350x Issues (Saga III)

[ps2fixer]

Nice, I have an oscilloscope now and such and understand electronics a bit more than back then, but I don't think I said anything completely wrong there lol. Defo interesting comparing OEM parts that are known good working vs alternative parts even if it's OEM from a different model.

[patriot1]

Switch and connections-no cdi connected.




Stator and flywheel don't match-please confirm?



Does my shifting mechanism look correct?



shout out to the "yellow side"

CDI's and brackets ordered.

[patriot1]

Mistake!

Stator and flywheel do match according to PS2's pictures!

[ps2fixer]

Ah yea, stator and flywheel looks to be matching. Had it backwards at first, that's what I get for going off memory lol.

Also, big wtf on the 3 pin connector in your 2nd pic, it's showing green (ground) is connecting to the power wire, one of the harnesses has the wrong wire color (hopefully) or actually made incorrectly. Those wires should be matching colors on both sides! I pulled up pics of the main harnesses I used to reproduce and it looks like the main harness connector/pinout is correct, so going to call the handle bar controls probably Chinese aftermarket crap (they are terrible about making things good, been through China parts for 9 or so years some of the worst stuff I've ever messed with). I'd take it apart and check what kind of switches are in it, the kill switch on the ones I've seen before are a typical slide switch, no grease, weather proofing, etc. I'd expect it to not last long if that's the design, used OEM won't look as nice but function for longer in most cases. Once in a while I get into modifying OEM parts for out of production parts, they aren't cheap but it's the real deal Honda parts. Not trying to shill my products though lol, my main market is demo derby cars now, but the derby season is pretty slow now so probably going to make some atv related parts through the winter.

Shifter looks typical to me, you can dry shift the engine, but you'll have to rotate the crank some to get it to go through all the gears (it's designed to shift while running, but can be done by hand).

[patriot1]

Thanks for the eagle eye and insight. I have the OEM. switch (I think)

How in the LLLLLL did it ever run at all with the ground connected. to the power?

Hopefully the cheap Chinese CDI's will work well enough to get spark and at least start the engine-we'll soon see.

[ps2fixer]

Well the lighting coil and the exciter coil are two different power sources, the exciter coil's only job is to power the CDI. I hope it's just the colors were mixed up, on the handle bar controls, but that gives you a solid indication of the quality, they can't even get the colors in the right order lol.

I think the Chinese CDI's were really hit and miss, CDI's aren't really a one fits all type of thing, they are balanced between the exciter coil's output capacity and also matched to the ignition coil's design, it's still a very analog system from back then unlike car coils were basically they all function exactly the same. On top of that, the actual output has different ignition timing based on the engine design, pulse generator location, how many times it's triggered per engine fire (crank based it fires 2x as often vs a cam based trigger which throws off the rpm/spark advancement curve if it's not a matching design). Of course that kind of info isn't published for basically any CDI which is why it's such a guess and chekc type of thing and factory specs.

A little more technical on how the CDI's work, the advancement system is a pretty simple concept, you can't predict the future, so the pulse generator is clocked at the max advancement location, say for easy figuring 20 degrees BTDC. If the CDI wants to have an idle rpm of 10 degrees advancement (pretty typical number from memory), it takes the signal from 20 deg + the rpm and delays that signal until it would be 10 deg then fire the coil. The wider the range of the ignition timing, the more fancy the CDI is. The cheapest of the cheap has zero advancement, so those would make the engine run at 20 degrees at idle and floored which is a common design for the Chinese CDI's and some early Honda's used that design with a physical advancement mechanism like on an ATC200ES which uses springs and weights, similar to a points distributor for a car.