2 and 3 intermittently dying

Are the sparkplug caps what came with the bike? If so, replace them, as heat,vibration, and age cause them to become intermittent.Most Japanese motorcycle shops have them in stock. They unscrew from the sparkplug wires, when replacing them, if possible, cut about 3/16" to 1/4" off the end of the sparkplug wires before installing new ones.

Ignition Coils And Sparkplug Wire Choices
What came with the bike, were ignition coils that even when new were marginal, add years of cooking under the tank in the stop and go traffic, and the ignition coils will probably fail when hot.

Replacement coils can be bought at www.z1enterprises.com
I believe “Emgo” is the brand. They also carry the popular Dyna 2.2 and 3 ohm coils, along with replacement sparkplug wires.

Now, you have a choice on sparkplug wires:

1.Copper plug wires with no supression caps (the best choice, but will produce audio noise on Radio’s and TV’s). Not only do the copper core wires deliver better spark, they will also deliver a much longer lifespan - carbon core wires are prone to erratic spark delivery and early breakdown, & short lifespan.

2.Copper plug wires with supression caps (a built in 5000 ohm resistor, that can sometimes fail, like what came with the bike). These should be checked with a multimeter now and then, as heat can cause them to become intermittent.

3.Copper plug wires with no supression caps, but using resistor plugs(the “R” in the plug number).

4.Supression plug wires with no supression caps.

NEVER use resistor plugs combined with supression caps along with supression plug wires, as now there will be possibly three (3) sources of resistance in the secondary windings of the ignition coils, greatly reducing the spark energy.

Another choice is the Accel 3 ohm coils, with a similar, primary(small wire)electrical connection, using ring terminals as the Dyna ignition coils do. Whatever brand of coil you go with, make sure the primary wires will clear the mounting hardware, as the spacers come close, possibly blowing a fuse. Some riders have replaced the metal spacers with non conductive Nylon spacers, reducing the chance of an electrical problem.

7mm sparkplug wires will fit the stock ignition coils(if they have replaceable wires, indicated by screw off caps on the coils with ridges). The sparkplug wires fit into a port with a brass ”Stinger” that goes into the sparkplug wire or lead(the Brit’s. Canadians, and other countries call the sparkplug wires (“High Tension Leads”).

Ok well I suppose its possible that I need to replace the coils with the dyna version, but the fact that the 1 and 4 coil works has me skeptical. I checked the valves and they are all within spec. Compression is the only thing I havent checked yet, im waiting on the tester to come in the mail. I really hope its not a compression problem.

The wires and caps look somewhat new, definitely not original. I will go try to switch the #3 and #4 caps and see what happens. Thanks for the help guys, we'll figure it out eventually.

I just looked on Dyna PDF catalog / website www.dynaonline.com/skins/downloads/Default.aspx and found the DS2-2.

This is the dyna-s for your bike.

It said you need to use DC1-1 coils which are the 3.0 ohm coils. This can be found on page 18 of the PDF catalog.

Don't think stock coils are going to work at what did you say 5.2 ohms

This is from website:

KAWASAKI
900/1000/1100 4CYL AIR COOLED 1973-1985 DS2-1 / DC1-1 coils
KZ 550/650/750 4 CYL ALL DS2-2 / DC1-1 coils

Ok, I switched the plug caps and nothing changed. I also posted a vid showing the strength of the spark on the #3 cylinder. This plug is hooked up to the #3 wire while the bike is running.

s284.photobucket.com/user/who8myrice17/media/IMG_0889.mp4.html

It seems to me that if I already have spark on these two cylinders then swapping out the coils wont solve my problem (although im sure it would probably increase performance, but I really just want to get it running first).

Nice bike.....

You will need to call Dyna on Monday and talk to a tech guy about the coils. They will clear up a lot of questions.

Hang tight and see what others have to say.

Thank you, ok I'll call dyna tomorrow and let you know what they say. Unfortunately I have a very bad feeling that this is a compression-related problem.

who8myrice wrote: Thank you, ok I'll call dyna tomorrow and let you know what they say. Unfortunately I have a very bad feeling that this is a compression-related problem.

yikes.....well that's real bad news. Could be valve clearance as mentioned earlier. Well a compression check is in your future I guess. If compression is ok, I would do a leak-down test on valves.
.
Remember when doing a compression check, throttle needs to be wide open.

the one video of bike running in daylight
can you get it to idle any lower than that.............like 1000 rpm
check valves lately?
after that do a carb sync makes one hell of a differance
also do you know where you stand on carb sync
motor sounds like it all over the place needs tamed! (balanced out)

Keen ear, the bike was actually running like complete shit today. No idea why. When I first got it running a few weeks ago it sounded great.. would idle fine with no choke around 1500 rpm's. Now It needs at least 2k idle or it will stall and tonight it was stalling as soon as it dipped under 3k. I just assumed that was because 1 or 2 cylinders are totally dead.

Valves are all in spec. Have not synced carbs.

did you call dyna?????

If not already done, would perform clear tube test to assure fuel level within specs on carbs feeding the non-combusting cylinders.

A too high fuel level may in and of itself cause excessive richness in an otherwise clean and perfectly adjusted carb.

Good Fortune!