I'm working on a friends motor that would not idle, upon taking the cover off I first saw that the #2 and 3 spark plug wires were loose so I reconnected them and still had the idle issue. I removed the carbs and cleaned them and finally got motor to idle although it is VERY rough.

On further inspection it seems I can remove #2 and 3 spark plug wires (yes, both!) with no change in idle. When I slowly pull the wire out I do not hear the "pop" of the spark in the boot. I swapped the coil and wires between the upper and lower coil and still have the #2 and #3 issue. So at that point I believed I had a CDI issue (ouch!) However when I hooked the DVA meter to the input of both coils I get 208 volts dva like the CDI is driving the coil correctly.

So needless to say I am now totally confused, if it was a coil swapping them should have moved the problem to 1 and 4. If it did not move it would be a CDI issue.

Could the plug wires being disconnected have hosed the CDI coil drive? Hopefully someone out there with more experience on this motor can point me in the right direction without my gambling my friends money on a $400 CDI unit.

Thanks in advance for any help on this!

Art

When doing the CDI output voltage test leave wires connected to ignition coils(loaded test) and check with spark tester to see what air gap each cylinder will will fire. If loaded voltage test are good and spark is not good then test resistance of coils and ground connections of coils.

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