Polaris Ignition System Here is a little article i wrote to help techs in the feild.

some of the tes ts you might not want to do if you are not comfortable with electronics. these t ests i came up with over the years and just make life easier. please perform all tests as outlined in polaris service manual as well. this is not a short cut bu t a way to double check your findings. if you guys like this one i will write mo re. any questions please ask. Jay PVL IGNTIONS EXPLAINED By Jason Lorenz(Jay) Ok I see a lot of people with no spark problems with Polaris domestic carb e ngines. I hope that this will help all of you who have lost the spark in your pw c relationship!! Here we go: The ignition that you have in your boat is a PVL that is made in Germany. It is one of the best performance ignitions out there for most power sports applic ations. It is a true digital ignition. Polaris has always been a performance ori ented company always trying to lead the industry in all it has produced. That be ing said, they contacted PVL ignitions to make them a system for their watercraf t. The first system was used in a production boat in 1996 on the hurricanes, sl/ slt 700, SL 900, sltx 1050. These first few years would be tough and needed some revised parts. There are a few ways to identify your current PVL ignition in yo ur machine. First is the cdi. This is your black box that is in your electrical box. It tells the coils when to fire and for how long to saturate the primary side of th e ignition coil. It can be one of three boxes. The first being the red podded (c olor of epoxy where the wires come out) box with a com port. This was found on v ery early boats and if you have one in your boat you should upgrade when you get the chance. It will fail you sometime in its life. The second generation box is red podded with a com port nest to where the wires come out. This is programabl e/adjustable. Better but not the best. The third is the current black podded wit h a com port this is the best cdi ever produced. These rarely have any problems. This is the toughest part of the ignition system. Over the years, I have had on ly 6 bad boxes that are black podded. Most of them were other than spark problem s (won't crank over, will not hold a steady timing degree, etc...) Stators are the weakest link in this system. They fail often. The latest ver sion is the best version and the life out of one of these is great. The earlier stators did some crazy things. Early stators are easily identified by the plug e nds and the white insulation around the trigger coils. If you have one of these, better get a new one, It will fail you soon. They do things like limit a boat t o 3000-4000 rpm, no spark, jump timing, drain batteries, etc... Stators currentl y have four versions. There is a twin with an 8 pin plug and one with multi-conn ectors. Same with the triples one with an 8 pin plug and one with multi-connecto rs. You can use either twin or any twin and either triples on any triple. Differ ence is that plug. Now here is the nice part. If you have a stator with a multi plug you can get yourself an adapter that allows you to use the 8 pin stator and it makes for a faster job. You just plug in all your connections in the box and the connector stays out side the box. This leaves you with a nice, easy engine removal and stator change s. Now you can only use this stator if you have upgraded your ignition system be cause the wiring is different. The nice thing is that you can just order a stato r for a newer boat and not waste the money on the stuff you don't need. Below ar e the part numbers for the connectors.

When you use these connectors you must order this stator. 4010170 triple, 40 10172 twins. Connectors come with the rubber packing in them for the electrical box. Like I said, you had to have upgraded the ignition before. If you are not s ure if you have an upgraded ignition check the stator as mentioned above also ch eck the cdi as well also mention in above paragraph. What makes the stators go bad do you ask? well here it is as I have found th rough the years: battery voltage spike(charging battery when in craft with too h igh of a amperage charger not having the battery isolated(disconnected),jump sta rting craft with a car running or jump box, battery connection arcing from loose connections(grounds, post connections)pour grounding of stator(i.e. corrosion/e arly stator poor design), over revving engine(spinning a modded engine over 7600 rpm they will not last long at all) they lose the ability to ground properly/di ssipate heat and a lot of heat(heat makes the resistance higher and makes it har d to get a good ground) making a lot of heat is from the electricity made from t he stator and cannot dissipate the heat fast enough through the aluminum stator plate and flywheel housing(this is why the fuel injected models with the big sta tors need to run water through the front housing to cool off the aluminum so tha t the stator does not burn up). this mod can be done easily and pretty cheap(dep ending on you model of boat). I do it all the time to modded boats and it works very well. these are the most common causes of failure. and of course the obviou s just plain went bad. Most of you reading this are like D@#n I did that. it's o k life is a lesson and every day we learn something new. I know I learn everyday ! Coils are tough units. As in all applications, Pwc, ATV, Motorcycles & Cars, these rarely fail. There are a few times when they do, but, it s not usually the case. The triples do not get an updated coil when getting an ignition upgrade ki t. I think I have seen maybe 5 bad coils in Polaris pvl ignitions for the triple s. There is a newer version of the coils red podded being older and black podded newer version with sockets for the high tension leads (spark plug wires). Both are very good units. The 700 twins got new coils/wires with there kits. This was needed for the 700's. The newer version has sockets for the high tension leads and has wings to lie in the electrical box. Ok, so know you are armed with the major components of this system. There ar e a few other things in it but that will be for later. So let s start!!!!!! You have no spark! Grab a multi-meter (if you don't have one you can get them anywhere starting about 30.00 and will help you out in the long run with many things on your pwc. Do you have a good battery? Must be fully charged and be at least 10.6 vdc w hile cranking your unit (measured at battery). A bad battery will drive even the best techs nuts. Charge and load check them when you have a no spark condition. Make sure they have fluid in them or they will die like us. . Usually you will see a spark when you let off the start button if the battery is weak. The battery plays a big part because it is a digital ignition and needs batt ery voltage to fire the coil and run the diodes, capicators, and micro-processor s in the cdi box. Hey you computer will not work if you do not have it plugged i nto a good working outlet. Ok battery good next step. Please get a service manual before going any further. You must check the sta tor and other ignition components for good continuity. Some of the reading that you are going to get from the stator might not be exactly as mentioned in the se rvice manual. so here are some of the tests that I have come up with. Now this i s a guide and not a how to so you must understand all of the components in your system. Not mentioned here is the LR module that later boats had to use the same

button to start and stop unit as well as run the bilge pump. That is clearly ou tlined in the service manual and please make sure that you have a good LR module before going on as well. Check all your connections at battery and engine grounds through the box and check you terminal board in you electrical box and see if they are corroded. Al so check the terminals on the board. Move them and see if any are loose. You als o need to check the back of the board and make sure it is not all corroded and h as dielectric grease on the back. This helps the corrosion factor and keeps mois ture out (we are using these on water) LOL. This can be done with a meter on the ohms scale and or the vdc (volts d.c.) to measure voltage drop. you should not have any more than 1 ohm and no more than .5vdc drop on any given wire/circuit. please check ground at engine block and to electrical box as well. all good in t here next step. while you are in there disconnect the black/yellow wires at the terminal boa rd (this is your shut off/kill circuit). it takes it out of the equation. still no spark, hook this back up so that if it starts you can shut it off. disconnect the grey wire going to the cdi box (this is the limiter and somet ime if you have a bad cdi will ground out and not cause any spark. you can leave this unplugged. Ok now check for 12 volts on your red purple wire going to the cdi box. If y ou do not start back tracking on the wire that splits off and goes to the circui t s breakers that are know for corroding. Check for voltage drop across the circui t breaker as well as an ohms test. You are looking again for no more than .5 vdc drop and no more than 1.0 ohm of resistance. You should have battery voltage on this wire. This is the wire that feed the cdi with power. If you have power tha n move on and reconnect the red/purple back to cdi and other places that you mig ht have disconnected. Now unplug the brown wire at the cdi box. This is your feed to the stator th at will supply voltage to the trigger coils. Now with your meter on volts dc put the black to engine ground and red to the brown wire coming out of the cdi box. Make sure that you are on the right wire here you want the one coming out of th e cdi box. Crank the engine over and you should see 7-9 vdc. If you do than your cdi is putting voltage out to the stator. Chances are here that the stator is b ad. Do the next check to reconfirm these findings as well. Now with that same brown wire disconnected at the cdi box do the following. Find the wire going to the stator (again make sure you have the right wire). Get yourself a 9 volt battery. Then put the negative side of the 9 volt battery the engine ground and the positive to the brown wire going to the stator. Crank eng ine over and see if you have spark. If you do than you have a bad cdi box. If yo u do not you have a bad stator. Last edited by CrazyA; 08-22-2006 at 03:45 PM.