The Ignition System.

The ignition system consists of a series of components that create, and time the electric spark used to ignite the gas and air mixture in the cylinder during combustion. I knew that the only ignition system was to blame, and not the bikes entire electrical system because all other electrical functions continued to work after the bike losses spark. Electrical problem can be notoriously hard to diagnose and fix, which concerns me. The ignition system on most dirt bikes and sport quads consists of a stator coil, ignition coil, cdi box, and voltage regulator and kill switch.

sometimes a faulty kill switch can cause such problems however, the rest of the electric components functioned flawlessly, when spark was lost. if the kill switch was the problem, the bike would essentially just turn off, and nothing would work. 

My next suspicion was the stator coil, I had been talking with a Polaris mechanic and he said the problem might be the stator coil. the stator coil is a device mounted next to the flywheel, its turned by the motor, generating electricity for the spark, and charging the battery. On primitive motors the stator coil actually times the spark. Apparently the stator coil can crack over time, and still function properly when cold, however it will expand, and fail to generate electricity when hot. I was fairly confident that the stator coil was the problem, but then I learned something. Unlike kickstart quads and dirt bikes that don't have a battery, electric start machines use electricity  from the battery, not the stator to generate spark. This means that even if the stator failed, the bike would run until the battery died. However on my Polaris the battery is still fully charged when the machine dies.

Another potential culprit could be the CDI (capacitive discharge ignition) box. The CDI box is essentially the brain of the machine. It times the spark, determining exatly when the spark is created, CDI boxes stores electrical charge, before discharging it to the ignition coil, this causes the spark to be much more powerful. Sometimes when a CDI box becomes old it malfunctions, resulting in spark not reaching the spark plug.

The ignition coil is another potential part at fault. the ignition coil converts the 12 volts charge from the CDI box to a short powerful spark, peaking at up to 10,000 volts. The spark has to be extremely powerful because its very difficult for an electrical charge to ark across the spark plug gap while under the extreme heat and pressure of the cylinder.

 

Another part that could be causing the problem would be the wiring harness. The wiring harness is a bundle of wires from, every electrical component. The wiring harness contains all the wires keeping them compact and organized. The wiring harness on the Polaris is in tough shape, and if the insulation on a wire from the ignition was worn out, the wire could short on the frame, preventing spark.