I've been chasing some gremlins on my ATC 330R for about a year. It was strange because this was a freshly built motor with low hours on it. My trike would ride fine for 15-20 minutes then all of sudden would nearly shut down, cough, sputter, and not kick over. That really sucks when your hauling ass and out in the middle of the dunes miles form camp. If I restarted it and rode for a little while it was fine then would act up all over again. This went on for almost a year because I have 4 different duners and when it would act up I would just park it, and troubleshoot it later.
Originally I thought I had a carb/reed/jetting/air leak problem and have tried every jetting combo under the sun. Changes carbs, reeds, domes, etc. Sometimes the problem was solved for the moment but then it would come back a little while later.
Finally on a November dune trip it started looking deeper into the electrical and took a look at the stator and found that the flywheel was chaffing the pick-up wire. The wire was nearly severed and was rubbing on the flywheel. So I took it apart while out in the dunes, re-wrapped and routed the wires and it held up for the rest of the weekend. My atc was running as good as it ever had, and had fun ripping it up in the dunes.
About a week ago I went back out to the dunes this time bringing a spare CR 250 ignition setup I had "just in case". I was planning on swapping over anyway but prefer not to work on bikes in the sand if I can help it, but brought the extra ignition setup the event the atc acted up again, I would change out the ignition in the dunes. Well, I started having issues again and began the swap over after a dune ride. I didn't have all the right fasteners or wiring with me, but I rigged it up with some innovative thinking between myself and FatireCrash and devised a home-made coil bracket mounted to the head stay bolt. Kicked her over and she started up 2nd kick.
Now what is interesting is that I literally rode the atc back to back with the OEM vs. new CR ignitions. My atc was running as good as it ever has with the fixed OEM ignition, but I have to say the CR ignition has made the trike insanely fun now. The snap and acceleration is unbelievable. Being able to compare back to back really shows the difference. I let FatireCrash ride the trike and think he might have left some skid marks in his pants...
Anyway, I noticed the roll-on acceleration is the main difference. The front end is coming up in much easier especially when hammering through the big bowls in 4th or 5th. There's a trade off in the fact that the lighter flywheel might lose a little on the top end on the big monster dunes, but riding fun factor is increased. The funny thing is that I installed an 01 CR ignition on my TRX350R but the trike set up seems to hit even harder, maybe due to lighter weight. Anyway - just passing on real world experience, SOTP testing, and amplified fun factor.
