Spark Plug Caps

[gorillafan208]

What spark plug caps do you guys run on your twins? I am just asking because on the BassCliff website the reccomended NGK caps are all discontinued.

[LAB3]

My twin had NGK resistor caps and I replaced them with a similar NGK cap. Shortly thereafter NGK discontinued making non resistor spark plugs which left me in a quandary.

Here's the easiest way to deal with it. Get some non-resistor NGK caps and run resistor plugs. When I swapped them over on my current bike I was able to get a plain old NGK 90° caps from Auto Zone for $2 each making it so I could run resistor plugs which are readily available. NGK has a great reputation but you could just go with whatever is available.

[gorillafan208]

Okay great thank you! I am driving myself crazy trying to find caps, for whatever reason none of the AutoZones, or auto parts stores in my town have them in stock. Weirdly, some of them have non-resistor plugs but no caps, well I will get some eventually!

[rphillips]

The resistor caps can be changed to non-resistor very easily, if that's what you're needing.

[gorillafan208]

Yeah, I just can't find anywhere in town that has non-resistor ones in stock, oh well I guess I have to order them online.

[rphillips]

Wondering what's wrong with your caps? If you're just wanting to use, or try, non-resistors, you can remove the resistor from the OEM caps and replace it with a piece of copper wire and have non-resistor caps. Keep the resistors and if you want them back to OEM, take the wire out and put the resistors back in.

[gorillafan208]

I just wanted to replace them as they are probably the original and wanted to tune up everything. I didn't know you could just take the resistor out to make them non-resistor. I can't find literally anywhere that has caps in stock and I wanna ride now so I guess I'll try that. Thank you!

[rphillips]

A little more than just take the resistor out. Where the resistor goes, I pack fine stranded wire in there fill the space and make them non-resistor, Many use a piece of solid copper wire the appx. dia. and same length as the resistor. As long as there's a solid connection all the way through, you'll be good. Remember, save your resistors, just in case you want to put them back OEM.

[gorillafan208]

Sounds good, thank you for the advice!

[LAB3]

I had to order them through AutoZone and I picked them up in the store, took two days to get them. As rphilips mentioned you can make them non-resistor easily enough, it you pull the cap off you'll see a slot in there where you can put in a fat bladed screwdriver and take them apart. The resistor itself is a barrel shaped piece about the same dimensions as a glass barrel type fuse. Just replace that with some wire as he described.

If you have access to an ohm meter they should read about 10k ohm, if they're close to that you're all set. It's a good idea to clip off about 1/4" of the plug wire to make sure you've got contact with good clean metal upon reassembly.

[gorillafan208]

I had to order them through AutoZone and I picked them up in the store, took two days to get them. As rphilips mentioned you can make them non-resistor easily enough, it you pull the cap off you'll see a slot in there where you can put in a fat bladed screwdriver and take them apart. The resistor itself is a barrel shaped piece about the same dimensions as a glass barrel type fuse. Just replace that with some wire as he described.

If you have access to an ohm meter they should read about 10k ohm, if they're close to that you're all set. It's a good idea to clip off about 1/4" of the plug wire to make sure you've got contact with good clean metal upon reassembly.

Thank you! Would you happen to remember which set of caps you got? I did test both my caps with an multimeter and one of them was fine at about 10k ohms, but the other when I tested it just gave me no readout and just read 1. This tracks as this was the right plug cap and the right cylinder was not really firing well when the bike was running so new plug caps it is!

[LAB3]

NGK part number LZFH which is a non resistor cap with a simple 90° bend. If you go to the NGK website there's a page that tells you how to decode their part numbers for plugs and caps, if I remember correctly my 450 had a different angle, something like 102° or maybe 120° Either way a 90 should work just make sure the routing of the wire doesn't have it touching the cylinder head or valve cover

If you measured 1 ohm and you have a cylinder that isn't firing properly chances are the cap isn't the problem since a non resistor cap will measure zero ohms. When a resistor cap goes bad they read higher not lower.

Where are you in Michigan? It's my home state and I miss my old 450!

[gorillafan208]

Thank you for the help! And I'm in Traverse City, it's really nice except for the super long winters.

[LAB3]

Thank you for the help! And I'm in Traverse City, it's really nice except for the super long winters.

Hah! I baled out of TC in 2013, the culture there has shifted too far in a direction I didn't care for. Still have a few friends there, good chance I'll be up that way in a few weeks.

You ever see THIS video? I wrote the narrative!

https://youtu.be/x2ixvZ9ySKw

[gorillafan208]

I'll probably get out of here soon, but mainly just cause housing is too damn expensive! It is a very beautiful place though