black vs white factory coils (diference?)

[JAX71224]

AAAANNNND about condensers ,if you observe sparks from points while idling and points are good as you can get them, try new condensers, It will prolong points life and run better.

 

[5twins]

Yes, lots and lots of sparking. An occasional small spark is just kinda normal.

 

[billy icon]

5twins, I wasn't thinking about the 5th gear overdrive for my 72 xs650 or my 69 xs1... im building a third xsengine over this cold season, and I have a few cases and transmission to chose from and so it was going to MAYBE go in that build, Im collecting sorting out the parts Im going to use for it now, so far I have some stuff I got from a European side car race bike, well actually all I have left from that purchase is the xs1 cly at 80mm and an xs1 head with no matching rocker, I will begin a thread on the build once I have the pieces all layed out and I have some time to myself... but I invite you to "join" in the build, I said before I want to do a collaboration of calibrations , and not so much of a how I do it.. I know I will be learning a lot, I build a motor or car/bike every year, ive built everything from old American muscle/classic to triumph motorcycles and I allways dive way in with every detail checked and re checked, the last car I did was a 72 dodge dart I gave my mom for mothers day 3 years ago.. and the last bike I did was a 70 Harley ironhead bobber, both are daily drivers, on the dodge slant six (I cant leave anything stock) I but forged pistons(totally unnecessary) and I ported and polished the head and had it cut for the largest stainless valves it could fit, I put dual exhaust headers three tubes per side and flowmasters (mom loves the attention the sound gets her) and it sounds really unique , then an aluminum manifold with a 500 cfm 2 barrel holley, and a mild performance cam, pretty healthy for a slant six, it has won best modified engine at a show... but the one thing I didn't do and regret it severly now was replace the valve guides and they don't use valve guide seals, just the guide "tightness" is the seal and it consumes oil..not enuf to foul plugs or anything but a mistake on my part none the less, Aaaanyways if your still reading lol my point is I cant leave well enuf alone so this xs build will be the same I hope, moneys not as abundant these days but ill make it work, Im actually quite amased by the performace of a stock xs650 motor, the two I already have running and street legal have gone thru hell and back and just keep kickin… the 72 went from mt hood Oregon down to the redwoods run in nocal and on the way back we decided to make it a strait shot 16 hours with nothing but gas stops.... I was delirious the last two hours.. I was hallucinating jackalopes running and bounding along the side of the road, yes the ficticus creature , and I remember thinking at the time if one of them (my halucinations) jumped out in the road I would be fucked lol.. Ok im rambling now but my point was it ran 16 hours strait and started on the first kick the next morning.

 

[billy icon]

oh my that was a long post my bad no more cafine and posting for me

 

[XSLeo]

I ran a dual out put coil on my 75 with points. Harley points coils work fine. The one I used looked like the chrome bodied coil in a pic earlier in the thread. It was a dual out put coil with 20K out put. About twice what a stock coil has.
Once you get your points gapped and timed separately you just hook the two points wires together, then too the coil. This runs as a wasted spark set up.
It ran fine that way but still the advancer was spotty. I tried a dual lobe points cam and a single set of points. That was a waste. The lobes timing was off by close to 7 degrees. Ran like crap.
I then replaced all that with a Basic Pamco. Much better. Still had advancer issues. Added the Pamco E Advance. Best thing going. Too bad it's out of production.
I know Mike's sells a knock off. From things I read it has issues and very little tech support. Even if it was better I will not use one. I hardly ever buy from Mike's anymore.
Leo

 

[billy icon]

the first and only thing I bought from mikes was air cleaners with crome tops, one said XS on the crome lid,the other had SX on the chrome lid, the where an offset filter so the lid is crimed on wrong on one, this was a long time ago when mikes was fairly new, and i called to try and get a replacement or refund, the person i spoke with could harley speek english or understand me, and i got nothing, i just looked for a photo of the fiters to show you and low and behold this photo from mikes even shows the filter with the upside sown cap Bahahaha ha ha... anyways thats the only time i was going to purchase from them...notice the pleates of one of the filters is already bent up and damaged, can you say quality control??

 

[billy icon]

I'm sure someone has. I just don't really see the point. With the points, you're still limited to about 4 ohms.... which means about 3 amps of power for making sparks. Some coils use a higher output secondary, but 3 amps is still your limiting factor. You'd have to go electronic iggy that can use around a 2 ohm coil for a hotter spark. 2 ohms gives you about 6 amps of juice to make sparks.

XS leo…..
im a little confused, ive taken some electrical engiering classes, and ohms law and such kinda dictates the power avalible to the plugs, I hope Jim will chime in again here … I do understand that coils are like transformers and that changes the dinamics of the power output, but I thought there was only 3 amps of power for the spark with points, does the Harley coil change this somehow?

 

[Jim]

Yes, all a coil is, is a step up transformer. In a step up, voltage increases at the expense of current (amps decrease). For any given primary current, in this case 3 amps, there's a sweet-spot in the step up side where the volts vs. amps combo gives the best spark. I'm not an engineer, so I have no idea what that ideal combo is. Perhaps the HD coil is closer to that ideal...

 

[Team Junk]

Lower impedance coils discharge the condensers faster. The size of the condensers determines the amount of energy available to discharge across the primary winding in the coil. A single set of points with one condenser is probably not enough to saturate the primary reducing the output spark. A larger cap on a single points set would work at the expense of greater arcing across the points shortening the life of the contacts.

 

[Jim]

Lower impedance coils discharge the condensers faster. The size of the condensers determines the amount of energy available to discharge across the primary winding in the coil. A single set of points with one condenser is probably not enough to saturate the primary reducing the output spark. A larger cap on a single points set would work at the expense of greater arcing across the points shortening the life of the contacts.

Yeah... there's a whole lot more to it than my simple explanation.

 

[billy icon]

oh the welth of knowledge here is amazing, I must say I have never been a member of a forum before, and a month ago I had to join a Porsche out of desperation to try and fix a Porsche 928, and those guys were OK but a little uptight about there forum... Ive never been much of a person to connect online but I figured hey I joined one forum why not one for something im really into, and so I joined her, and everyone has been the nicest most friendly and helpful people EVER maybe its a bike thing, but yeah you all rock!

 

[fredintoon]

hello all, I was reading post after post about what coils to use with a points set up, I have a 72 xs650 and a 69 xs1 (and yes photos of my bikes to come soon) they are both hard ridden bobbers, anyways, I have a huge box of parts and many of my coils are white and many are black... heres the reason I ask, both th bikes have points but the 69 has always had a wird misfire and sometimes a complete cutout (no spark)on one cyl. and Ive tried switching coil after coil to solve the problem and it always seems to work for a bit but eventualy the problem resurfaces again, maybe related to the coil maybe not, but Im wondering if the black ones are for electronic ignition, and the whites are for the points, let me know what you guys know thanks, or even better if there is a replacement coil to use with points that works "very well" let me know about those,

Hi billy,
most likely it ain't the coil although there's lots more than the coil involved in getting reliable sparks.
If a replacement coil temporarily fixes the problem you could wear a bandolier full of them like a Mexican Bandito?
Or not.
(and why do B-rated Westerns show Banditos carrying modern 30-30 Winchesters and wearing bandoliers full of old fashioned 45-70 cartridges?)
To make sure the bike has a one-side ignition problem try swapping the wires around so the problem-side spark runs the other cylinder.
If the problem changes sides it's ignition related. If it don't, it's likely something else.

 

[billy icon]

fredintoon. I would need to switch the wires to the coils, and then the plug wires also, correct??? that way the opposite coil would spark the plugs?

 

[5twins]

Yes, you would need to switch both or the coils would be firing the cylinders at the wrong time.