1978 kz400 electronic ignition

Hello Everyone,

I just purchased an igniter and pickup for an 81 KZ440. Are there any other items I will need to convert the ignition on my 78 KZ400. The wiring itself seems fairly simple, but I just not sure about what triggers the pickup.

Thanks,
Stephen

You need the rotor which mounts on the advancer mechanism. With points, the advancer had a cam lobe on it. With the electronic ignition, you pull off the cam lobe and replace it with an iron rotor mechanism. (Or you can swap the whole advancer mechanism, obviously.)

Also, to take advantage of the electronic's ability to handle more current, you want a newer coil. The Kawasaki electronic ignition coil has about 2.5-ohms, but you can use an aftermarket 3-ohm coil. Dyna and Accel make good ones. Some have tried Andrews coils and have reported success.

The point's coil should be around 4 ohms, and won't put out as much energy with the electronic setup because the electronic ignition uses shorter dwell.

I'm not sure what kind of "electronic" ignition it is, you might want to find an aftermarket CD ignition. I have one on mine and it puts out a lot more spark energy using the stock coil. CD's can be made to work with either stock points or magnetic pickups. Mine uses points but the points last forever because there is no voltage across them.

bountyhunter wrote:

I'm not sure what kind of "electronic" ignition it is, you might want to find an aftermarket CD ignition. I have one on mine and it puts out a lot more spark energy using the stock coil. CD's can be made to work with either stock points or magnetic pickups. Mine uses points but the points last forever because there is no voltage across them.

Are you sure it's CD (capacitive discharge)?

That would be pretty rare. Most are just transistorized Kettering (flyback) ignitions. The stock Kaw electronic is transistorized-Kettering, the Dyna ignitions are trans-K, the Boyer, Newtronic, and Martek are all trans-K. I don't think I know of any common aftermarket ignition that is CDI for KZ twins (or even fours for that matter).

If 12v is applied to the coil sonstantly while the ignition is on, it's most likely a trans-K ignition. CD ignitions usually have the coil's negative side grounded constantly.

The optical (Newtronic and Martek) ignitions and the Hall-effect (Dyna S) ignitions usually have the super-long dwell which allow you to get good spark from points coils, but the Stock KZ electronic ignitions (reluctor type), from the early 1980's reduces dwell angle and thus uses a lower resistance coil to get the higher spark energy.

The setup that I purchased is off of a 1981 kz440, it is the stock igniter and pickup. I found the advancer mechanism on ebay so I went ahead and got that. Hopefully it will work fine, I am going to try and put it on the bike next weekend.

I have a new Dyna coil on the way from Z1 Enterprises along with wires and plugs.

As far as how the igniter works, I am not really sure.

Thanks for the help.

You bought a 440 electronic ignition advancer on eBay? Me and the other 750 twin owners must be slipping

750 twin owners use the 440 electronic ignition parts to convert our bikes

What would happen if you mix Accel coils(cdi type) with Martek 440 for a '77 kz650?

eaglecrash2 wrote:

What would happen if you mix Accel coils(cdi type) with Martek 440 for a '77 kz650?

CDI coils are very low resistance. If you use them on a transistor-Kettering type ignition like the Martek 440, you blow up the ignition, and maybe even damage the coils.

Martek did make CDI ignitions for dirtbikes, but the Martek 440, I'm pretty sure, is not CDI. It's optical-triggered, transistorized-Kettering.

However, many people incorrectly use the term CDI. Most likely, if the coils are 3 ohms, then they are not CDI coils. They are regular electronic ignition (aka transistorized-Kettering) coils. They might work ok with the Martek 440. I don't know what the minimum resistance spec is for the coils used with the Martek, so it's hard to say if three ohms is too low or not (too high is ok). I have instructions for the martek440 I pulled off the internet, but I couldn't find the spec.

The Martek 440 unit I dealt with on a 77KZ650 was faulty. A quick search of forums shows people having similar issues to what I saw... intermittent spark. The one I tested with that symptom was toast.

If you have accel 3-ohm coils, then you should probably just get a Dyna S, or try to get an electronic ignition off an early 750-four.

Thanks. Can you PM me or tell me what site you get the instructions for the Martek 440? How do you test if it is still good?

I'll post them here. They are not high quality... barely readable. They don't have testing instructions either, just install for a Honda.

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I probably hooked up an oscope to the coil primary and verified the Martek's Darlington output transistor wasn't able to insulate the high voltage. (It's been years since I worked on the Martek.) Even though the Martek was trying to fire the coil, the transistor leakage just bled off the spark energy from the primary side. Every now and then it would spark. This seems to be the common failure mode (based on forum talk) on the Martek 440.