What SPARK should look like video

notice, nice and purple - white NOT red or orange. . .
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8V0ULlWBrM]CDI Spark 1000 - 10000rpm w/ denso iridium spark plug - YouTube[/ame]

FinalImpact said:

notice, nice and purple - white NOT red or orange. . .

Click to expand...

So that spark plug buzzing noise matches the vibration in my motorcycle.

On the topic of coils, coil failure and things we can't test at home - here is a basic idea of what is happens when the secondary isolation fails on coil.

No name here said:

I tested the coils and they were fine.

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Not to be mean; but other than visual and an OHM test (WHICH WILL ALMOST ALWAYS PASS) if the engine runs at all, you can't tell jack from any test done at home and neither can 95% of the shops.

Its leakage voltage and arc-over voltage from the coils secondary output that we have NO WAY of testing. ((EDIT: I STAND CORRECTED, SEE VID BELOW. Hard to do on the Fiz, but possible when the chips are down. . .))

Here is a vid so you get the idea. In the ideal world, the sparks energy travels through an insulated conductor to the plugs gap where it jumps from the electrode to the ground strap. When coils fail, they often times leak high energy back to the input (primary side) and or jump to ground taking the path of least resistance. This is what most of us can't do at home is test the breakdown voltage of a coils isolation ability and/or the ability to delver the spark energy to the plug.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMBzwPAjvZ8]High voltage electric Arc discharge - ignition coil - YouTube[/ame]
In this vid there is no coil wire attached so the coil is at a disadvantage and the energy has no where to go but through the tower to the body & input source. If it was an actual acr-over/break-down test, it would have a wire attached and a specified gap which would be larger than that specified for the engine its used in. This is because during compression the combustion process increases the load on the ignition system. So a larger gap can simulate a bigger load like acceleration for example.

Even better - A real world failure induced by the water mist technique AND Watching in the DARK!!! Notice you can hear the arc-over too!
SKIP TO 1.24"
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yhXiW22hOI]Ignition Coil Troubleshooting VW 2.0L Golf Cabrio - YouTube[/ame]

This is for the WIN!!! Watch it couple times as the speaker nails everything you should be considering! Listen closely at 9:35 & 10:30. . .
- granted its COP, same concept!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbJkoX_I_WM]Autolite Coil on Plug Ignition troubleshooting - YouTube[/ame]


An in car tester using the cars ignition:
Not bad infor here either, had the video shown where the spark DID jump when the gap was increased, that would be good to know. Also with an added ground wire you can hover around the coils body and the spark should not jump through the body or boot. If it does, its defective and will cause misfires!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYbP-H4ez-0]Spark Test Spark Testing Ignition Coil Testing Ford Honda Toyota - YouTube[/ame]

Very interesting, I have to wait and see what the insurance will do with my bike. But I was planning on getting the Carbtune, Colortune and a flexible boroscope.

www.carbtune.com

I think for sure the Carbtune. The flexibleboroscope to be able to see into the plug for the colortune on the Fz