Help us help you. By posting the year, make, model and engine near the beginning of your help request, followed by the symptoms (no start, high idle, misfire etc.) Along with any prevalent Diagnostic Trouble Codes, aka DTCs, other forum members will be able to help you get to a solution more quickly and easily!
I have a question, I been chasing a issue with a 99 honda valkyrie 6 cyl boxer MC, the bike runs but sometimes it is light on performance, acceleration is weak, I have synced and adjusted carbs and mixtures almost perfect, but my idle has a intermittent miss, miss is constant on right bank when I choke it to warm up and I tried using a super sensitive suntune inductive clamp tachometer. It has a wasted spark ignition and when I clamp one of the 3 wires its steady but if I clamp the other 3 it fluctuates all over the place. Is that maybe because 3 plugs is firing negative? it happens to all the coils, one will be steady and the other bounce all over the scale, I have noticed that one plug will fluctuate high and the other 2 fluctuate low. Now I have a idea that the high fluctuation could be because of a lean mixture miss fire and the others rich, what you think? or is it cause the plugs firing negative?
Could it be the coils breaking down or a signal issue, crank sensor breaking down?
Also the manual says the primary on coils should be 2.6-3.2 ohms, I have coils that are 1.9 ohms but reluctant to use since the resistance is so low and will pull more current on transistors so don't want to burn up icm, would a ballast resistor of 1 ohm inline with the common feed to all 3 coils work?
The system only has 3 components, 2 pickup coils, ect sensor, and icm.
She runs ok some days and sometimes lacks power / acceleration but I'm getting great mileage 37-39 mpg, just finicky some days.
Compression was about 180 across a cylinders then I did some more diagnosing and did a power balance test by removing each plug boot to check cylinder balance at idle, each drop was just about equal but heard a snapping under tank from one of the coils. assuming there is leakage from the coil...coils are original from 99...going to do peak voltage testing of pickup and coil primary voltage later.. Unfortunately I don't have some of the sophisticated testing gear you have in your awesome videos..So I constructed a peak voltage tester for my multimeter..
soundude wrote: 1.) if I clamp the other 3 it fluctuates all over the place. Is that maybe because 3 plugs is firing negative?
2.) heard a snapping under tank from one of the coils. assuming there is leakage from the coil..
1.) Try turning your clamp the other way around - they usually have an arrow showing the direction to clamp them but with wasted spark one side is different.
2.) The spark has to go somewhere when you have a plug removed, you may actually be disconnecting two cylinders with each one you remove because it's waster spark, but if it's 'snapping' then the circuit is being completed. It's not a big issue if it only does it when you disconnect a lead but it also means that the spark may have an easier route when you accelerate under load, and will cause a misfire. Might be worth checking that 'leak'.
Getting involved in discussions because I have a lot to learn still.
