Hi everyone! I've got a 2000 sportster 883 that had a real effed up wire harness that I got from the last owner so I refit the bike with the Ultima Plus wire harness. I left the integral timing plate, voes, bank angle sensor and ignition coil with the stock pieces and harness. I'm having an issue with the bike starting now. It cranks, but it never turns over. I tested for spark, and it only sparks one time at the spark plug, on the initial press of the start button.

From what I can tell, the black/white ignition coil wire gets constant power from the ignition, once the bike is on. Please correct me if this is wrong. Then the power goes through that wire and also into the ignition control module where it splits to the voes, bank angle sensor, and pink ignition wire. (To the best of my knowledge this is a dual fire stock ignition system, so both spark plugs should be firing at the same time, one spark is wasted on each downstroke.) when I checked voltage at the harness, the timing plate is sending around 2-3 volts to the voes (via purple/white wire) and the bank angle sensor is taking 12 bolts from the ignition and sending 2-3 volts to the bank angle sensor via the green wire, when the bike is on but not running.

The ultima plus harness has one black/white wire that is supposed to connect to coil+, so I soldered that directly into the black/white wire that connects between the coil and the timing plate. I'm wondering if I should disconnect that wire and hook up the stock cool wire directly to the stock auxiliary ignition wire (red/black).

Any thoughts on this would be great. I've got the manual but it doesn't have any information about the correct standing voltage for voes and bank angle sensor, or if the low voltage is a sign of a bad ground. I welcome any ideas!

thanks,
erik

 

if the harness is a departure from stock, then you may have to post a drawing of it. first off, the voes does not have ignition power going through it to the module. the voes tells the module which timing curve to use based off manifold pressure. it receives a voltage from the module and if the voes is grounded, then the module runs a more aggressive curve and when not grounded, retards the timing and less aggressive curve.

without checking, power to bar sw, bas, coil and module. are you sure you are dual fire, look at the coil terminations. you def have things afoul. all voltages are 12vdc. bas and voes do not communicate.

 

not sure which harness you have so is it #18-533??

if so:
power on grey wire goes to the kill switch ,jumps power to starter switch at bar switch and goes back to box on black/red. power leaves bar switch on white/black back to box. here is where you can insert the BAS since power flows through it and if angle is exceeded, kills the circuit.
you can also insert the BAS in the white/black wire going to the coil and the same will happen.

there is no provision for VOES so that would stay factory. the ignition module has a wire that goes to the VOES that will be grounded or not according to position of vacuum switch.

 

I uploaded a picture of the ultima wire harness diagram. it is the 18-533. Thank you for your responses bustert. From what I can gather, the white/black coil+ wire from the ultima harness can be disregarded, and I can hook up the white/black wire straight to the ignition so that when the key is on, constant power goes from the ignition to the timing plate and to the coil primary terminal. I have my harness hooked up to the bike 100% identical to the image ive attached below. but for some reason the ignition system is only firing the spark plugs one time on the first initial push of the start button. So if I'm understanding what you're saying, i could hook up an auxillary wire directly to the BAS grey wire and the coil+ white/black wire? I currently have salvaged the old harness for the timing control module, and the BAS flows 12v from the grey wire into the green wire. The green wire feeds into the timing module, and I'm guessing sends pulses into the ignition coil at each TDC. So all I should need for the factory timing module, is 12v into the grey wire, and 12v into the white/black wire.

 

After looking at the 18-533 diagram, the hand control wires dont make a lot of sense. Does the kill switch have its own circuit inside the box? Kill pwr wire is grey and feeds both the start button and the kill switch, which means you can crank the engine without having the kill switch engaged.

 

i do not know what is in the box?? so logic of it is the ???
you do not need the BAS, i removed it from my 01 sport, did not want surprises when i lean it over in curves. since it is carb, it will not run very long if i spill it, fuel injection is diff and i suggest keeping it, probably why hd got away from the stand alone version.
the power to the bar follows stock logic. instead of having two wires for power, one is jumpered in the bar hsg. when you press the starter button, it only powers a low drain relay and that load is only as long as the button is down. the kill button controls power to the ign circuits.
that is true but stock logic is the starter control is also killed when the kill power is off.
i will have to look at the 2000 schematic to see what is what.
looking at what the print is, it would seem that power that goes to the coil goes to the ign module and is grounded so the coil can operate as in stock. will have to look but i think power also is jumped from that wire to the ign module to power it up, it should not have to pass through the coil, will jump back.

 

is this what you have???
https://i.imgur.com/l4YXUVd.jpg

 

i believe i forgot to add in a wire. the white black wire from ultima box (from kill switch) should be tied to the white black wire from ignition module, that way when you kill power at the switch it kills power on that wire also. i put the connector dot but did not draw wire.

 

it sounds to me like you are having more of a trigger issue,,,
when you turn the key on, one wire at the coil has 12 volts constant, the other wire is the trigger wire, which grounds the coil and sets up the spark event. remove both wires from the coil, figure out which one is constant and which one isn't. hook the constant back up. with the other wire removed from the coil, take your 12 volt test light and hook it to the POSITIVE terminal of the battery, touch it to a known good ground and make sure it lights up. when that is good, touch the test light to the removed coil primary wire and crank the engine. the test light should flash, indicating that the timer is supplying the ground to trigger the coil. if not you need a new pick up sensor, if so you are on to a different issue. these sensors fail due to heat usually. the write up takes longer than the test, but make sure that you have a good trigger signal, then move onto the control unit.
m