Please Help me Diagnose the Problem!!

[snark]

I had the same problem just as you described. When I tore my carbs down there was a gray sludge in the screen in both carbs. I talked to my resident expert at work and he said that this is a side effect of the Ethonol that they're putting in the gas. Once the crap was gone the power was back.

[Danjal]

Hi,

Remove the air filter from the airbox. The air filter element should be held onto the air filter frame with a couple of screws.

What is your voltage at the coils? It sounds like you may need the "coil relay mod". But clean all of your electrical connections and grounds first.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

Coil relay mod? First Ive heard of this. Book marking this sucker. Hopefully with symptoms similar to his I'll get something I havent checked yet.

[BassCliff]

Coil relay mod? First Ive heard of this. Book marking this sucker. Hopefully with symptoms similar to his I'll get something I havent checked yet.

Hi,

Just about everything you'd ever want to know about the coil relay mod is on my website.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[azr]

So I followed the spark plug test on Basscliff's site (many thanks). I however was not so lucky as to have a wire that came loose. I have spark across all the cylinders. However this spark is very weak, not the bright blue that it should be. Somewhere along the harness I think I am loosing some voltage. I am gonna try to clean the connections into the coils then see if I get a better spark.
Also I was unable to take out the air cleaner foam to inspect this. Is there a trick to removing it?

Did you check the voltage at your coils? shouldn't be less one volt drop from what you have at the battery. Anything less than 11 volts and you should do the coil mod as described on basecliffs website.

[Tim Tom]

Did you check the voltage at your coils? shouldn't be less one volt drop from what you have at the battery. Anything less than 11 volts and you should do the coil mod as described on basecliffs website.

Gonna check the voltages tonight after my night class. I hope its the coil mod needed, I'm not a fan of tearing apart carbs.

[azr]

Gonna check the voltages tonight after my night class. I hope its the coil mod needed, I'm not a fan of tearing apart carbs.

don't worry, after the 15th time it starts to get familiar...

[Tim Tom]

Update! More confusion...

So i made sure the connections to the the coils were clean and checked the voltages. 13 at the battery. About 10-11 on the coils. I did a little test on the bike by running a wire from the positive and negative of the battery to the two terminals on each coil. With this 'hot wire' set up the bike would not start. Is there some sort of "signal wire" to prevent the bike from being hot wired? Perhaps the black and white wires act as some sort of control to prevent constant power to the coils?
Also how visible should the spark be? Bright fat blue? Because the sparks my coils produce are more of a wimpy little spark.

As another test I ran the bike on the center stand in neutral to see if any power loss would occur. When I tried this test previously the bike would lag around 4500. This time it ran clean without any hesitation all the way up to 6500. Now is it possible that the coils would not deliver proper spark only when the coil are heated up and under load? I still think that my problem is electrically minded.

Any suggestions as to what I should do next?

[Calvin Blackmore]

So i made sure the connections to the the coils were clean and checked the voltages. 13 at the battery. About 10-11 on the coils. I did a little test on the bike by running a wire from the positive and negative of the battery to the two terminals on each coil. With this 'hot wire' set up the bike would not start. Is there some sort of "signal wire" to prevent the bike from being hot wired? Perhaps the black and white wires act as some sort of control to prevent constant power to the coils?
Also how visible should the spark be? Bright fat blue? Because the sparks my coils produce are more of a wimpy little spark.

As another test I ran the bike on the center stand in neutral to see if any power loss would occur. When I tried this test previously the bike would lag around 4500. This time it ran clean without any hesitation all the way up to 6500. Now is it possible that the coils would not deliver proper spark only when the coil are heated up and under load? I still think that my problem is electrically minded.

Any suggestions as to what I should do next?

my saprks are a wee yellow thing
its odd cos i was always taught that fat blue was the key

anyway who knows what we see or do not see in what is essentially plasma

ther is no way that your bike had some sort of sophisticated means to control spark

I think that its the plugs or caps from what you describe

plugs and caps are cheap

esp if you want to buy just one new cap and plug and move them around the different leads

[gearhead13]

So i made sure the connections to the the coils were clean and checked the voltages. 13 at the battery. About 10-11 on the coils. I did a little test on the bike by running a wire from the positive and negative of the battery to the two terminals on each coil. With this 'hot wire' set up the bike would not start. Is there some sort of "signal wire" to prevent the bike from being hot wired? Perhaps the black and white wires act as some sort of control to prevent constant power to the coils?
Also how visible should the spark be? Bright fat blue? Because the sparks my coils produce are more of a wimpy little spark.

As another test I ran the bike on the center stand in neutral to see if any power loss would occur. When I tried this test previously the bike would lag around 4500. This time it ran clean without any hesitation all the way up to 6500. Now is it possible that the coils would not deliver proper spark only when the coil are heated up and under load? I still think that my problem is electrically minded.

Any suggestions as to what I should do next?

Do the coil relay mod, then CLEAN the CARBS, do you have a manual?
The black and white wires are for the signal for them to fire, the others are to supply voltage for the spark.

[Tim Tom]

Do the coil relay mod, then CLEAN the CARBS, do you have a manual?
The black and white wires are for the signal for them to fire, the others are to supply voltage for the spark.

yes i have the manual. Thank you for clearing up the black and white wires. This proves my hypothesis of what was wrong with my hot wire test. It looks like a carb clean is in my immediate future though .

more updates later

[Tim Tom]

Great Success!!

With the help of my electrician buddy, we did the coil relay mod. WOW.
What a difference. Everything about the bike runs better. Idles much smoother, feels like there is more power on tap. And best of all, I no longer loose spark when the coils are worked.
We went on a 3 hour ride yesterday to test what we had done, the GS performed super. The issue appears to have been rectified... for now.
Many thanks to everyone who offered advice, I would have never figured it out without you guys.

[azr]

I bet you anything you had a short that was causing the one pickup in you ignition to not turn off when it was supposed to thereby loosing power to one coil. You bypassed that short by doing the coil mod. If you ever get the incling cleaning every ground and connection on the bike is an afternoon well spent, it's amazing the difference it can make. Glad to hear you're out on the pavement, these bikes are fantastic.