TOPIC:

Kawboy - it was a joke about my bike. Yes, it's maniac1886 thread about his bike, but we started conversing together about the coils and resistors, as we are going through the exact same repair stage. So, I thought I write here more rather than starting another identical thread elsewhere. It's helping us both

stan has piggie backed on this portion of the thread because he is having the same problem as me.

In my case, concerning the meter, I am using Blue-Point (Snap-on) MT145 meter. It's about 25 years old - a good fit for a 35 years old bike, haha

Dear all,

It's been a while since I posted anything about my Z1300 due to the fact I'm still waiting for DVLA to send me a registration document so I can start using the bike. There was a few gremlins with the carburation which, I think I've sorted out and a starting problem if the bike was left for a few days. I refer to Tonto's post about using a hair dryer to get his own machine started which was possibly the last time I posted anything. I seem to have over come the problem (although not ideal) by put a rag inside the inlet of the air box. Once the bike starts simply remove the rag and warm the bike as normal. The consequence of doing this is it artificially enriches the mixture which seems the only way I can start the bike. This is something I'm currently looking into and hopefully I can resolve the issue.

I visit the forum each day and absorb the comments and suggestions for future reference. However, this issue over the coils is now starting to become confusing. When I started to rebuild the bike one of the first things a decided to do was upgrade the coils. I followed the guidance from this post:-

www.kz1300.com/index.php/forum/electrica...-z1300-kz1300-how-to

I purchased a set of AW82 coils from eBay and they all measured up at 2.7 Ohms. However, some members are happy with this reading and have done no further adjustments. After reading this post some members are still adding ballast resisters at 0.4 Ohms or higher to achieve closer to the Kawasaki recommendations of 3.7 Ohms with the ballast resistors in line.

I decided to measure my old coils and they measured 1.7 ohms. Even the one coil that was split down the middle gave the same reading. Kawasaki say that a multi meter is not the definitive way to check the condition of the coils as a multi meter will not show if the insulation is breaking down. Anyway, I took a second reading with the Kawasaki ballast resistor in line and all three coils are coming in around 3.7 Ohms.

If like me, and your electrical knowledge is weak, and you're convinced that once the voltage leaves your battery everything else is witch craft then some clarification on what the minimum and maximum resistance of the coils should be would be useful.

Regards

Martin

For those looking for ballast resistors check out this link.

www.sparkplugs.co.uk/catalogsearch/resul...T+RESISTOR&x=23&y=25

Created the ballast resistor. Its only zip tied for now until I decide to fab something up. The zip ties actually work really well. I couldnt find 90 degree spade connectors, but instead of cutting the factory wire harness. I used 4 lengths of wire, all three came back and ties into one. On the three wires, I put female blade connectors, and on the single lead, I put a male spade connector to plug into the factory harness without modification.

Problem 1:
I purchased a single coil, and a pair of coils. Wired them up, and got spark on one coil. Im beginning to be suspect that I should take the other 2 out, which were likely the pair and examine all the wire connections. I didnt test them other than the Pink/other color posts to calculate the resistor. I think maybe I should take them apart and examine them.

Problem 2: It seems the coils, although very similair, are not exact. When putting coil #2 on the top, the screw in part where the plug wire connects to the coil overhangs the hole for the shaft of coil #1 to come up through the bottom. Therefore neither #1 or #2 and firmly seat on the grounding areas. To over come this for testing, I ran a jumper from both mounting shafts of coil #1 , then spliced it and ran back to the negative battery terminal, and let it hang. No dice. I will take #1 and #2 out and check connections, and continuity tomorrow. Really had my hopes up on hearing this thing run. Plugs are new, carbs are cleaned, and the bowls are full. Should fire right up.

mizztheman
Thanks for that link to the Beru resistor source. That is the lowest price I've seen by far.

When testing aw82 coils, do i check resistance between each HT output? So plug boot to plug boot, or do i check resistance between the pink (-) blade and each plug boot individually?

StanG, regarding mounting, I purchase coils from MCG which had the same mounting arrangements and holes in the coil laminations as the originals so I just transferred the original fixings to the new coils. The brass tubes are only there as spacers - they would fit a smaller diameter bolt if necessary without any problems - the standard bolts are a tight fit in the frame mountings so a slightly smaller fixing bolt might be an advantage.

Regarding this controversial topic of resistance, I would suggest that there is an acceptable "range" of resistance where the ignition system will work well. The minimum seems to be about 2.6-2.7 ohm and no-one really seems to want to go above about 3.2 ohm. I personally would recommend that you use the same ballast resistance for each coil. I am not sure it is critical whether you go for 0.4 or 0.5 ohm resistors - I would probably chose on price or quality.

I measured my original ballast resistor and coils and they were both very close to the nominal spec quoted in the manual (see pic)

My new coils were measured using the same meter and came out a 2.2 ohms - all the same.

I wired them up using wires as close to the original colours as possible and all 20 amp rating. Just added some heat insulation to the lead wires as well.

This were the original Beru resistors - important to remove the original mounting bracket carefully as the ceramic resistors are brittle

I am sure it should be possible to add just a length of wire that provides the right resistance but remember that this will need to dissipate a good deal of heat - early cars would often use this approach. However conventional automotive wire may overheat and melt the insulation.