4 stroke coil wires

[1purepiney]

I have a 97 ezgo. Does it matter which terminal on the coil the white and red wires go on.I disconnected them to change out coil.got side tracked and can't remember which color went where. I believe the red went towards the front of cart but I don't want to fry anything.Thanks

[scottyb]

All these coils just use a + and a - to create a magnetic field which draws the contact up into the big terminals and completes the circuit. So it doesn't matter which side of the activation is + or - so long as there are no +&- on the same post.

Hope this helps

[worqhors]

Either one should start your cart. But the one that is connected to the solenoid will give you optimum result.

[worqhors]

Let me clarify. The wire connected to the solenoid should be connected to the + of the coil for optimum voltage.

[Dave Box]

Scotty is correct that an ac device does not care about polarity but somewhat unbelievably the spark plugs do care which way the electrons are flowing in the high tension circuit. Bear with me people this is going to get deep.
The spark plug has a thermally insulated center electrode (surrounded by ceramic). With engine running the center electrode runs substantially hotter than the exposed end electrode. Design of the ceramic insulator determines how hot the center electrode will run, leading to the designation of hotter or colder spark plugs. As electrons go, they love to jump away from a hot surface and fly toward a colder surface, so it is easier to drive them from hot to cold rather than from cold to hot. End result is a difference of 15 to 30 percent in voltage required to make spark "initially" jump the gap on the plug depending on which way it is going. So the spark plug prefers to see a voltage potential that is negative on the center electrode and positive on the end electrode for the very first hop of the spark. Oddly enough, this has nothing to do with polarity of the vehicle electrical system, but it is influenced by the common connection inside the ignition coil.

So how do we know which way to connect the ignition coil for best results? Original production coils were generally marked on the primary terminals "SW" for Switch and "CB" for Contact Breaker. Later issue ignition coils are marked "+" and "-" on the primary terminals. These are more no-brainers, as you only need to match the terminal markings to the battery posts. For positive ground the "+" terminal goes to the distributor (to be grounded on the engine block). For negative ground the "-" terminal goes to the distributor (to be grounded on the engine block).

If you are still skeptical about all this, there is a quick way to check directly which way the current is flowing in the high tension circuit. Disconnect a spark wire from a spark plug (or the coil wire from the distributor cap). Hold this HT wire near a grounding point (or near the connector end of a spark plug), and position the tip of a graphite pencil in between. When you crank the engine (no need to start or run) you can observe the resulting spark jump between wire and pencil, and between pencil and ground (or spark plug). A flare (hard to see) toward the plug (or ground) shows correct polarity while a flare toward the coil shows reversed polarity. If the flare goes toward the coil, just switch the primary wires on the coil and make note of the connections for future reference.

Dave

[worqhors]

The issue with factory-made harness is that it is not easy to follow the connections (wires are tightly wrapped). Since I wire the carts I work on from scratch, I find it very simple to trace connections. The wire from the ignitor is connected to the - of the coil. The wire from the ignitor that goes to the solenoid then goes to the ignitor should be connected to the coil +.