FZRSupport: the FZROnline Archive

Hi everyone, I'm new here from Maine, USA. I've got a '94 600 streetfighter, and a few weeks ago I had my old candy-bar style voltage regulator burn out on me, so I ordered the newer style with the heat sinks and 6 pins (not 5). I've wired it up with the three phase wires along the bottom pin, the top left pin as the positive, and the top right pin as the negative/ground. The top middle pin I've left open, as I found on multiple forums. However, the new reg doesn't seem to be doing it's job; it's overcharging. It'll start about 12.5, then slowly climb to 15+ at an idle, with a rev I can get it to 16-17 volts DC. I've check the regs diodes and they all check out fine, checked the stator, checked my wiring connectors and my grounds, they all look fine.
Yesterday after a long day of trying everything I can think of, it somehow started to not overcharge. The voltage stayed between 12.5-13.5vdc even when revving, so I took it for a spin, worked fine. Then this morning, I tried again and the old problem is back! Overcharging big time. I've considered that the regulator I purchased is defective, but why would it have given me that window yesterday when it didn't overcharge? I've been at this problem for about 4 days now, I'm completely out of ideas, any help will be greatly appreciated!!

Check the Pinout for the new VR and compare to the Pinout of the old one (both are in the servcie-manuals of the related Models, old one in FZR 600, new one in YZF600 Service Manual )..i guess there might be a Battery-Sense line (probably the left-over middle-pin) at the new Version which wasn't available at the old-style VR which then should be connected to the Battery-Pluspole,too, because this is the wire which is used to check the chargingstate of the battery and so this will be the key to regulate down the voltage depending on the chargingstate...

Where do you have the ground pin connected? In the instructions for my adaptors, I recommend running the ground wire (36" of 12ga) back to the engine cases. Grounding it to the subframe just keeps the problem of a bad ground path, which is probably killed the old one.

I have tried a few different ground paths, including directly to the battery negative terminal which is grounded to the engine case. I haven't directly ran a wire from the ground pin on the regulator to the engine case, bypassing the battery, because the ground is nice and clean so I figured it wouldn't make much difference. But I can give it a shot, I'm willing to try anything right about now!

So I've been checking and rechecking everything electrical on this bike, and I've checked the ignition coils. On the primary side I'm getting 2.2 ohms on both, on the other side getting no reading whatsoever, on any of the wires. Can a bad coil pack lead to this charging problem, or be related with the voltage regulator that burned up? Also, keep in mind the bike runs decently minus the charging issue, so am I doing something wrong in my test, or can a bike with zero resistance on the spark side of both coils still run? There's no cracks or anything on the coil bodies, and they look alright from a visual standpoint. I can't help but feel like the zero reading is operator error, but I understand electricity and have tried a few different ways... I'm so over this problem!

2,2 Ohm are correct for the primary coils (the "Entrance-Coils", connected to the TCI)...the secondary Coils (the "Exit Coils" which are connected to the Sparkplugs) should have around 9,6 to 14,4 kiloOhm measured between the two exiting ignitioncables.
If the Bike is nevertheless running you probably missed the copperwire inside with the measurement-peaks? With a short-circuited Coilpack you wouldn't have any Sparks and so no ignition at all, so i guess it was a faulty measurement and not faulty coilpacks
If the Coilpacks would be wide out of their specs you would have weak spoarks and the motor running like a bag of nuts if it would run at all...
Did you check the Pinout for the 6th Pin of your new VR?
If its the Battery-Sense Pin (which some regulators definitely have separately and some others even not) then just connect it to Battery-Pluspole and the charging Voltagerangeproblem should be eleminated...just because this Line would get the info about the Batteries state with help of the Voltagediffernces between the actual internal voltage of the regulator and the actual real one from the battery and then would be able to adjust the chargingvoltage to the chargingstate of the battery (where the real actual voltage of the battery is an indicator for)..

I figured the test on the coils was on my error as the bike still fires right up no problem. By "pinout" do you mean the order the pins are supposed to be wired? I'm in contact with the company that sold me the regulator, and they are quite slow in returning emails, go figure. So I haven't had their recommendation on the wiring yet, but I've found numerous threads all over the place that have it wired the same. I tried your idea of using the middle pin to the positive terminal to see if it's a voltage sensing line, and there was no difference unfortunately. It still starts out at about 13.5 volts, then starts to build voltage slowly until around 15+ when I kill it, and that's just at idle. With some slight revving it'll get 16+ VDC easily.

Do you have a charger with overcharging-protection for charging the battery at home? I have for example a CTEK MXS 5.0 which shows me if the Battery has a defect or not at the end of charging process.
Maybe a possibility to check if the battery itself is still ok, just because a defective battery could force a VR to try higher voltages than normal because the charging doesn't stop properly if the cells of the battery are defective...
And yes, i thought about the "Layout" of the circuit and the resulting signals at the pins (or better the wiring of the circuit and the naming of the signals and their place in the pin-matrix at the plug)...i use a VR selled by a company named "Shinyo" in my FZR 400 which has usually the same as the FZR 600 (it was installed at the yamaha-dealers garage just before re-registering the bike here in Germany, they put new tires on the bike and changed the forksprings for me,parts for which i din't have the tools to do it myself and i bought the new VR there,they didn't put the VRs installation on the bill due to the other billed jobs the'd done so far for me at this time ) and i know it has an manual made adaptor for fitting to the wireloom, guess the same adaptorwiring as usually used for VRs from "Barth" who are often used as aftermakret VRs here in Germany.
The Barth Regulators for example have a Battery-Sense pin which then is mostly directly connected to the usual Battery-Plus wire just bridged inside the adaptor instead of drawing an additional wire to the Battery (electrical thats the same result as with a separate wire to the same Batterypole)...perhaps i should take a photo of the adaptor in the next days and redraw a wiring schematic for rebuilding it

But first i will have to cure my broken collarbone and shoulderblade, which was a result of an unlucky Braking-Accident last weekend of August, some steps forward, because its a bit difficult to unmount the fairingparts with just one usable hand actually. It just lacks a bit of strength and stability for holding things in my left hand untill more progress in curing...at least my ribs seem to be cured meanwhile and the bike didn't get to much defectives, just waiting for me to get the left lower fairing and some scratches on the motorcover fixed again (The motorbike was just slightly damaged, driver was definitely more defective )

Sorry to hear about the accident, Tomcat! Could have been worse though, consider yourself lucky. Good thing winter's coming to do any bike upgrades you've been mulling over .

I do not have a charger with overcharging protection, just a normal charger for 12 VDC, but I haven't had to put it on the battery yet because it holds its charge just fine. However a friend of mine who is quite mechanical mentioned that I might have the wrong size battery. He said the new voltage regulator might be made for a larger capacity battery. My bike is a 94, and I read somewhere that they changed the battery in '95, but I thought that was just the physical size of the battery sitting in the holder on the bike. My thinking was a 12 volt battery is a 12 volt battery, I didn't change the battery when I got the new style regulator. Am I wrong in this thinking? I brought the battery I have to an auto parts store and they tested it at 100% life. I don't remember what the Cold Cranking Amps was. Can the Cold Cranking Amps affect the charging capacity of it and make a smaller battery overcharge?

And I checked the pin layout on different online forums many times, and tried a few different ways with the ground and the middle pin. I am STILL waiting on a reply from the company for their recommendation, but the more I chip away I'm beginning to accept that I bought a faulty regulator. Such a shame with the cold weather approaching. This is my first year riding and I don't want it to stop!