At my wits end with this. My 03 500 HO has no spark. went though all the OHM test and had to replace the pulse coil and stator assy due to shorts to ground in the stator. Coil checks good swapped the CDI with a known good one. Pulled the black wire from the CDI to the kill circuit. I don't have the book but I have a wiring diagram thats for an 04. My problem seems to be that I'm not getting any 12 volt feed to the primary (white/blue wire) side of the coil. Is it possible that the Reg went bad and I am loosing the input to the CDI charge coils. I always thought the charge coils needed a 12 volt input source to create the output to supply the CDI.

 

Will it crank or at least have spark using the recoil starter? If the pickup coil is too far from the stator,you may not have spark using the electric starter,but may have using the recoil. Same thing that happened to this member.http://forums.atvconnection.com/pola...ml#post3155476 rather than using a wiring schematic off a different year model,get the cheap 5 buck manual that goes deeper into ignition tests. 2003 Polaris Sportsman 500 Service Manual PDF Download

 

Haven't tried the pull start method and my gap appears to be within spec.
Also I never have or get any voltage on the red wire at the CDI plug.

 

Confusing this with the later model dci igniton systems. This is a magneto triggered ignition system.Red and red/black(or Green) are the exciter coil wires and lead directly from the stator to the cdi. Get the manual as it shows what the ohms resistance are between these two wires.Can't remember off hand but some of the older ones showed somewhere around 440 ohms or so. If out of spec that can be the problem even if it's a new stator. If within specs then it could be a faulty cdi if the pick up coil white and white/red show correctly at 97 ohms also.And yes a faulty regulator can cause spikes and take out a cdi also. Trouble shooting guides and checks for it and the charging system are also in the manual.

 

Old Polaris Tech, Thanks for your help. Everything was in spec and I took another look and it turned out it was the spacing on the pulse coil. It was just a tad off and not having any real adjustment on the bracket itself I had to oblong the holes a bit to get the proper gap between the flywheel and the coil itself. It started right up. Yes I agree that this is a strange system in how the CDI pulses the positive to the coil and the coil is body grounded. In all my years working on bikes from points and carburators to ECU's and fuel injection I can't remember a system with a body grounded coil unless it was an older mid 60's bike or moped with a magneto. Even then most coil primaries were fed by a points fed ground. Can't believe such a small difference in the pulse gap was the issue. Thanks so much for all your help. Have a great weekend. Also after hooking up the black wire to the CDI from the Key, Red switch and the throttle lever I had a shorted switch in the throttle. Repaired that and we are all good now.

 

Excessive pick up coil gap was a common problem on machines as they got older or ones that had a recoil rope break and would knock the pick up coil bracket outward. Plus a lot of newer stator assemblies coil bracket is set out too far to begin with. This is an old type ignition system similar to the 60s and 70s machines. You can basically crank one up with the recoil starter with a dead or no battery. Not advisable as it can pop bulbs and on rare occasions knock out a cdi from voltage spikes. Voltage has to go somewhere and if the battery can't take it,it takes the path of least resistance which are the bulbs.The battery is mainly for the starter,lights,fan and regulator. Also on the throttle housing thumb lever make sure the slack on it is no more than 1/8" max or the etc contacts can touch and kill the machine at an idle.A lot of people over look that one also. Glad it was a simple fix.