| Symptom |
| Engine was stopped suddenly on the highway and couldn’t restart. No fire was identified on the rear spark plug. |
| Cause of failure |
| Ignition system |
| Background |
|
Shortly before engine stopped, the following symptoms sometimes occurred.
-Engine speed can’t increase smoothly above 3,000 rpm.
-At 2,800 rpm or less, engine operates normally.
|
| Parts |
|
Cam position sensor, Ignition module：Altmann Micro Machines
|
| Comment |
The cam position sensor seemed to operate normally. So I assumed that the ignition module might be wrong.
I told the symptom to Charles Altmann (Altmann Micro Machines) by email and asked possibility of failure of his product.
Soon I got a reply from him.
He advised me to take a sniff of the module box. I did it and found the module box smelled bad.
He gently explained me the situation.
The high voltage current passing through the plug code always seeks and finds the place to discharge. Sometimes cylinder fins or wire harnesses around ignition coils could be the place.
This time, the high voltage current leaked from plug code discharged to the wire harness and it flooded into the ignition module.
As a result, the transistor in the ignition module was burnt.
A burnt transistor stinks.
I sent him some pictures that of around ignition coils.
He looked at them and told me that the clearance between plug codes and signal cables connected to the ignition module was too close. It should be wider to avoid unexpected discharging.
He also mentioned that the dual plug setup is not recommended because the second plug code is located between two push rods and the clearance between the plug code and push rod covers is so close.
This causes unexpected discharging easily.
There is another risk we should accept when running with dual plugs.
The high voltage current flows from the ignition coil to the first plug and then to the second plug via engine itself and returns to the coil following the same path.
Dyantek coil forms electric loop and these elements are connected each other with single road.
It means that the failure of one of these elements is the complete failure of the whole ignition system.
I understood what Mr. Altmann said in his email, however, I didn’t give up dual plugs.
I put Dyna-2000i into my FXR instead of AMM-P2 to get back on the road.
AMM-P2 has some good points. 3 rotary switches located on the side of ignition module box are ones of them. We can change ignition map easily and whenever we want even when we are running on the road. Someday in the future, I may try AMM-P2 again.
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