Electronic Ignition

[olev]

I need to hide a cute little ignition coil on the plunger, preferably not too far from the plugs.
I'm sure someone will have invented a neat bracket to accomplish this.
So far my attempts lack that 'workman like solution'
all suggestions (including insults and abuse) welcome.
cheers

[muskrat]

G'day Olev,
                    I use a Rhonda Whore coil from the old points type. But not having ANY feminine side I just used foam and zip ties to mount it under the top frame tube. Out of sight, out of mind.
Cheers

[olev]

Muskrat,
Some might say you are a rough b*****d.......but not me. i wouldn't say that.
I am however looking for something a little more elegant or feminine.
i've got 2 coils both with twin outputs. Ones off a honda and the other is off a BMW.
Both work ok on the bench.
cheers

[muskrat]

Thanks Mate,
                      my old man stuck around till I was 3, so I'm not a b*****d.
 You could go arty and use hose clamps.
Cheers

[Mosin]

I need to hide a cute little ignition coil on the plunger, preferably not too far from the plugs.
I'm sure someone will have invented a neat bracket to accomplish this.
So far my attempts lack that 'workman like solution'
all suggestions (including insults and abuse) welcome.
cheers

I struggled for ages trying to solve this problem on my swingarm A7 using a dual output coil. Half the problem was that the coil is a very irregular shape. I eventually settled on mounting it traversely across the bike just above the carb air intake, by using a couple of spacers to fix the coil to a bracket which was then bolted to the top/back of the battery tray. I'm not sure that this arrangement would work on a plunger framed bike, but I can try and get a couple of photos tonight if that would help?

Simon

[olev]

Thanks Simon,
I'd be interested in seeing those photos.
cheers

[Triton Thrasher]

Does get folk into discussion about plug polarity and all that from time to time - ie which way is the spark jumping the gap on the plug. Some say, if they run opposite polarity, it's good to swap the leads round now and then and give them both a dose of 'wrong' way running, but I dunno. (In any case, unless there are any funny issues to do with inductance or something I don't understand, it should be possible to make a twin spark coil that delivers same polarity sparks each end, if the windings are correctly 'handed' inside. Not sure how the coil works on my one dead spark bike - it just does and long may it.) 

Interestingly(ish), the twin cylinder magneto gives spark of different polarity to left and right plug, although not at the same time.

[Mosin]

Ok, here are some photos showing how I overcame the problem of here to position my coils. I admit that they do slightly detract from the "look" of the engine, but they are securely mounted, close enough to the spark plugs, and relatively protected from the elements, so I can live with that. The Pazon ignition trigger is mounted under the seat.

Hope this helps,

Simon

[terryk]

that looks like a fire waiting to happen

[muskrat]

Great balls of fire 

[Mosin]

I did naturally consider the whole issue of fire carefully when opting to position my coils so close to my "trouser department" as it were....

However, I figured that on the vast majority of bikes, the coils are positioned somewhere directly beneath the fuel tank without major incident caused by leaking fuel. The other option would be that the coils catch fire electrically and ignite the tank - again this would be an equally great problem for most bikes where they are positioned below the tank, and my coils are a sealed unit and are independantly fused so the risk of electrical faults is kept to a minimum. The third concern was a backfire through the carb air intake causing a fire. I considered this for some time and came to the conclusion that the most combustable thing on the bike (apart from my wedding tackle) was the fuel tank and if anything, having the coils mounted where they are actually provides an, albeit minor, amount of shielding to the tank should a carb backfire occur.

Also there was the not-insignificant factor that there is virtually nowhere else on the bike to put them!

If I have missed anything glaringly obvious that may result in my plumbs getting an unwelcome toasting, please please will someone point it out before it's too late as my wife is already talking about trying for another baby and I have managed to persuade her to agree that if she gets pregnant again I am allowed to buy another bike.....

[chaterlea25]

Hi Simon,
Just an observation on your photos, there should be an insulation spacer between the carb and cylinder head
this is usually about 1/4in. thick paxolin or tufnol, the studs are already long enough (pic)
The heat can transfer to the carb without this making hot starts difficult!!

As you say its hard to find somewhere to hide stuff on the A's, on mine I hid the oil filter in the toolbox and fitted the electronic reg onto the mudguard brackert under the seat
I have seen coil ignition pre unit Triumphs with the coil mounted on top of the distributer which replaced the mag

Cheers
John

[olev]

Simon,
Look out mate, its a female plot.
The real truth is the more kids you have the less bikes you can afford.
You'll have twins and have to sell something and it won't be the lawn mower.

I don't have the lump in the frame yet but from photos there seems to be quite a lot of room in front of the engine and under the tank.
I suspect this is where Muskrat lashed his coil so it gets a bit of air and doesn't melt over his pretty chaincase. For some reason a picture of Sir Anthony Hopkins with eyes like soup plates peering through his goggles springs to mind.

The attached pic is my magneto converted to pickup.
It was turned up by a mate in Cairns. The cost of the booze used designing the thing would have bought a BTH
Its different to Rocket mans setup shown at the start of this thread. (where's your coil?)
It uses a siemens HKZ 101 hall effect pickup which was used on heaps of cars.
This drives a champion cm410 ignition module which is available from any Repco shop for about $40. It chucks good sparks on the bench. We'll see how she goes in real life one of these days.
cheers

[wilko]

Can you give us a wiring diagram for this hall effect system so i can wrap my head around how they work?? (Old Fart)

[olev]

Old Fart ?? - I resemble that deeply!!
The system is similar to Beeza Bill's (RIP) 'poor mans electronic ignition'
http://bsa-a10.hailwood.com/poorman.html
It uses a coil ignition module to fire a twin plug coil and gives a wasted spark.
Instead of the reluctor we've used a hall effect sensor which gives a 40mA signal when a piece of metal is passed through the air gap. My mate has done a brilliant job building the sensor into the original magneto body.
It uses the original atd but this could be replaced by using a pazon or boyer black box instead of the ignition module.
The pics might make it clearer.
He turned the sexy brass cover up from an old sink plug
cheers