Source of 2000 Busa ignition coils?

gsx1.3

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My UK spec 2000 'Busa, which I've had from new, developed a misfire. It wasn't far from needing a service, so a few weeks ago I took it to my local bike dealer. When I dropped the bike off I mentioned the misfire to the owner, who I know well. At least I thought I knew him well.

After the service the dealer owner said they'd found nothing obvious and sold me a can of fuel additive to try. While I was settling the bill he picked up the 'phone and called the technician who did the service, asked a few questions, told me the throttle sync was OK, and said "further investigation required". He gave me a service record sheet with lots of things like "check spark plugs" with the checkboxes all ticked.

So I thought they'd checked the spark plugs.

Silly me.

Last night I decided to take a look myself. When I got the air box off I found a part rattling around on top of the engine cover which is underneath the air box. Now the dealer who had the bike at the time that part was dropped in there is in Perpignan, in France. I know that because I noticed that the part was missing, and wondered where it could have gone, the last time I picked up my Busa from that dealer. Unfortunately for my local dealer, that was in August 2008.

So until yesterday, not even the air box has been taken off that bike, never mind the ignition coils and the spark plugs, for the last six years. It was bloomin' obvious to me when I took the coils off that they hadn't been disturbed in years because of all the cr@p around the boots, but without that tell-tale little part I wouldn't have been able to nail it down to much better than the nearest decade. With that completely fortuitous and incredibly helpful little part I know the month and the year.

In addition to finding that the local dealer could not possibly have removed spark plugs from that engine at the service that I've just paid for, I found obvious signs of insulation breakdown on the coil on cylinder one. I should have thought that one of the first things you'd look for if a customer complains about a misfire is the condition of the coils, but since they didn't even bother with the condition of the spark plugs I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that they didn't mention coils. When the bike is on the side stand cylinder one will get most water thrown over it as that's the way the engine cover will be sloping, so I'm guessing that it's hot and most probably salty water mixed with high voltage electricity that's damaged that insulator. My research seems to indicate that this is a common problem in the UK. Bikes in the UK see a lot of salty water in the winter.

Of course I looked for more trouble, and I found it. I found that mice had eaten some of the foam pieces on the air box, there was a load of grit blocking the front air box drain (the one with a little stub of pipe with a flattened end -- mice had chewed that too), I found that the right hand clamp for the throttle body air intakes was loose and I found that there was a hose clip MISSING from one of the fuel pipes from the tank. Well strictly speaking I didn't find that last one, actually, it found me. It found me by falling off the tank while I was removing the air box, and as the tank was full at the time I came close to dying when half a gallon of fuel poured all over me, the wiring, the engine and some very hot exhaust pipes before I managed to stop it coming out of both the tank AND the hose at the same time. It took about an hour to get that pipe back on without letting another gallon of fuel out of the tank (and all over me) and by then I was so angry that I started taking photographs. I'm surprised I didn't go up in flames just from the language. I don't know how to post them here and I don't think they'll add much to the story, but it's just so you know that they're there in case nobody believes all this.

Anyway I think I need another coil, and after this I'll be damned if I'll by one from the local dealer.

Any ideas where I can get one cheaper than the eighty-odd quid I've seen from my few quick Internet searches?

Oh - and the next dealer who services my bike is going to know that there are secret marks and tell-tales all over the bike so I know what he's done and what he's not done.
 
As I said I'm in England, so shipping might be expensive, but I'll ping Goldenchild anyway. Thanks guys.
 
Another thought. I could perhaps repair the insulation on my faulty coil but before I tried that on a potentially working part I'd want to see what I'm digging into by trying it on a dead one. If anyone (probably better if he's in the UK, or at least in Europe, because of shipping costs) has a dead ignition coil from a 1999-2000 'Busa we might be able to do a deal.
 
Interesting fact...I have a cpl of spare coils two good n two bad, I checked the resistance and they all seems to have the same reading.???
 
Interesting fact...I have a cpl of spare coils two good n two bad, I checked the resistance and they all seems to have the same reading.???

Seems like your two bad ones have failed in the same way that my one bad one has failed. It's an insulation breakdown, not a break in a conductor.

These things are just transformers. They transform twelve volts into a few thousand volts. At its simplest a transformer is just two coils of wire wound around the same bobbin, but the wires have to be insulated from each other, and from anything conducting around them (like the cylinder head), and even from themselves. That gets a little tricky if the voltages are very high because even dry air, while it's a good insulator at low voltages (strictly speaking low voltage gradients), breaks down at about 30kV/cm. Most man-made insulators have much higher "dielectric strengths", up to a million or so volts per centimetre which is about as good as glass but nowhere near mica.

Insulators made from plastics and similar materials are notorious for failure by 'breakdown' which means that the man-made material (or at least part of it) is changed from an insulator to a conductor. This usually takes place over a long period of time and usually involves a lot of stresses from heat, electric field and mechanical shock, but it can happen very quicky.

The breakdown can happen in the bulk of the insulator, which usually does take a long time, but can happen quickly if the rated voltage of the insulation is exceeded and an electric discharge "punches through" the insulation. When that happens the electric current discharge can leave a "track" of degraded insulator and the insulator is effectively destroyed.

A breakdown over the surface often happens very quickly. If the surface gets coated with a film of something like salt-water spray then an electric current can run through the film. Like a river, the track it takes usually encourages the flow of more current to follow that track. The current can cause burning of the insulator immediately beneath the 'river' of current flowing in the film, which degrades the plastic, forming carbon (burn more or less anything plastic and you'll see carbon formed) and the carbon forms a conducting track which again usually means the death of the insulating component if it's made from a plastic. If it's glass, the glass just melts, sets again when it cools, and nobody cares very much. That's why you see such a lot of glass insulators used on high-voltage transmission lines.

However if you can remove the carbon, or remove the damaged insulator completely and replace it with something as good or better, then as long as there's no other damage (like bits of wire welded together or evaporated, or connections melted) you're back in business. That's why I was thinking of taking a dead one to pieces to see what's likely to be involved in replacing the insulation.

I'm a Chartered Electrical Engineer, so I'm supposed to know about this stuff. :)

I've ordered some used ones from the USA via eBay to see what I can do.

I'm thinking along the lines of PTFE tape as used by plumbers. PTFE is one of the better electrical insulators, and it's cheap enough. I'll keep you posted.
 
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