testing coils for voltage

How would you go about testing your coil for voltage?? I have an 82 kz440 withtwo wires going into the coil.....do I have the ground on the frame, then test both wires??

You need a coil tester to test the VOLTAGE output on a coil. I think there is actually a Kaw special tool that can do this and probably pro shop tools but I don't have one.

There are a couple tests you can do on a coil. FIRST, test to see if there is voltage going TO the coil. You do this by placing a multimeter POS probe on the red or yellow/red wire on the coil after putting the meter in VDC scale. The BLACK or NEG probe will go on the frame to ground. Turn on the key and measure. You should get the SAME voltage as if you measure across the battery terminals... That should yeild about ~12.5 VDC without the engine started.

There are two sets of windings in your coil. Primary and secondary windings. Measure their resistance to ensure they are not shorted.

To measure the primary, bike should NOT be running. Put multimeter in OHMS scale (lowest setting). Put probes on the INPUTS to the coil... the probes need to touch metal. Don't touch a probe on the frame when you do this. You should read about ~3.5 to 4.5 ohms. If the value is either a lot higher or lower, the primary windings are suspect and may be shorted or in the process of getting there.

To measure the secondary windings in the coil, pull the wires off your plugs. If possible remove the wires from the coils and touch the probes to the metal contacts UNDER the wires inside the coils. Put the meter on ohms scale but on 20K ohms scale this time. You should get somewhere between 12K and 16K ohms resistance. It varies by model. If you don't get this value, the coils are suspect. It is HARD to get good contact with the probes for this test so don't be surprised if you get no value initially... you may need to clean some metal to get the resistance value. If you can't remove the plug wires, measure on the meetal that touches your plugs inside the plug caps.

ok thanks

Hi WG,

I'm mostly through the relay tweak. So far, so good. A couple questions and comments:


1. My coils do not have lugs to attach the wires, the yellow/red & blue or black wires are soldiered directly. The only available bolts are the ones that hold the coil to the frame. Since the trigger is now routed directly to #86 on the relay, can I simply put female rounds ends on the "y" wires coming off #87 and plug the yellow/red into them? I gave it a try and I do get good voltage to the coil and spark at the plug.

2. My coils only measure about 1.5 ohms when I check across the yellow/red lead to the blue or brown lead. I'm assuming this is the primary winding. The manual mentions 1.5 ohms if you have a transistor. Does a 78-1/2 Z1R have the transistor type or are my coils ready for the trash?

3. I noticed that the 6mm post holding the coil to the frame on the wire side gets warm, the other end stays cool. Is this normal?

4. Your instructions about using a blue "eye" connector for the #30 and #85 leads is absolutely right. I stand corrected! (newbie mistake again) A red connector for #18 wire is too small to accept the 6mm bolts. The closest I found was a 14-16AWG connector with a 1/4" diameter hole. This worked well.

I am not sure what "transistor" means. If you have 1.5 Ohm coils and that is what is called for, look for an inline ballast resistor. I am not familiar with the Z1R so can't say if one is supposed to be fitted. You can test resistance of a ballast resistor by measuring resistance across its in and out wires.

This is what I use.
www.generaltechnologies.net/TA100.html

Otto Kudrna

The IC igniter is the "transistor". If you have the IC igniter box, then you have the transistor model.