$19 Junkyard electronic ignition

[motolou]

hey mrriggs, don't feel bad, I've had the old bike sitting around too, I do turn it on once in a while. I have to admit I have been getting a little frustrated with my progress, but I have the extra task of the single carb setup to deal with. I almost want to put on a normal set of carbs so I can take it on the road already but I can't seem to find or win one on ebay. anybody got an extra set they want to sell me? pm me please, ridin season is here! well, thanks in advance and hope to hear from anyone soon

[motolou]

hey all, today is monday may 22, I won some carbs on ebay and dissasembled them right away over the weekend. got em on and fired em up! viola baby!! drove it around the block. let me tell you folks, the ignition worked great and has a cool factor all in one. amen brother!!! ;D ;D

[ttmaniac]

Can someone run through the vw ignition stuff thoroughly?

[cameron]

I've been using this ignition since May. It works. The only issue was the mount plate broke off on my way home from work,had to do the last 5 km holding it to the frame hoping tne plug wires were good
PLug gap is .050 and never misses a beat. A great mod and cheap for the budget conscious.

[bighairyralph]

About a year later, four thousand views and only one set up like this on the road

I'm hoping to have mine done in the next month.

[pamcopete]

bighairyralph
I'm sure that there are a lot of people who have followed this thread and already have there bike on the road with the system and there are more to follow! It may be that the instructions and pics are clear enough that people don't have to post many questions.

[subeng]

So everyone that is running this toyota system with GM 4 prong HEI and GM twin coil, what are you using for plugs, plug wires, and plug caps? With the GM coil being so powerful does it matter what resistance the plug cap is? Can you just use generic auto caps now?

[mrriggs]

I used Moroso Blue Max wires (scraps left over from making wires for my drag car) and standard HEI type caps. The plugs are just what was in the motor but I did have to screw the little adapter things onto the threaded ends. You can pretty much use any wires you want. If you run a solid core wire with no resistance cap or resistance plug you may have issues with the HEI false triggering. If that happens add resistance somewhere (wires, caps, or plugs).

[subeng]

Sprung for a 29 buck Corolla distibutor on Ebay. Mounted the pickup directlly to the points plate. I filed down the two bumps and the center hole raised lip on the points plate so the entire plate is nice and flat, after all was done I really didn't have to file any of it down, could have left the points plate as is except for the drilled and tapped second hole. Used an existing hole then drilled and tapped a second hole. The hole in the pickup plate where the second screw is located allows adjustment of the reluctor gap by about an 1/8 inch just due to the size of the hole compared to the screw diameter. Trimmed up the pickup plate some to allow room for the 2 large points plate retaining screws. I'm going to lengthen the two slots on the outer edge of the points plate for these screws to give me more timing adjustment to play with.

[burfield2007]

Here's a taken apart distributor from an '85 Celica (R22). The reluctor is a little different than the photos from the Corolla distributor posted above. Had to cut the main shaft at the drive gear and press it out of the dist housing...then press the reluctor and other piece that the rotor attaches to off. To get this to work on my bike, I think I'll trim part of the Celica distributor main shaft to the proper length to fit the XS650 advance shaft, and bore it out to fit over the small end of the XS650 advance rod. There'll be a little more work to get two of the reluctor knobs trimmed down, but it should work. Any ideas or problems anyone out there seeing with this setup?

[skr00zloose]

should work just fine. i just went out and picked up a toyota starlet distributor and an hei from the local pick-n-pull for my xs chop. this has got to be the most rediculously easy mod i've ever seen done. put together a setup like this for my buddy's xs last week, and it works AWESOME. i gave him one of my old DYNA dual fire coils to use on his bike, and it works 100 times better than the stock ignition. i was going to go the vw bug dist cap route, but i don't really have the room (my leg runs pretty close to the stock ignition cover with my forward controls, and if i ever got a "leak" in one of the wires, i'd be in for a hell of a shock) so i'll probably just stick with the other DYNA coil i have.

no more points!! yaaaayyyy!! lol.

on a side note, if anyone wants a stupidly easy way to mount the vw dist cap to an xs motor, just use the stock screw on retaining clips from a starlet distributor. you just have to drill two small holes in the ignition "bucket" on the xs motor, screw them in, and the clips will hold the vw cap on just like they would on any clip-on distributor.

[burfield2007]

Celica reluctor and adapter made from the Celica rotor shaft to fit the end of the XS650 advance shaft.

[pdxs]

can somebody tell me which terminals are which on the coil? same coil as mrriggs used. about to test my setup. just need plug wires...

edit: found a picture that shows it. red is power and blue is trigger.

[irish]

motolou said:

hey mrriggs, I have been fiddlin with this for a couple of afternoons and I just came up with this crazy idea. I bought one of those clear dist. caps and rotor off a vw bug and am in the process of intalling it. I have already installed the rotor and the shaft onto the hub, I just have to make a mounting plate for the dist. cap. by the way, I went to put the pick up coil on the backing plate and found that you can bolt it directly to the points plate, you do have to make one extra hole though, no biggy. I think my dist. set up will look trick on my bike with one chromed single coil mounted to the back bone. i'll keep you guys updated as I go.

This guy is selling these plans on ebay, They are using a clear VW cap as well, that's lame, selling mrriggs hard work.

[mrriggs]

pdxs said:

can somebody tell me which terminals are which on the coil? same coil as mrriggs used. about to test my setup. just need plug wires...

Since it is a dual output coil there is no possitive or negative. When I was tracing leads on the stock module I noticed that one coil was hooked one way and the other one hooked the other way. It doesn't matter.

By the way, when I tried plugging into the coil with crimp-on quick disconnects (like that picture shows) I couldn't get a solid connection. If you're not using a hacked up module for a mount then you will have to make your own connectors. If you cut some long copper strips the same width and thickness as a quick disconnect terminal you could plug them into the coil then bend them over so they stuck out the side of the coil. You would have to use a plastic shim when mounting the coil to prevent the leads from shorting out. To wire it up, simply slide female quick disconnects on the end of the leads sticking out from the coil.