Advance mechanism question

[Sinister Imaging]

got the advance cleaned and put back together found broken wire on one of the pick-ups, got that sniped soldered and back together. trimed spark wire ends. with all that said still getting weak spark in 3 & 4. Bad resistor in spark boots? Thinking of removing resistors replacing w/ solid copper, and getting denso IW20 plugs (5k internal).

[Sinister Imaging]

so i didnt relize this but the plugs i got from the auto store are champion RN9YC. 2-4 are black and sooty and 1 is perfect. could the resistored plug and wrong heat range be at fault for this?

[cywelchjr]

I know there are some who will debate this, but IMHO and experience resistor plugs plus resistor caps won't cause a problem. I avoid them, but mine originally had resistor plugs with resistor caps that were about double stock resistance and it ran good with good color on the plugs, good performance and good gas mileage. I did change the caps and plugs and put the proper non resistor plugs in when I put new plugs in, but it didn't make any difference in how the bike runs or in gas mileage.

That said, if your having problems and have checked the other things (wire ends, cap resistance etc) then it's something that COULD be a problem if your coils are borderline.

[motoman]

With one reasonably clean plug, not likely coils as you would likely have 2clean plugs. More likely float levels, pilot circuit idle mixture or both......

[Sinister Imaging]

coils ohmd at

02~ohm on the primarys and 14~k at plug wires with boots off.

the resistors in the boots are just on the edge of being out of spec
6-9k and one is at infinity.

[cywelchjr]

Well, infinity is out of spec, and 9k is out of spec as well. At those readings I would just replace the plug caps as they are pretty cheap, I picked up mine at cyclegear for like 2.50 each or something like that about 2 years ago. That price may have gone up a little, but probably not much as these are a commodity item. You could probably rehab them, but frankly I don't feel it's worth the amount of work it would take.

[GLoweVA]

Isn't the factory spec on the plug wires 15K? (I remember reading that in the manual) (so, 14k should be Okay)
The one plug resistor that's reading infinity is... (let me guess) for plug #1?
2 thru 4 were "black and sooty' and 1 was perfect, so #1 wasn't getting any spark thus didn't have any combustion to 'dirty' the plug.

I second what Cy says and get some new plug boots (without resistors) then you should have good spark on all 4.
Once that's figured out then you can dial in the carbs to adjust for rich/lean conditions (as read by the plug conditions)

[Sinister Imaging]

Got the resistors removed from the plug boots today, replaced them with 8 gauge wire.. i striped a 12" lenght of 8 gauge wire of its jacket, put one end in a vice and the other in a drill twisted the wire then, i cut to length, then i put the "non-resistor" core in the boots (with out the dinky springs). Now i have full effect on all cylinders.. OMFG!!!