Very interesting, Terry. Was there an ohms test for your ignition pulse generators? Mine are supposed to be between 316-365 ohms, and measure about 400. No test for the factory ignition modules. The manual just says to replace if the timing is off, and mine is slightly off for two cylinders at least. (this bike is so tightly packed together, I can only get the inductive pickup for my timing light on to one spark plug wire) I'd b happy to swap these parts if it would save me from having to unnecessarily pull the carbs again, but there is basically no parts available for this thing. The guys over at VFRDiscussion are urging me to pull the valve covers for a cam and valve train inspection and to set valve clearances anyway. Probably better do that! Thanks Terry.
G'Day Sean, sorry mate, I don't know if there was an Ohms test for the CX, I just described the issue to the "Guru's" on the CX500 site and they all said the same thing, I had a duff stator and on the early CX500's the stator also looks after the ignition, so commonly the ignition part of the stator would fail, while the battery charging part would still work fine.
The "Black box" that I bought from one of their guru's took power from the battery and bypassed the stator, which was great for me, because the only other fix was to drop the engine to remove and replace the stator. I'll probably have to buy another one for the 1979 CX500 that I'm slowly building into a "Bobber" for my son as it's displaying the same problems.
Honda should have fixed the issue by 1986 though, as the >1982 CX500's got a whole new ignition, which was supposed to be pretty good? Have you done a compression test on the cylinder that's not firing? Cheers, Terry.
