troubleshooting my 1100RTP with no spark

[texan123]

I recently decided to replace my Control Unit chip with a new RhineWest performance chip and ran into problems with the bike's ignition not delivering a spark. I am putting my lessons learned in hopes other can troubleshoot with less effort.

After completing the install of the new chip the bike failed to start. I quickly found that I was not getting any fire out of my plugs. I assumed the new chip was bad and replaced it with my old chip. This time I had a new symptom; the sparkplug fired consistently when the key and ignition-switch was on without cranking the motor. It fired like this for about 3 seconds then stopped all together. I read through my handy service book on what to do. It pointed to the coil but after testing it looked fine. The book had no other things to test other than the battery.

I finally made the trip to RineWest to evaluate my Control Unit to see if it was damaged. Their very nice mechanic took the time to listen to my problems and offered to look into my CU. Before I left I mentioned to him that the only other thing I did was wash the bike when I had the tank off.

BINGO, it was like a light went off. He said that my Hall Effect or ignition sensor shorted out and to replace it.

I did some research and found HTTP://users.rcn.com/dehager/ and built the test box described; sure enough it was bad (thanks dehager). I have replaced it and all is well.

P.S. I love my new chip, it performs much better.

 

Hope this help someone in need.

Mitch T

[Ken H.]

Interesting.

 

BTW, not that it matters much, but your avatar is not a correct depiction of the cyl. movement of a boxer engine.

 

But welcome to the board anyway!