Ignition Shootout: Points vs. Dyna III vs. Kaw Electronic

In the past two weeks I have been blessed/cursed with running points, then a Dyna III ignition, and then a stock KZ650/750 Kawasaki Electronic ignition system. It started with the appeal of upgrading to electronic (Dyna), and ended with kawasaki electronic because of charging problems with the Dyna (thanks Rev!!!).

--== Points ==--
We all love cleaning pitted points and gapping them, right?
Verdict: They need maintenance and your timing gets slowly worse until you adjust them. However, you get to tell all the cool kids you still have points and gaps!

--== Dyna III ==--
I installed the Dyna III about two weeks ago and had the bike running nicely. Unfortunately the bike failed the charging system test with a fully charged, new battery!

Installed Dyna III:

Idle - 11.9V
4000rpm - 12.6V

After much head scratching I got a DC clampmeter to easily measure current in the system:

Idle:
from reg/rec - ~1.0A (Amps)
Battery - 9A OUT
Main fuse (whole bike) - 9.75-10A

4000rpm:
from reg/rec - 11A?
Battery - ~3A IN
Main fuse - ~9A
(I guess it is +/- 1A accuracy)

Breakeven point on the battery charge was about 2000rpm.

Electrical system:
- Stock coils (~4.3ohms each)
- H4 headlight (55W), always on (Canadian bike)
- standing lights, dash lights on

Verdict: Battery is discharging rapidly during idle, though with enough high-speed running (approx 4-5 mins at >4000rpm for each minute at idle), battery can stay charged. Spark could be weak from the lower system voltage.

When I removed the headlight fuse and ran without that 55W load, the battery stayed charged for that 3-day test.

loudgpz has said many times that the Dyna has a very long (300 degree) dwell angle compared to about 180 for point. This extra current load from Dyna seems to have pushed the Canadian KZ650's charging system over the top, and the battery begins to suffer.

My immediate solution was to run without the headlight (during the day!). However, for safety a daytime light is still a good idea. I am designing a simple LED addition to the H4 headlight to make a permanent 20mA "city" light. On Canadian bikes this requires addition of an on/off switch for the headlight so you don't have to keep installing the headlight fuse after the sun goes down.


--== Kawasaki Electronic Ignition ==--
I was fortunate to come across a Kawasaki Electronic Ignition, apparently from a KZ750E2. This bolted right in with some minor electrical modifications.

Idle:
Battery - 12.5V
Main fuse - 6.75-7A (H4 headlight on!)

4000rpm:
Battery - 14.6V
Main fuse - 6.25-6.5A

I stopped the testing there, jumped for joy, and went for a ride. The 14.6V tells me the reg/rec is starting to interrupt the stator power and it is no longer running at maximum output all the time!!!

On the ride, the bike seemed to hold idle better (maybe coils don't get as hot?), and there appeared to be more power in midrange (higher voltage to the coils?).

Verdict: An average of about 3A less power use than the Dyna III setup could only mean a more efficiently running motorbike.

Finally, the latest 1981 IC technology on my bike - just like in the Commodore64!


Conclusion:
The Dyna's high dwell angle taxes the charging system of the KZ650C2. Though not immediately apparent, it is possible that it would severely undercharge the battery over time. I recommend all KZ650s with Dyna installed perform a charging test (particularly Canadian models), and ensure they charge their batteries weekly if the do not pass and there is frequent city riding.

Alternatively, with Dyna III, you can cut out the headlight and install an alternate, low power, city light to provide charge to the battery. However, your coils will still be drawing far more current than they were designed to. (BTW the H4 headlight is a VERY good idea regardless)

Alternative 2: build your own IC Igniter that reads the Dyna signals and can reduce the dwell angle to <200 degrees (it can be done).

Ultimately, Kawasaki Electronic ignition is the way to go!

inline79
(PS. one working Dyna III unit for sale for KZ650!)

I think you need to look at the charging system, I have the dyna on my 650 and 1000 and have never seen the issue you are having.
In the past on the 650 I did install some running lights, this maxed out the charging system so I know it has the ablity to run any type of ignition system if things are working

Most (if not all) of the KZ's should have ~20 amp output at 4k rpm, according to the manual, max output is 280 watts.
So I think you probably have a charging system problem.

The Dyna does seem to draw more current than the stock systems though.

Good to hear you've got it worked out Conway.

I've gone from points to a Dyna (S I believe) back to points, then to a Kawi KZ1000 electronic and now back on points again! :blink:

History:
Bike started with points.
Switched to a Dyna for approx 5~7 years, but one of the pick ups fried during warm up for an Oil change.
Back to points.
Modified the KZ1000 elec. to work, rode for a week but had IC Igniter troubles.
Back to points until Winter after buying another IC Igniter.
Spring comes around and I try the KZ1000 unit again, but it did not work off the bat, so the points are back on for now.

I made everthing plug and play, so swapping is easy, no need to cut and splice. I should try to figure out whats going wrong with the Kawi Electronic set up, but she's running fine with the OEM points that I've left her the way she is.

I've heard aftermarket points don't stack up against OEM points.

POINTS RULE!

Yeah your findings agree with mine.

The Dyna wastes a lot of power, especially at idle. City bikes will kill the battery in just a few days since you never sustain enough speed to charge the battery. In my opinion, the Dyna is not a good solution for the city.

Point: uggh.

The Kaw electronic system is ideal. It uses less dwell at idle than it does at higher RPMs, so it is very conservative on power at idle.

If you use one of my ignition modules (there are two versions) with the stock pickups, you can get it even more eficient. The stock ignitor goes from 100 degrees at idle to about 120 degrees as RPMs increase. My design goes down to 80 degrees or so at idle, if I recall. The HEI design is pretty simple.

Another option is to keep the points,but only to use them to trigger an electronic ignition. The points will virtually last forever this way. The dwell will be fixed at about 180 degrees, so it will use about half the power of the DYna.

Here's the homemade module.
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZignitionMod.html

Here's the HEI version.
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZgmHEImod.html

Here's the points trigger HEI version.
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZheiModForPoints.html

BTW, I just came to the same conclusion ... putting in a dimmer for city driving. I'm running two 55w headlights on one of my 550's and the battery gets discharged after several days of stop and go traffic, with a few highway runs interspersed. I can get by with trickle charging after a few days, but sometimes I just forget. I wan't to put in a resistor to cut the power to 55w total, instead of 110 watts.

The charging system is working fine, but I just spend 75% of the time idling. Even with the efficient HEI ignition, the bike can't keep up with 110 watts of lighting (plus two tail lights) at idle.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/06/04 14:33

I think I like that HEI for points with bypass!
I'm going to have to read all of that when I get home.

I'm about to install one into a KZ400 with points later this week, so if there are any problems I'll update the site.

I think this is the same issue I am running into with my bike.

Thanks for the education.

Lou, I think LED daytime running lights shoved into your driving light housings would help you out. I'm going to try to figure out the beam pattern on the H4 headlight to max out the LEDs' output. During the day you don't need to illumate the road, you need to spray glittery light in peoples' eyes!


I have a feeling the Kawasaki single-phase stators have far less power output than the three-phase ones. My stator was outputting about 67VAC at 4000rpm, which isn't TOO far off from the 75VAC spec. I'd expect after 30 years that the magnetism will have fallen a bit.

The 78,79,80 KZ650s have single phase, all others had 3-phase. I believe all smaller engines (400,440,550) have single phase as well. I have never seen a 3-phase stator and rotor combination to be able to say this for certain.

Anyways, I think caution should be exercised when installing Dyna into a single-phase charging system, particularly if the headlight is on most of the time.

Lou,


I read your write up on the HEI module.

Looks like something I want to try with the bypass.
But, my understanding was with the bypass and DPDT you could just go back to normal points operation.
But you used the term 'limp home'. I was just curious if there is a change in the system causing it not to run properly if the HEI fails or if that's just your term for running on points.

Yeah, I guess it means any time you have to resort to normal points useage on a bike, I consider the bike limping :laugh:

But really, it's just back to stock operation at that point. Notice I set a minimum resistance for the coil at about 2.4 ohms. If you run the limp-home mode for very long with the 2.4 ohm coil, the points will pit and wear very rapidly. I think somewhere in the text I mention using a 3.0-ohm coil or higher if it is to be used with the bypass option.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/06/07 10:46