You rang?

I'm here, I'm here...

Well... First of all, Sorry Jack Flash... But I have to call bullshit on the "correct voltage" through resistance in the wiring... A stock wiring harness on any bike 80-present, is a mess of least cost solutions, that doesn't include much forethought at all... In a perfect world, what you say is true... In the world of big business, the almighty dollar is king...

There are wires feeding multiple parts, just spliced together with a simple crimp over three-four-five wires, where the simplest calculation ever will tell you that you are in fact creating a hot spot by doing that, since the one wire feeding it all is barely able to supple the wattage needed without catching fire...

For example an automotive headlight bulb like the H4 used on the Superhawk, should be run at a voltage between 13.2 and 14.2 Volts for greatest efficiency and light output vs lifespan. But on a stock harness, with me doing my best to chase down any imperfections, corrosion or whatever, i simply couldn't feed enough through the harness to get that voltage, no matter what... I had a voltage drop of nearly 2.5 V over the wiring to the bulb from the battery and R/R... And that is simply not normal...

Ie, in effect, the R/R and battery should need to supply ~16V to even push the bulb up to spec... And at that point, the ECU would be on the limit of frying, as it is spec'ed to work from 12-15.5V, and on a better path... (Normal operating voltage is supposed to be 13.2-13.8 or 13.5 +/- 0.3V, and the ECU should work on a wider "safe" range...)

Will you get more horsepower fiddling with your wiring harness? I highly doubt it...

But is it completely safe to beef up the ground side of the wiring... There is no possibility of damage what-so-ever from over voltage or otherwise... On the live side of the wiring, there is a small possibility of doing damage if you just go about it nilly-*****, but it's about the same as winning the lottery...
Most likely you will gain about as much from getting the correct gauge on some path's as you loose on others by over sizing the wire and inducing resistance that way...

As a Summary... Even though you won't gain HP, it is entirely possible to free up some horses you should have if you combine a few things...

One, go through the ground circuits... Beef them up, but most importantly clean any terminals, remove corrosion, and then seal them with the proper grease for protecting electric components....

Two, run a relay harness to the headlight to give it the correct voltage, and remove that large load from the rest of the system, which then becomes a whole lot better balanced...

Three, upgrade the R/R and the wiring to it... A mosfet R/R isn't just more reliable than the stock R/R... It's also more stable, feeding the correct voltage at a larger span of input voltage and surrounding temperature, making everything in your bike's electronic system from bulbs, to ECU live longer...

Four, swap the archaic ignition coils for stick on coils, see the other threads for details on this mod...

If you do ALL of these things... In order of importance from the top... Then, you will definitely see a cleaner spark and better combustion than before... And, unless your bike was in absolute showroom condition to begin with, odds are you will have gained a few horses, albeit barely measurable on a dyno...

I did that, and i could barely see a measurable, repeatable difference on the dyno... But then again, I'm fairly sure my coils and the plug wires on them was in less than tip-top condition at the time, since my bike had gone from starting easily to being a bitch to start, and running rough, which was my reason for doing it in the first place...

Taken from a .pdf file on Hella's site...

 

I would agree with Tweety. Im not trained in sparky stuff so will bow to other that will know way more than I.

But from what I know from the headlights I figured this may work. And it does. As Tweety said and I said its not going to find heaps. But my bike just starts and runs a little better for it. And for what? A bit of wire and some connectors.

These bikes are not showroom fresh. Going through the wiring and cleaning earths etc can only help.

 

Pulled the ICU to ID the terminal used, JAE MX23 Female Terminal. Plan was to extract the stock ground wire and splice it into a new heavier gauge wire run directly to the battery. While I had things opened up I measured the resistance of the stock ground wire from the connector to the battery, to a clean point on the frame, engine and to the ground to the body of the R/R. I had the same results at each point ~.8 ohms. This project is on hold till I finish some other more important projects. Not saying someone shouldn't do this, as in it's not worth it, but I'm going to hold off. My bike is corrosion free everywhere I've wrenched on it. Maybe one of the advantages of living where water, when it does happen, disappears before your eyes.

 

Anyone else have any updates on their doing this? It's fun reading the stories about new ideas and the results!!

James