kaldek

I'm a tad confused on how the stock coils could be 6v when the whole system is 12v. The color wires go straight to the ecm and the bl/w run of into the harness tieing into other sensors.

I'm SO WRONNNNNG.

The ECU would be delivering 6 volts rather than 12 volts to them. Much like how the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) and MAP sensor are given a 5 volt reference signal by the ECU. In the case of the TPS and MAP, the ECU would use linear voltage regulators, but in the case of the coils it's probably using ballast resistors (on bikes that use 6 volt coils).

I wouldnt think adding resistance to these would be good since the service manual calls for 1.1 - 1.9 ohms. I would think running them at 3 ohms would burn them up?

No, added resistance before the load won't affect the load (the coil) aside from diminish how much voltage it's getting. The only thing I'm not sure about is the exact effect on this particular coil.

All the stuff below? ALSO WRONG!

Since you say that the source bike does not use a wasted spark system, I would say these are designed to operate with a ballast resistor to drop the source voltage from 12 volts down to 6, with a temporary bypass for a 12 volt kick during starting.

If they are 6-volt coils (and I reckon they are), then right now you are:

Burning out the CDI transistors

The 12 volt CDI transistors are not rated to the 7 amps your new coils are asking of them. You're damaging them every time you run the engine.

Burning out the coil

The coil is designed to deliver ~30,000 volts based on a 6-volt primary field winding. You are doubling that. I don't know if this means you're generating 60,000 volts (probably not, but I'm not that awesome with the electrical theory). This may or may not be burning out the coil windings, much like how our stators tend to burn out from too much current and heat.

Burning out the spark plug electrodes

The higher spark voltage might consume the electrode material rapidly.

My disclaimer is that I am not 100% sure about the last two points. I could be wrong about higher input voltage on the primary winding affecting voltage generated by the secondary winding.

The 6th gens seem to have the green wires tied together and the Bl/W wires. The different colored wires (positives) are all separate.

The different coloured wires are the trigger wires; all others are in parallel on the same circuit as the coil is constant powered with the transistor in the coil head doing the switching.

I'll bust out the gsxr wiring schematics and see if they're running parallel or not. I've looked at the fische and it doesnt seem to have a separate wire harness for just the coils. Seems to be wired straight into the main harness.

Everything below here is wrong also!

They're probably wired the same as a VFR800, but are likely 6 volt coils rather than 12 volt.

Seriously I would stop right now before you blow up your ECU, and go do more research. Maybe ballast resistors is all you will need, I don't know.

Have a look at this thread and let me know if anything rings a bell:

http://www.zxrworld.co.uk/zxr400oc/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7367&sid=14a3ead772aa3156a8009ba73cb59548

He can't do that because that diagram is for a wasted spark system, and the VFR800 is not wasted spark.

EVERYTHING WRITTEN HERE IS WRONG!!! Move on, people.

Ok here's an interesting quote regarding 1.6 ohm coils, found on some random forum:

A coil that is intended to be used with a ballast resistor has approximately half the resistance of a non-ballast coil. The reason for using a coil and ballast set up is to give you a stronger spark at start up. The ballast coil is essentially a 6 volt coil and the ballast is there to give it a 6 volt supply in normal running. When you start the engine, the ballast is bypassed and the full 12 volts is applied to the coil giving roughly twice the output voltage. This helps cold starting.

The fact that these are 6 volt coils is kinda what I was thinking, although I was thinking 5 volts rather than 6 (hey, I'm an IT guy and it's 12 and 5 volts inside PCs).

So it looks like you've just chucked a ballast resistor-type coil onto a non-ballast ignition system. I'm not sure what the correct course of action is, but I'd wager that right now you are at risk of frying your ECU. Also, you're probably burning out the spark plug electrodes!

She seems sluggish now at low rpms and taking off. I'm going to hook up the stockers tomorrow and see if it's the bike or just me. It would be nice to find some that are the same resistance just for the assurance. If you can test yours, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm going to test the ones on my '09 ER-6N and see what those are at. I'm gonna guess that these coil on plugs are gonna be lower than the old school styles.

Verrry interesting. I'll check mine tonight but since they're 3-wire coils the results may not be comparable.

It could be that these new coils are pulling so much current from the ECU that it is suffering a brownout. Your old coils pulled 3.7 amps each (since they are 3.2 ohms at 12 volts), the new ones pulls 7 amps each. Granted, these are "pulse" figures but that's a doubling of current.

I've heard of people using ballast resistors to increase the resistance but then that might affect the spark, because each coil WANTS that 7 amps. More Googling required, methinks.

If someone with 6th gen coil on plugs could give me their Ohm (resistance) reading on theirs, I'd appreciate it.

Across which pins?

Beats me. The fsm doesnt state anything on ohms with the coils. On two prongs i just touch the two. No clue on the 3 prongs the 6th gens have.

Im getting around 3.1 ohms on the 5th gens and 1.6 ohms on the gsxr's.

Less resistance = more current. Are you concerned that the new coils are drawing more current than your ECU can provide?

If someone with 6th gen coil on plugs could give me their Ohm (resistance) reading on theirs, I'd appreciate it.

Across which pins?

What is the added advantage of moving to these coils ?

Coil on plug gives a higher voltage and better spark. However, the 5th-gen already had dedicated coils at least, so the difference isn't huge.

Awesome mate! So is that now running with the 6th-gen throttle body and injectors as well?

Nice write up Pete... thanks...

So what is the final ration of a 17 tooth front ?

Not so sure a 17 toother'll fit in there... Bueller??

They sure do. My dealer accidentally fitted a 17 tooth sprocket to my 2002 and I rode around like that for 8 months, wondering why I never used 6th gear.

Ya, these Denso's (without flap seals) are used on just about anything.

Trust Honda to be "different" as always. Like everyone else using wideband O2 sensors now, except Honda.

5th gens are just two wires. Out of all the bike coils I searched on ebay, the 6th gen vfr's were the only 3 prong coils.

That, and lots of cars, but yeah. Seems like you've picked a winner then!

Are you sure that's going to work mate? The three pins aren't "an extra ground", the third pin is the trigger. So, for example on the 6th-gen there is a constant 12 volts and ground provided to the coil and the third wire is the trigger. It's basically a simple transistor if I recall correctly; any 12v signal (regardless of strength) trips the transistor, which cuts the normal 12v source and causing collapse of the low voltage field and hence generation of the high voltage spark.

But anyway, are the 5th-gen coils also three wire? If they are, your two-wire coil-on-plug system won't work because the ECU only activates the high voltage coil by sending a trigger command to the coil as opposed to actually cutting the 12 volt signal directly in the ECU.

OK I'm coming to this late as I have a 5th Gen without the extra wire. But since I recently had a stator failure on my RC51, I installed a Lascar voltmeter on it and was reading some potentially too high voltages. The voltage also seems to jump around a bit, as compared to my VFR. Is this another sign of needing to do this fix?

If it's jumping around I'd be checking my earth connections as well!

Hey this is meant to be my mod thread - stop hijacking it, you lot!!

I did read the first post with reasons why to change ECU, but honestly the only advantage I can see is the lower vtec cut in as faster processor & better maps loaded into ECU mean squat when you over ride them with a pc. I think your outcome will be zero change to what you have except for the earlier vtec cut in.

My 04 which is same as your 02 which had Motad headers, BMC filter, pair valves disconnected, flapper disconnected, 02 eliminators, pc with dyno tune never had any flat spots or surging etc, the vtec transition wasn't even noticeable except for the different induction note & the black lines it left around corners. Every now & then there would be a hiccup but all motors tend to do it depending on climate conditions & a 1000 other variables.

I think the only answer I can give to that is "it takes one to know one". Once I've made the change I'll be able to say whether it helped. Or not, as the case may be!

He'll probably say, "You so crazy."

Actually he seems to have everything I need, *except* for the wiring harness-side connectors and he would need to order 600 of them in bulk. Don't think that's gonna be realistic.

However he did say he has close ties to the HRC team and can tell me a lot about PGM-FI systems. So, I'm taking that angle - gain knowledge on the inner workings of the Honda ECU. I know how Honda works at the back end - they have this notion of "A" and "B" secrets, which can't be distributed. I guess I have to find out what stuff I *can* get access to.

Certainly I'm sick of dealing with Dynojet because they're obtuse. Here's a question for you which you'd think Dynojet should just freakin' answer straight up (but won't): Is it not a bit "odd" to overlay an Alpha-N system such as the Powercommander over an ECU which is mapping fuel using Speed-Density (MAP sensor) at small throttle positions? Wouldn't this be wildly inaccurate UNLESS you ALWAYS did map-by-gear in a PCV to take out engine load as a varying factor?

Go on, ask someone at Dynojet that question and see what kind of answer you get. I've asked them questions about the problems with the way Autotune works (doesn't take Delta throttle into account, doesn't take decelerating engine into account) and their answers aren't exactly inspiring.

He'll probably say, "You so crazy."

Anybody found a '06 FSM on the web yet? I wanna see the schematics.

You mean a service manual? There's already an updated wiring schematic for the '06 here at VFRD, which I think was an appendix released by Honda to the 2002 manual we all have. It's on the third page.

Huh. Just found a guy - in Australia no less - who has access to Honda ECU connectors, specifically for this kind of work (actually replacement of stock ECU with aftermarket into existing wiring harness).

I wonder what he'll say - I've asked him if he has the stuff I would need to make an adapter block.

What about a de-pin job on the cable assembly side ECU connector, the plug, and re-pin into a connector appropriate for the 2006+ ECU?

This is a fair call, but I see this as actually quite risky. The pins are different sizes so it basically needs a de-solder and re-solder on each of the 64 wires. That would take longer than replacing the wiring harness.

Anyway, if I was really smart, I'd engage some factory to make '02-to-'06 ECU adapter connectors so that you keep your old wiring harness. But that would involve finding what the connectors are called, tracing all the wiring, etc. I'm too lazy for that at the moment but maybe I'll learn enough that I think this is possible? It wouldn't be the first Honda owner to start building and selling their own electrical kits. There's a guy named Patrick Fruth (pdfruth) on the 1000rr.net forums who builds exhaust servo simulators using PIC hardware and sells them for $20. It did wonders for my CBR1000RR track bike's constant MIL light problem!

Where there more physical sensors added to the engine on the '06+? If not, then I don't see why you couldn't just straight up use a '06+ harness and ecu and been done.

There are no additional sensors. Essentially what you're suggesting is what I'm doing, except that I have Aussie headlight switch and indicator hardware which needs some tweaks to the front harness.

Believe me if I could just plug an '06 main harness into an '02 front harness I'd freakin' do it, but the other member (CBR600F4i) who has already done this mod said that's not possible.

Unsubstantiated speculation, BUT, (As I haven't done the actual research), Isn't there a valve difference, as well as gearing?

Nah, checked that and the camshaft parts for all bikes are identical. Also, all the parts for the transmission (gearbox) are also identical, as is the sprockets.

Various other threads have confirmed all the changes were electrical or fuel related, with the ECU and injectors being the major functional change to the way the engine sucks air & gas. I already have the injectors in my bike.

Heh. I think we have a language barrier! What you guys call the headlight switch I would call the high beam switch, because the right-handlebar has always been used for turning headlights on or off in Australia. It's only modern bikes which have the switch removed so that the lights can't be turned off. We literally have a blank plate where the switch would be on the right handlebar.

Up until 2005 at least, the European bikes did not have hazard lights but DID have a switch on the right handlebar for turning the headlights on and off, which in your case appears to be used for hazards.

I guess this means that I have some customisations to my bike which none of you would see.