Coil woes...?

[markbvt]

Strange thing yesterday... my Bonneville simply refused to start.

It's always been difficult to start when cold, more so after uncorking the exhaust and airbox, but it seems to have gotten worse over the past couple years.

I got the Bonnie out of winter storage two weeks ago; it started with a little effort, and I took it out for several rides. Then it started raining and the Bonnie sat until I tried to start it yesterday. It sputtered a few times early on, then just cranked away without so much as a cough. I took my V-Strom for a ride instead, then when I got home tried again to start the Bonnie. Once again, no luck. And it was plenty warm enough out that normally it wouldn't have given me a hard time. Testing plugs for spark confirmed that spark was exceedingly weak or nonexistent (on both sides).

So today I began testing components with a multimeter. Coil primary winding resistance is supposed to be ~6 ohms; measured at 8-9 ohms. And spark plug cap resistance is supposed to be 5 K-ohms; measured at 5.5. Not too concerned about that, but the coil resistance is obviously way off.

Any electrical experts care to weigh in? I'm assuming that a coil with too much primary winding resistance would produce a weak spark... or is there something counterintuitive about this? If I'm off base, then what would be the expected result of having the resistance be 35-50% higher than spec?

Thanks in advance... definitely interested in hearing some opinions before I shell out the money for a Nology coil and wires. (Sure would be nice though if those replacements would allow me to start my Bonnie again when it's cold out...)

--mark

[Stromper]

Usually you get a low reading or open for bad coils as a burnt one shorts between coils

Higher resistance to me means a bad connection

Get a high power coil

If you were gutsy plus cheap try the one from the Vstrom