Different coils for the 1100

[roundogg]

I think I read somewhere that I could use Saab or Volvo coils in place of the stock units. If anyone has a suggestion, please let me know. I have a 80 Special with only 14000 on it and need to ride,but no spark. Everything checks out but the coils. Help

[Ken Talbot]

By "everything checks out but the coils", I trust you have thoroughly checked out the
ignition coil FAQ and the pick up coil wire repair. And you have also removed the sparkplug caps, trimmed 1/4" off each lead and reinstalled the caps. If so, and you are still positive the coils are bad, you will probably be better off to buy a set of used coils from someone on the list rather than try to sort out the impedance, size, and mounting problems for coils from a car. JAT

[strom]

car coils tend to overheat and fail at higher revs... tested on a guzzi.

LP

[roundogg]

Coil Replacement

I am sorry to say that I had not tried the clipping of the spark plug cables. It has been sitting up for a while and this would tend to cause a problem, Thank you for the info.I will be taking a few minutes to hack off a few millometers and see if that works. Don't forget that Kool is the Rule while up and out.

[kenkrieger]

If you do your clipping of the spark plug wires and still have no spark,start checking your connections back to the ignition relay,,,my 81 Special did this " no spark" thing to me after I had removed the gas tank and worked on the carbs,,.
I found ,or rather my brother in law who was helping me look through the harness found alot of corrosion in some of the connections going to and coming from the coils and the igniton relay,,,,after that I cleaned all the connections in the ignition circuit. No problems with Spark after that. I had already done the pic up coil fix. This was a tip I had read on the XS site by either Ken Talbot, or Sid ,or Indy Rick, not sure but the right cure for my problems.