Canister-style ignition coils are crap.

I work on other bikes than just CB750s. =) On my old (mostly race-prepped) RD350 I have built a one-off ignition system which incorporates canister-style car coils:


I just got off the phone with Accel Ignition's technical support, and to my complete amazement, they told me that all of their 'classic-style' oil-filled canister car coils are complete crap. It was suggested that I never use their product. The guy said they fail all the time, and he is utterly amazed that people still buy them... But for some mysterious reason they sell thousands and thousands of these things; they move faster than free beer.

I have spent quite a chunk of change buying several examples of these old-school performance car coils and designing an ignition system to optimize them on an old bike. All this work was based on various vintage performance write ups in old mags, etc. When it all boils down to it, this style of coil must have been built better back in the day, because my personal experience with several different brands is a greater than 50% failure rate.

Time to break down and buy a few sets of epoxy-filled modern coils. I have been emotionally invested in the aesthetics of these old-style car coils. I guess when the need arises, everything changes. ....I wonder if I can open up one of my chrome canister coils, gut it, and install a modern epoxy coil in the shell so it looks the way that I like.... What a silly idea.

peace and grease,
fang

go to a scrap yard and pick up some. I am running a mid/ late 90's dodge coils on my 76 dodge truck with a gm hei system. you would like your car system your using need one for every cylinder where your not using a distributer.

Two words for you, my man: Bosch GT40R. Best coil I've ever used, apart from the new Hemi Performance Stage II fella I've got in my Valiant now (88,000v!!!). They're quite popular down here in Australia and a lot of people use them with no worries - certainly never heard of one failing. I had mine for several years and 25,000km without problems, only reason I upgraded was because the upgrade was a present. They also manufacture the HEI type of coils as Basement mentioned.



Sorry about this huge plug for Bosh stuff, but it really does work. And yeah, I'm sure you could gut the old-style coil and have a crack at installing the new one in there. If that doesn't work, try putting it inside a beer can and slapping a label on the side.

But seriously, Bosh rules ;D 8)

Cheers, and love your ignition setup - boingk

Thanks for the feedback. I have been building bikes for more than 20 years, but only recently have I really made a big push to use these old car coils, so I was stumbling over a bit of a learning curve there. Yamaha RD350s' coils are somewhat notoriously bad, and their failure is what inspired the effort. I am looking for a 5 ohm coil, possibly something like that very fine Bosch GT40rt. A 3ohm set probably would also work just fine for me -- but those 1.3ohm coils are too hot for my bike's exciting charging system, and they tend to suck the battery dead.


The first post was mostly tossed out there in a state of shock that ACCEL's own techs were dissing their own product!

I thought I would just snatch a cheap used set of used 5ohm Dynas off evilBay and call it a day. I will have to see if those Bosch coils are price comparable.

peace and grease,
-fang


P.S. On a side note, I used to post here a little. I am building some neat cafe bikes right now, and a friend was encouraging me to invest a little into this community and toss some build pics your way.

ACCEL's own techs were dissing their own product!

Click to expand...

I was surprised at that, but really do appreciate it when they give you the whole picture! Interesting, isn't it?

As for the price of the Bosch items, over here they're around $40 Australian. That'd equate to...what...a straight conversion to $35 US dollars? Possibly a bit less due to you guys having a market size many times ours.

Good to see you're going to share what you're doing...I was just thinking from your signature picture that I've seen your bike before. This isn't you is it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH9wt6USU8g

- boingk

Oh yeah. Hey! That's one of my old bikes. I built that from a junker, and eventually sold it. It was a really fun little screaming 1970 Suzuki T350 2-stroke.

any oil filled coil needs to be mounted upright or it will fail pretty rapid from lcalised overheating(I thought everyone knew that?)
I've used real cheap ones and Bosch 'blue coil' off VW Beetles on various Honda's, Triumph's , etc.
Maybe I've been lucky but I've never had a failure.

PJ

Thanks PJ -- good to see you by the way. I asked the Accel guy about that. He said that the main problem with mounting them sideways is that they are prone to leak the oil and then over heat.... Either way, I am ditching the coils.

-fang