Electronic Ignition

My son recently purchased a 1980 xs 400 which was converted into a cafe racer. The bike was firing wildly and would backfire, misfire or not fire at all. The bike had the original TCI -transistor controlled ignition. Through a variety of trials and with a timing light. I determined the the TCI unit was bad. These TCI units are no longer produced and I didn't want to spend $100 on a used 30 year old electronic unit. Doing some investigation I determined that the 1980 and 1981 xs 400 is the Same basic engine with only the mechanical advance unit and points being the being the differences between the Pre1980 and post 1980 bikes. The engine cases and cams are identical up to production of the DOHC engine in 1982. I discovered that by adding a mechanical advance unit from a early bike (eBay) the Pamco unit can be easily added and wired into the existing system. The entire TCI, coil pickup and rotor is replaced. I was able to wire the new Pamco unit into the existing wiring harness used for the TCI. The bike now has a super strong spark and fires up instantly. I adjusted the timing and the total advance is right on the money. The bike pulls strong and has absolutely no misfiring issues. So, if you have problems with a TCI equipped bike, get an early mechanical advance unit with the Pamco unit and this will fix all of the TCi related ignition issues. The wiring is quite easy and straight forward. I kept the original coils. I also discovered that one of the spark plug caps was bad, so we replaced both. We have now put several hundred miles on the bike in the last 2 weekends with no issues. I wanted to post this as I did quite a bit of research on this looking for an alternative for the TCI with very little luck.

I have a 80 XS400 Special II and I had been desperately looking for this answer. I didn't know if these electronic ignition kits replaced that damn ignition control box. Glad to hear it does.
 
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