Aftermarket Coils

Aftermarket Coils - Honda CB450
On my latest project, a CB450, it was apparent the coils I had around were
less than desirable.
I had three pairs, all were well funkified. I had my doubt they had much life
left in them.
New coils are a good investment on any old bike, unless you’re doing a
persnickety restoration and need to be original.
YUK !!
Not wanting any trouble in the ignition, I bought a pair of Yamaha XS650
Replacement units from http://www.mikesxs.com/
$24 each, quick and cheap shipping.
They only had the yellow wires in stock.
I had to fabricate a couple of little plates to fasten them to, so I could use the
stock coil mount, which is the best location. The plates are sort of notched to
move the coils as far in towards each other as I could. Space on the sides is
limited when the fuel tank is mounted.
You have to tweak the positioning with spacers. Note the use of stacks of
washers as spacers - didn’t have any spacers, but I did have a big ol’ sack-owashers (stainless yet). Someday I might cut some proper spacers.
No place for the condensor , I just drilled a hole in the frame nearby and
mounted it there.
I ran a series of 10-gauge ground wires from the battery itself to all the
ignition components. So there won’t be any troubles with grounding.
Had to make up a couple of bullet connector “doublers” to accommodate the
coil/point/condensor wiring.
Coil wiring was simple - I ran both brown coil wires to the black/white wires
from the harness, then used the “doublers” to connect each orange coil wire
to either the yellow or blue ignition wires.
All in all, it wasn’t too bad. About $60 for brand new coils, replaceable wires,
and plug caps. All I used was a drill, hacksaw, and grinder.
I now have spark that will knock you on your butt, and it’s one less thing I’ll
have to worry about on a really old bike.
Seems to me you could do pretty much the same thing on a 350, it’s built
pretty much the same.
And I already did it on a CB200 - CB200 is a 360 degree engine (like a 175),
only one point, so a single coil with two plug wires. For that one I bought(on
EBay) half of a Honda four replacement coil set - it bolted right up, no
modifications required.
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