Electrical upgrades to GS1000SZ Katana?

[bbutler455]

I'm in the process of restoring a low mileage 82 Katana. There were not any problems with the electrical systems before I disassembled it. The wiring harness is in good shape. The frame and engine mounting plates have been powder-coated.

I have read all the posts on improving the ground to to the R/R. Do I need to apply this upgrade to my harness? Any other upgrades or relays I need to install? I am trying to stay as stock as possible but want modern reliability.

[posplayr]

I'm in the process of restoring a low mileage 82 Katana. There were not any problems with the electrical systems before I disassembled it. The wiring harness is in good shape. The frame and engine mounting plates have been powder-coated.

I have read all the posts on improving the ground to to the R/R. Do I need to apply this upgrade to my harness? Any other upgrades or relays I need to install? I am trying to stay as stock as possible but want modern reliability.

If you want to keep the bike absolutely stock, then be religous about cleaning and using dialectric grease on all the R/R related connections.

[Nessism]

Run the R/R ground over to the battery neg. post. Better yet, get a more modern R/R - do a search on FET R/R for tons of good recommendations. One other thing I recommend is wiring your stator directly into the R/R and bypassing the factory wiring which sends one leg of the stator output up the harness to one of the hand controls, and then sends it back down to the R/R. Again, do a search for more info since this topic come up all the times here. That up and back stator feed is known to overheat and cook your harness and does no good what so ever so I recommend bypassing all the BS.

[posplayr]

Run the R/R ground over to the battery neg. post. Better yet, get a more modern R/R - do a search on FET R/R for tons of good recomendations. One other thing I recommend is wiring your stator directly into the R/R and bypassing the factory wiring which sends one leg of the stator output up the harness to one of the hand controls, and then sends it back down to the R/R. Again, do a search for more info since this topic come up all the times here. That up and back stator feed is known to overheat and cook your harness. It does no good what so ever so I recommend bypassing all the BS.

But Ed ,none of that fancy stuff is stock

[Nessism]

But Ed ,none of that fancy stuff is stock

You're hitting me in my soft spot Jim since as you know I'm a huge "keep it stock" stock proponent. There are exceptions though, such as the stupid Suzuki R/R wiring and inadequate R/R's. Just about the only other thing I can think of as being worthy of changing is the chain (to a 530) and the tires (to just about anything modern).

[pontiacstogo]

For what it's worth - I'm not much of a stock restore guy, but I don't like to ever do anything that can't be reversed. On my GS1000SZ I did plenty of bolt on mods, but the entire electrical system from controls, to harness to R/R is 100% stock and I've not had any problems with it.