Testing Coils

Scorpio 2016 -

Well I don't know where you're at with your diagnosing of the coils but I just happened to run across the coil testing procedure that shows up in the ZN1300 Voyager supplement and it has more specific instructions regarding the resistance testing of the secondary windings. Apparently, the secondary winding is isolated from the primary winding which is unlike any standard ignition coil, so I may have steered you wrong on the previous post.

To check the secondary winding you need to put your test leads across the 2 spark plug caps. So stick one lead in one spark plug cap and the other lead in the second spark plug cap coming from the same coil. Sorry for the confusion.

And again, let us know what you find.

Kawboy wrote: Scorpio 2016 -

Well I don't know where you're at with your diagnosing of the coils but I just happened to run across the coil testing procedure that shows up in the ZN1300 Voyager supplement and it has more specific instructions regarding the resistance testing of the secondary windings. Apparently, the secondary winding is isolated from the primary winding which is unlike any standard ignition coil, so I may have steered you wrong on the previous post.

To check the secondary winding you need to put your test leads across the 2 spark plug caps. So stick one lead in one spark plug cap and the other lead in the second spark plug cap coming from the same coil. Sorry for the confusion.

And again, let us know what you find.

I tested mine inline with the guidance from the manual and came up with the results previously stated, still trying to find out why the 3 ohm coil secondary windings results fall below the guidance given and how this impacts on the ignition, as said tested from lead to lead and achieving 11.5 ohms

Mark wrote:

Kawboy wrote: Scorpio 2016 -

Well I don't know where you're at with your diagnosing of the coils but I just happened to run across the coil testing procedure that shows up in the ZN1300 Voyager supplement and it has more specific instructions regarding the resistance testing of the secondary windings. Apparently, the secondary winding is isolated from the primary winding which is unlike any standard ignition coil, so I may have steered you wrong on the previous post.

To check the secondary winding you need to put your test leads across the 2 spark plug caps. So stick one lead in one spark plug cap and the other lead in the second spark plug cap coming from the same coil. Sorry for the confusion.

And again, let us know what you find.

I tested mine inline with the guidance from the manual and came up with the results previously stated, still trying to find out why the 3 ohm coil secondary windings results fall below the guidance given and how this impacts on the ignition, as said tested from lead to lead and achieving 11.5 ohms

I had to go back to your previous post regarding your findings and I see you "upgraded" to 3 ohm coils. So their aftermarket and not stock coils. That being said, it's realy difficult to say whether the results determine that the spark would be better or worse than the stock coils.

There's so much involved in the theory of ignition and as I stated before I'm "not the guy" to get into the definitive aspect of this topic. AS far as the fundamentals, it takes around 15,000 - 20,000 volts to jump the gap on the spark plug and that number is dependent on several variables. The compression of the mixture at the point of ignition, the mixture of gas and air, the temperature of the mixture and the air gap of the spark plug. Once the spark has been created, the voltage doesn't rise. Some ignition coils have the capacity to fire as high as 50,000 volts but if the variable requirements are met at 15000 volts then that's all you would see if hooked up to an oscilloscope. If you hooked up an oscilloscope to an old V8 engines with one coil firing across a distributor cap and firing the 8 cylinders, you could read the voltages each of the cylinders was firing at. Typically, the outer 4 cylinders would be firing at 2000- 3000 volts higher than the centre cylinders because the mixture of the fuel running to the outer 4 corners was leaner than the centre 4 cylinders and yet it was only the one coil firing all 8 cylinders.

Trikebldr, bail me out here please. I can just bet money that you're smiling in the background reading this. :side:

Mark- I's sure this doesn't answer your question. You want to know what you should expect when testing your upgraded coils and how the resistance of the secondary winding if below the stock coils resistance is a problem or not. What's critical as far as the coils go is the resistance of the primary winding since it can have a serious adverse effect on the lifespan of the igniter. It's very possible that the after market coils you've got are producing a hotter fatter spark than the stock coils or maybe not. Ignition coils are really step up transformers meaning they increase the voltage. As far as transformers go generally speaking they run about 70% efficient ie. power out is 70% of power in. If the primary voltage is fixed at 14.2 volts and we maintain the resistance at 2.7 ohms then the power out irregardless of who's ignition coil we're using will be 70% of the power in. The question then becomes which do you want the output to be high volts , low amps, or low volts high amps.

I think the Kawasaki bible stats that the spark must be able to jump a 7mm gap between terminals of a tester connected between the two HT leads of a single coils secondary winding.

Kawasaki show some fancy device that is well insulated and has calibration of some sort but Gunson's do a cheap spark gap tester and my Dyna coils spark will jump the gap at its maximum opening - about 25mm I think.

Wow...you guys know your stuff. I'd say it's all Greek to me but I love Greece...best biking country in the world.
Anyway, I'm awaiting the coils I bought on eBay which are supposedly "bolt-on ready" according to the seller.I hope I can reuse the spark plug caps because they're part of the original setup and I don't know what type of new ones to buy.I know they have resistors built into them and I don't want to fry anything.I'll install them and let you know how it goes.

I received the ignition coils and they were right, they are a direct replacement without any modifications. They will bolt right on where the old ones were. Mine were the originals that have the plug wires bonded to the coils. I cut the 2 wires off my old coils where they were soldered and put crimp connectors on them so they slide right on the new coils. I unscrewed the spark plug caps from the old wires and screwed them into the new wires. The new wires are replaceable but were perfect length. Each new coil came with a long plug wire and a short one, so I had to put 2 long ones on one and 2 short ones on another but they all reached just fine. I bolted them on and the bike fired up great. I took it for a ride for 10-15 minutes with no problems. Unfortunately, I am in the process of moving to another province so will be unable to go for a long ride for a while to really see if the stalling issue is resolved. But I'm happy that it's running now since it wouldn't even keep going when it was warmed up before.