Swapping to standard coils from coilpacks

[ELIMINATOR]

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=713106

Not read it all yet, but, looks interesting.

Hope it's not been posted before.

 

[Fanum]

Good find

$500 Aus for a pair of bog standard twin spark coilpacks...WTF!!!

 

[Pauly S]

how about

a wasted spark coil from a fiesta/mondeo etc,four plug leads and only 3 lt wires..2 triggers, and ign live..

 

[Fanum]

a wasted spark coil from a fiesta/mondeo etc,four plug leads and only 3 lt wires..2 triggers, and ign live..

You'd need someone a lot better on electrickery than me to say whether that'd work or not, but I'll be following this with interest.......It would be great to be able to replace some expensive bespoke parts with easily replaceable bog standard kit

 

[ELIMINATOR]

It would be great to be able to replace some expensive bespoke parts with easily replaceable bog standard kit

That becomes a fit and forget part.

Calling Steptoe, Calling Steptoe

 

[Pauly S]

afaik

i'll check later but i think the std 1150 like mine has a wasted spark coil anyways, just a two lead one, it fires both plugs at the same time left and right.
One spark is on the compression stroke and the other spark is at the top of the exhaust stroke,and then vice versa, hence the term wasted spark.
So in theory, it should work, i guess it depends on the driver in the ecu, and if its man enough to fire a larger primary, however the twin spark ecu i reckon should cope, as it has two switch two coils at a time anyway, 1 double ended and 2 stick coils.
I'll have a butchers later.

Iincidentally, when we change a stick coil at work, they reckon to change the plugs too, as the worn plugs(high resistance)causes the stick coils to fail.

 

[Myke Rocks]

You almost hit you head on the nail.

Iincidentally, when we change a stick coil at work, they reckon to change the plugs too, as the worn plugs(high resistance)causes the stick coils to fail.

Agree wholeheartedly with this, but:
Coil sticks came about because of the desire for a massive spark, with a larger than previous gap on high compression engines.
When one attempts to do this with a plug lead & coil, the leads inevitably break down very readily because of the increased voltages.

I have little doubt that external coils & leads will work, but, given thet high compression ratio of these engines, I fear one will be tortured in damp weather with ignition breakdowns.

Myke

 

[Fanum]

Agree wholeheartedly with this, but:
Coil sticks came about because of the desire for a massive spark, with a larger than previous gap on high compression engines.
When one attempts to do this with a plug lead & coil, the leads inevitably break down very readily because of the increased voltages.

I have little doubt that external coils & leads will work, but, given thet high compression ratio of these engines, I fear one will be tortured in damp weather with ignition breakdowns.

Myke

I can follow that, but given the variety of leads available, with a range of performance envelopes up to the highest levels of racing engines, wouldn't it be likely that there will be some off the shelf leads that will perform and last? A high rated lead, bought by the meter or in some convenient size, is still likely to be less money than the price of a BMW OEM coilpack

Hackymoto reports some figures on the advrider thread.....

Just some short city riding with some 4th gear uphill full throttle pulls from about 2500 rpm to redline today and the HackyMoto coil mod seems to be putting out.
I’ll need to take a minute and do a kv test to see what I got in coil output. I did find some spec. on the bmw single coil with duel tower output at 0.50 ohms primary 7.500k ohms secondary. The C.O.P. ford coils at 0.55 ohms primary 5.500k ohms. But didn’t find specs. on the coil sticks.

So im crossing my fingers on the stressing the coil drivers in the ECU.
Working great so far.

 

[Steptoe]

Why bother.
If a stick coil fails it'll still get you to where you're going.

The majority of bikes that i get in with a failed coil cap the riders haven't even noticed it.

If you are going to bother then a K1100 twin ouput coil with single spark HT leads would do the job for the main plugs, and you'll still have the standard secondary plug coil set up in place.
And it'll be a simple job to put it back to the original set up once the novelty of being different has worn off.

 

[ahutcheon]

+1

I had a stick coil fail in the middle of nowhere. I noticed because I smelt the acrid smoke while scoping out a ford (one of the many on the Nevis Valley Rd, about half way through the 90km dirt road). I turned the bike off, it stopped smoking. I waited and admired the view for a few minutes (it really is a rather nice corner of NZ). I turned it on, it started but didn't start smoking again. I left the tool kit undisturbed and rode home (via a rather nice lunch in Bannockburn and a petrol stop in Cromwell).

I ordered two new stick coils from Mototworks (in case the other one was on the way out), I think the bike runs a bit better but that could be in my head. Not too expensive (thanks in part to the weak pound, I suppose), not too inconvenient, and after 9 years no less reliable than I remember conventional coils being on some other bikes.

I do wonder if one of the earlier fords resulted in the stick coil being doused and contributed to the failure, or rather precipitated the demise of an already failing coil since it's not the first time the bike has been wet?

 

[Pauly S]

Erm..

Agree wholeheartedly with this, but:
Coil sticks came about because of the desire for a massive spark, with a larger than previous gap on high compression engines.
When one attempts to do this with a plug lead & coil, the leads inevitably break down very readily because of the increased voltages.

I have little doubt that external coils & leads will work, but, given thet high compression ratio of these engines, I fear one will be tortured in damp weather with ignition breakdowns.

Myke

Ford still produce engines with a four tower coil, made for lean burn engines that require a decent spark,we do get ford coil failures, but nowhere near as many as the stick coils.
It seems to be the extreme heat which kills them, whereas the four tower coil is external and doesnt suffer this fate.
I also have seen them go up in smoke, one i recall rose out of the cylinder head, like an electric aerial,that was scary, i thought it had poltergeist igntion.
RE lead failures,again they do fail but far less than than the stick coils.
In my work van i now carry 10 different variations of stick coils, and about 3 different 4 tower coils.
I must admit if i had a twin spark engine, i would look into this more closely,but i chose a single spark 1150 because of this problem.
The other thing you could do, is blank off one plughole, and run it on the old 1150 setup,if the ecu will cope with the older double ended coil, and not the stick coil.
Pauly.

 

[cele0001]

Just a quick revival of this thread with my setup (if there is somebody that did it first let me know).

and the original thread on the R1150 board.

http://www.r1150r.org/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=30790