forgive my ignorance guys... i thought it was a off road animal.. dyslexia got the best of me i guess..lol (thinkin' x whatever instead of ZX..)

indeed theres a few ways actually to test the cdi. i'd certainly take the sage advice of getting a service manual tho if you want to save hardcore money and learn a bunch of stuff in the process.

basic CDIs need pretty much 2 things.... power, and an input signal to fire the coil(s). the power is self explanitory, the coil signal will come from some sort of "trigger" or "pulse" coil. usually, it is it'sown unit tucked awayon the clutch side in its own case and cover. there will be a small rotor in there, directly bolted to the crank, and that little disk in there will have protrusions that will come very close to the pickup. (also a "T" and "F" for timing purposes) it acts like a guitar pickup, where theres a magnetic field around it all the time, and any metal passing thru the field will generate a voltage in the coil thats surrounding the magnet...kinda like a lil generator. (thats called a hall effect pickup, btw the ohmic value is typically low on these and will usually be around 600 ohms or so, but refer to your manual for that value and the tolerance that will precede it. it will never be just 600.. it may call for a +/- 50 tolerance on that part, or be way higher or lower than 600!! being that you have 1 pickup coil per sparkplug coil, you'll hafta check both coils for resistance to ensure proper function obviously..

anyways.. ya.. check your trigger coils, and make sure theres decent power to the unit if you suspect the CDI (if the trigger coils check out good). a bad ground on the box, or coils, or anything else will kill everything associated with it.

being that it's beensitting a while, i'd try and scope the pistons, look down the carbs to the valves (look for crusty junk on the seats and stems), do a compression and/or leakdown test, and meter out every electrical thing on that bad boy. just for peace of mind anyway..

bad plugs will short directly to thehead thru the porcelin insulation, so if you go to do a spark test, i'd use an actual gap tester or minty fresh plug.... when i rebuilt my first bike a long time ago, the timing was WAY off, fouled the plugs, and the never showed a spark when i cranked the bike over. the plugs rested on the valve cover. it was only when i grabbed a plug while cranking (BRILLIANT!!) that i discovered that i had spark the whole time... the juice just drained right to ground without having to jump any gap and producing an audible or visible spark. --new plugs and correct timing...BANG! fired right up.

you still may be able to cross reference a newer CDI form another machine regardless of your twin trigger setup....
(that's that craftiness...)

heres the parts to test according to the site bigrig sent ya for reference.. (if you don't have spark)

found under "ignition coil"

trigger coil- 59026 ("coil-pulsing")
CDI box - 21119 ("igniter")
spark plug coils - 21121/21121A ("coil-ignition")

check all the harnesses, plugs and wires and such as well for cruddyness just for fun..




oh.. and bigrig.. a million thanks for the greatest site i've ever seen! i haven't ben able to really find that crap until now. you're the man!

 

Nice write up WH

 

A million thanx , looks like i have got my work cut out for me. I will keep you guys posted.

 

thanks dragone!! its appreciated!!

one of these days when i'm rich and all, i'm gonna fly from place to place and fix everyones stuff for free thats on this forum. you in hawaii?? no problem. just need a jet and a credit card, and i'll show up with the matco guy in pursuit... lol..

i'll call my parts guy in baltimore the first thing monday. he's got 3200 bikes over 2 acres of warehouse.... i'm sure he's got something for ya. and he's the uber-god of older jap bikes. the man is a wizard. he may know of a common and easily overlooked problem..OR if you wanna call him (closed on fridays and the weekends tho) you'll talk to Dean, at baltimore cycle salvage (410)-962-1335. he's usually the only one there, but even if he doesn't have the part, he'll know the ins and outs of troubleshootingyour bike.

 

thanx i would really appreciate it . im starting to thouroghly check every thing that you mentioned this weekend.

 

my dude's opened on saturday for a while, so i'll call him in the morning and see what he thinks or has in stock..

i just picked up the new 7R motor that i'm going to build into the turbo beast, and with it, i got some kinda service manual CD with it. theres just STUPID amounts of info on that disk, but i have no idea where to get another one.. if i do find out where it came from, i'll see what other models are available. theres gearing calculations and conversions on it..just all kinds of stuff. maybe they have one for the zx400.

i'd love (kill, maybe) to have a library of these little gems for my shop....

 

Ok well i had time to take it apart today it looks like someone has for sure worked on the electrical the regulator has been replaced with on that has one extra wire from what i can tell from the wire diagram, ad they spliced it in with a load of electrical tape. but it looks like every thing else is untouched. there is one plug that is not hooked up to anything and i realy cant find it on the wiring diagram,it has three wires blue, black/yellow,yellow.

 

Hmm.. good and bad bro..

i called my buddy at bcs, and he isn't familiar with the bike being that evidently it was nevrer sold in this country. well, he knew exactly what it was and the setup it has, but he didn't tell me anything tht i already haven't said...power, signal, fuel/spark/air/compression.. whathaveyou.

he has no parts but said also thart you may be able to make something else work..
as far as this electrical nightmare, i'd almost need to see a pic of it to tell ya whats up.. that way i can also tell if someone tried to ****e a more modern regulator/rectifier into the system

what are the blue, blk/y, and yellow wires from? the bike or the r/r?

i'm makin a diagram of what you otta have in paint. its ghetto as hell, but if i can figure out how to put it on here, it may help you troubleshoot..unless i can pull up a nice print from my service cd.

 

hmm, bk/y is normally ground. I have 3 blk wires from the alternator (3phase) and a white that goes to the 30amp fuse/starter relay. this is on the 06 10r. I do not have anything on the 400

 

I posted a few pics in the gallery just look up new pics you will find them. the green wire on the reg. is the one not connected to anything but it is hot with the key on.