soldered all mine, you should consider doing the same... It's overkill, but I'm a belt & suspenders kinda guy when it comes to my bike leaving me on the side of the road. In fact, I had a lot of problems with corrosion and rotting connectors in my stock wiring harness, so I wound up chucking a lot of the crumbling plastic connector housings and soldering the connectors together and heat shrinking them.

If you Kremed the inside of your tank check that the little vent hole on the inside of the gas cap is not clogged with Kreme

Mark

A similar thing happens to my ZN700 quite often.

With the key switch in the "ON" position, ever so slightly begin turning the key to the left while pressing the starter button.
If it fires up, then the contacts on the base of the switch are worn/dirty and need attention.
If it doesn't fire up, then at least you've eliminated one of the easiest and quickest items to check.

I'm sure you've already given it some thought, and as has been suggested, chack and or solder All your connections throughout. Glad it was a minor problem ( oxymoron?). My old 650 went dead on me from the main connector behind the light bucket coming loose at 11pm on a desolate stretch of a Florida national park road once. No tools, no lights for miles and a panicky fiance who almost choked me to death before I got the bike stopped.

I doubt the original poster is paying attention since the thread is over a year old.