H.E.I. igniter

I am thinking of making one of the homemade igniters useing the HEI boxes the only question i have is that it says its for the 81 550 gpz and i have a 79 kz1000st, would there be any differances in the way its put together or the diodes/ resisters that you would use? or is it even possible to get it to work with a 79 st i have the electronic pickups and all that so i would think it would work, any advice?

Same pickups?
Same coils?
Yes.

i wasent sure if the bike that it was originaly for had the same stuff as mine or not, from what i read on the instruction page it looks like its all the same but i dident know being i have an older and larger cc bike. i know mines got the electronic pickups and igniter box and also that the stock coils are 1.5 ohms with a 1.5 ohm resister but i plan on getting the green 3ohm dyna coils and gettin rid of the old resister which is way off from 1.5 ohms

The HEI igniter design is for any bike with mechanical advance. Since you have a mechanical advance (as does every KZ, although I believe the 83 GPz750 was the first to use electronic advance) it will work for you.

You could contact Loudhvx via PM and ask, he's a member here and the one that designed it.

I believe the pickups are the same, so I think it should work... famous last words.

Definitely use 2.5 ohm or higher coils (3-ohm is good) and eliminate the resistor. Lower resistance coils will actuate the current limiter which will heat up the modules.

thanks for the advice guys, i think im gonna give it a shot, im not totally sure that the igniter is bad or not but the ground wire coming out of it is melted pretty bad and it looks like a replacement wouldent hurt any.

Pricing a replacement IC Igniter might be $$$$$$$. If it was me I'd wire up the GM inition modules as you might be out $40 instead of maybe $100 or more.

If you feel confident in your soldering abilities and can get a piece of 1/8"-3/16" aluminum along with the other parts I don't see why it would be hard to do.

The correct solder to use is designed for electrical use and contains flux in the core to clean the joints. Do not use plumbing solder as this has an acid based flux for pipe work and will corrode any electrical joint causing it to fail.

After soldering up the circuits a good idea would be to get some rubbing alcohol and a small stiff brush(an acid brush will do) scrub the joints free of flux. Allow them to dry and using some translucent RTV compound encapsulate the resistors and diodes to protect them from vibration and water damage.

The quick connect electrical terminals might be hard to find as one of the looks like it's 3/16" wide and the rest look like 1/4". I'd go to www.alliedelec.com for wire and terminals. They sell solder,solder irons, and special crimpers for the terminals.

I am planning on doing the HEI one because the stock ignniter new from bike bandit (which is the only place i can find one) they want over $500 so yea thats deffinatly out being i can get the dyna-s or even the dyna 2000 with coils for well under that, im pretty good and soldering have done alot of electrical stuff on cars and what not with the flux core stuff so i should be okay there and that is great advice about the rtv stuff i was going to try to shrink wrap the diodes and whatnot but that seems even better

When I was in the USAF we always used a clear/translucent RTV to check on overheated circuits in the pylon electronic modifications. After I got out I worked for General Dynamics/Convair making test equipment for the Tomahawk and Advanced Cruise Missile programs.

I built one of those HEI ignitors for my KZ550, and it works great! I just soldered all of the wires and components to the HEI coils (to eliminate connectors)and used heat shrink for all of my wire joints. My bike runs better with this thing than it ever did with the stock CDI (higher output I think). I'll try to get some pictures posted later of the one I built.

picks would be great i got a pretty good ideal of how im gonna do it all, I made one about a year ago for a jeep but it was alot simpler just one hei unit and no diodes or resistors it was made to replace a motocraft unit from ford but my jeep was the same and it worked like a charm still useing it today, i was just a little intimidated by the bike one at first cause of the diodes and whatnot ive never really had to mess with stuff that indeep

Here is a pic. The diodes are hidden by the blue shrink wrap. Look up loudgpz's plans, they are somewhere on this site. Hope the pic helps.