A follow up to my post above. I ripped apart my 056 ignition's control section this afternoon. I do not think the fault with these things is related to the magnetics because I found the charging capacitor in this jewel of mine SHORTED! The value is 0.8 microfarad rated at 400 V. Tough to get at, had to remove all the potting material. This is the capacitor that stores the energy to transfer to the high voltage transformer via an SCR (thyristor). But it looks like the ignition system can also work as a magneto as others are successfully getting it to work with just a trigger module.
This would explain why others have had such great results changing just the control circuit. So today I ordered a Kawasaki 31-9334 which cost about $20 including shipping. I would reassemble the ignition I ripped apart to test it but I don't have many capacitors in my collection. If I find one before I build in the Kawasaki, I will give it a try. I am NOT going to mount it inside the existing ignition but rather somewhere where it is cooler and just run wires back to the transformer under the flywheel.
Back to today's find, the capacitor's physical size is interesting. It resembles a half drum sliced vertically with that length around an inch. It is about 075" wide and about 5/8" high. What makes these dimensions interesting is they are VERY small for the capacitance value while rated at 400 V. One way that can be done is to make it with a mylar dielectric. But if it is made using mylar, there is a major shortcoming at least for this particular application. Metal film Mylar that I have seen are only rated for 85 degrees C (185 degrees F). The control module is in a very hot environment so my guess is this part is the culprit and not the coils. But remember, I am sampling a quantity of one.
Just thought I would share what I found.
Foggy
