350x Goki charge design question & possible upgrade harness idea

[ps2fixer]

I got a person that wanted to integrate the Goki starter wiring into the main harness and while researching, it seems it uses the tail light wiring to charge the battery, which runs though a diode for that AC to DC conversion. The manual says to plug into the yellow wire, however the 350x harness doesn't have a yellow wire in the whole harness, but based on smaller models, it's the main power wire from the stator. The 350x harness however doesn't have that wire there (White with Yellow strip), it's only at the handle bar switch plug, regulator, and stator. Do people normally plug it into the brown wire which only charges the battery while the lights are on?

Also is there any info out there on which diode is used or a comparable one? I'm not super up on top of electronics, wiring isn't a problem though lol.

If that's the case, I'd be making an "upgrade" harness that would always charge the battery while the engine is running. Seems like other's with the Goki kit might be interested in the same results.

Thanks for any feedback!

EDIT:

I haven't seen any photos posted online of the diagrams, so here's some photos. Not the greatest, hopefully getting scans soon.
Starter solenoid/relay is part number 892-1221-210 for what he's using, it seems to be the same layout as the diagrams, not sure if it's the stock one or not.

[BOB MARLIN]

I hooked mine up exactly like the instructions said and have no charging issues. I don't ride at night so my lights are never on and my battery stays just fine. I have talked to some that say if you are running with lights on, the battery gets drawn down because some of the power that is normally being used to charge the battery is now being directed to the lights.

I don't have my trike in front of me right now but if I remember correctly the yellow wire is the goki wire harness, not the 350x harness.

[ps2fixer]

I see, I can't quite read the image very well, but the second one shows the hookup to the stock harness and it says "Stock Yellow Wire", but I can't quite see what exactly is going on there. I'm guessing you hooked it up to the white/yellow wire @ the regulator. It's a little confusing because the tail light wire and regulator wire are not that close on the harness normally, but maybe on the machine they are pretty close.

[BOB MARLIN]

My kit I got was pretty complete, but my instruction documents look a little different than yours, maybe I just got an older kit. Anyway I didn't really give it much thought on how the charge was getting to the battery, I was just happy it worked. What I did change was the start button arrangement.
You have to have a functioning decomp or it won't work, so you have to hold the kicker forward, push the button and possibly give a little throttle at the same time. I don't have 3 hands so I cut into the goki wire loom and rewired it to a trx off/on-headlight switch. It looks just like the 350x set up but has a start button. Then I hooked the parking brake cable to the decomp on the head. So now I just pull the clutch in with the parking brake pin enabled and hit the start button on the trx combo switch.

One more thing is you have to use the size battery that is called for or it won't function properly.

[ps2fixer]

In the little research I did, it seems some have no problems, while others need the decomp enabled to get it started. It's not on my machine but my customer's. They plan to use a 250es/250sx switch set for the start button and for the choke on their carb (aftermarket maybe?).

The instructions appear to be for a 350x, but I don't have the full copy of the manual (cover etc) to really validate. Maybe it's a 85/86 difference since I think there was a different kit per year.

I don't understand how the battery would effect the system, you should be able to use a different sized battery and get the same results, the big thing is to have enough cold cranking amps that the battery can deliver to the starter, and good wire connections to provide a low resistant connection. Generally, bigger the battery, the more CC amps it puts out, but that isn't always the case with cheap batteries vs name brand. Lead acid battery quality is more or less how many amps it puts out, the rest is just a plastic case.

[BOB MARLIN]

When I said size, I was referring to the cca's. I guess I could've been more clear.
The difference in the 85' vs. the '86 kit has to do with the flange on the starter to get the pinion and the ring gear line up properly as the flywheels are in a slightly different location between the two years. There is no difference in the wireing.
The ring gear is not heat treated, in fact it is very soft. You can buy a bigger (cca) battery to overcome not using the decomp, but the ring gear will be short lived.

[ps2fixer]

I see, that makes much more sense now.

I've read about the soft metal for the gears before, kind of silly to make gears in a high torque application but not heat treat them. I suspect it's probably a bad idea to add the starter kit to a rebuilt 350x with higher than stock compression, but I guess generally speaking, someone that's going to do that likely wants to be faster, so more weight is bad for them.

Another fun factor on the stators since googlers might find this, the 85 and 86 stators interchange, however it has to be done as a set. The crank and bolt patterns are the same for both years (I've checked part numbers before I'm pretty positive and have seen it posted atleast once).

[BOB MARLIN]

The difference is the distance between the centerline of the engine and the flywheel, I believe its the 86' that is closer to centerline, not positive. I'm not sure if the taper for the flywheel is smaller or the taper is actually in a different spot.
I run a high compression piston in my 86' with a goki and it has no problem once you get it spinning using the decomp.
The weak spot on the whole system is the starter. The starters seem to be the same ones used on a few different models of snow mobiles and were not designed to run upright. When the pinion return spring starts to weaken just a little the pinion drops when riding over bumps and jams into the ring gear, breaking the starter shaft. I have had no luck finding a spring that works as it should.