What is the risk of turning the engine with the kickstarter without the sparkplug in?

[Jacob Hansen]

Hi just a quick question.
Before i took my bike apart i just wanted to get a little 2 stroke oil around the cylinder and crankcase. So after dripping a few drops through the sparkplug hole i kicked it about 10 times. Now i`ve been reading some threads about problems with kicking your bike without the sparkplug in. Something about damage to the cdi unit and coils?? What is the risk of me doing any damage to either the cdi unit or coils, from kicking it about 10 times or so!?! :ohmy:
Its a ´03 Honda CR250R

Best regards.
Jacob

 

[Vic]

If you had the plug wire on the plug there should be no problem.

 

[CaptainObvious]

A kick or two will not be a problem. Just make sure nothing is near the hole otherwise you'll have FOD

 

[Jacob Hansen]

Thats the problem... i didnt have the sparkplug in the cap on the ignitionlead!! and i didnt press the kill-switch! and i did kick it about 10 times.. If i damaged the cdi unit or coils would it run at all? Or can you damage either of these things and the bike runs just like crap! :ugg:

Jacob

 

[RM_guy]

When ever I do a compression check I don't put the plug in the sparkplug cap and I've never had a problem. I've never heard of causing CDI or coil damage by kicking it over without the plug in the cap. If someone can show me it's a problem then I sure like to know.

 

[sick 96 250]

When ever I do a compression check I don't put the plug in the sparkplug cap and I've never had a problem. I've never heard of causing CDI or coil damage by kicking it over without the plug in the cap. If someone can show me it's a problem then I sure like to know.

Never heard of that either, have kicked several of bike bikes over without the plug in and hooked up and never had any problems. So if that is true that you can fry your cdi unit please let me know also.

 

[Micahdawg]

I submerged my 1997 RM250 in a lake. Part of the draining process was the bike upside down with no fluids, no pipe and no plug. I had it in 2nd gear and was spinning the tire as fast as I could to sling all of the water out of the cylinder. So that would be the equivalent of kicking the bike, "A WHOLE SH!+LOAD OF TIMES!"

The bike ran perfectly fine afterward with fresh fluids and plug.

Micah

 

[Brian]

Never heard of any such thing. If that were true, it would be harmful to try and start a bike with a fouled plug? Put your bike back together and fuhgetaboutit.

 

[reelrazor]

Never heard of any such thing. If that were true, it would be harmful to try and start a bike with a fouled plug? Put your bike back together and fuhgetaboutit.

No. A fouled plug still allows the spark energy to ground, that's the problem, the spark doesn't jump the gap it finds an easier path.

Letting the spark energy ground is the issue. When the wire is just left hanging, the spark energy cannot find a ground path so the charge in the capacitor/s in the ign module(Capacitor Discharge Ignition) does not get released. Capacitors fail due to heat and repeated cycles and are engineered to perform x number of cycles in their life. Not unloading the capacitor develops more heat and breaks down the element in the capacitor.

You will most likely get away with operating the ignition without a spark ground path if you are doing it occasionally. Some bikes will give you about thirty cycles and you are DONE-go buy an ignition. Some won't give you that(BMW's). Some are pretty indestructible.

No matter what, it is bad practice and if you do it long enough, and work on enough bikes you will eat a cdi or two.

 

[yamahonky]

Uh-Oh :ohmy: Whenever I flood the bike I take the plug out, disconnect the wire and push it around in second gear! I better stop. I never would have thought of that but it does make sense...

 

[Burtonridr250]

What about if you have the killswitch pushed in, and kick it without the plug attached to the plug cap? That would seem to be alright, wouldn't it?

 

[reelrazor]

What about if you have the killswitch pushed in, and kick it without the plug attached to the plug cap? That would seem to be alright, wouldn't it?

Yes. Again, it's all about getting the energy to ground. All a kill switch does grounds out the ignition.

Either put a plug in the boot and up against metal, or kill switch it and kick or push or whatever to your heart's content. It is cheap insurance to not operate(i.e. have the ignition enabled) while you are spinning the engine w/o a plug in it.

 

[jmics19067]

I thought the main purpose of grounding the ignition out during such times was only to prevent a fire hazard or shock from an errant spark. Usually all I do is just place/snap the spark plug cap over top of a head stud to keep the spark contained to a "safe place". never heard/ seen about causing ignition failures

 

[Camstyn]

I had a problem with my TM ignition, found out later from the TM factory that it was likely caused by kicking the bike over with the plug out and not having it grounded to anything.
I guess some bikes are more succeptable than others to this. My ignition (and all 2002's) was made by Ducati, they switched to Kokusan the next model year.

 

[jmics19067]

interesting thanks for the heads up

 

[RM_guy]

I thought about the grounding issue after I posted but didn't really dig into it. It makes sense so I supose it doesn't hurt to be on the safe side and keep the plug in the cap when I'm kicking it over. Funny that I've never seen that failure before...but I have a 1 or 2 CDI go bad on me...hmmm.

 

[Camstyn]

To be safe, not only keep the plug in the cap but make sure the plug is grounding to a bolt or something too, or at least that's what I was told.