Thread: chinese engine - not enough power to light lights??

ok.... i know i must have a silly mistake here because i see so many of you with chinese engine swaps.

i have a 140cc pitster motor in my ct70k0 and i have wired the whole bike from scratch. i have tested all of the wiring with an external power supply and verified that the harness works correctly.

i have eliminated the battery from the system and am using a moose regulator instead. it was recommended that i do this by several people to simplify and from what ive been told, you hook the yellow wire out of the motor to the regulator yellow, and ground the other wire of the regulator. then the yellow wire goes on to power the lights. the rectifier im told is not used unless you are charging a battery, only the regulator is needed.

with the engine running and no regulator in the circuit the engine is putting out 12v at idle and revs up to 30-40 easily while revving the engine. with the regulator in the circuit i am only getting about 4-5 volts out and its not enough to light the bilbs.

there are 2 yellow wires coming from the motor and right now the other is being used for nothing..... do i need to use the other one? can i tie both together to get more power? any ideas?

thnaks for any help or direction.........

anyone? anyone?

Did you not get a wiring diagram with the motor?

You might check the Chinese and Lifan sections of this forum.

I've got a lifan in one bike and if I remember right the yellow wire goes to the reg and the white wire powers the front light. But I have a battery.

My GPX160 was wired like that

I believe one yellow wire is used on a small charging stator and the other yellow is for the big one (lights)

Did you order a lighting stator with this engine?

If my memory serves me correctly the pister engine does not have a large coil for lights, you have to add that. The vendor I bought from did that part when I ordered the engine

My engine made over 100VAC when ~ 3000 - 5000 rpm

I would contact your vendor and ask them about a lighting coil. I don't think they all came with intention or powering lights

I also had a similar issue with the regulator. The standard 12V regulator I had from the old lifan did not work, when I used the new one that came with the engine it worked, and they both appeared to have the same connector and pin out

I think you are right about one yellow being less output than the other. It did come with a lighting coil, not a super high output one, but enough. I got the lights to work but I had to hook the regulator on one of the yellows and ground, and the other yellow directly to the lighting. Without the regulator in the circuit with the second yellow i get no output. Very strange. Now the only issue I have is that I don't have enough output at idle....the lights barely flicker, but work well once i crack the throttle even slightly. And for clarification I am not using the 4 pin rectifier, I am using the 2 wire moose regulator for bikes without batteries. Looks like this:

I used the 4 pin reg

I never tried the 2 pin

It sounds like your lights are running off AC directly from the engine and your charging only the battery from DC

I ran everything DC on my bike, I never tried AC only

When you say you've eliminated the battery do you mean you just didnt install a battery. I think you'd find if you put a 12v battery in your elecs would be alright, even the stock Honda engine struggles to power all items when the battery is dead/missing. Even if you install a battery eliminator(basically just a capacitor) it would struggle to keep just the brake light going at idle. You could use led globes for taillight and indicators(with a led flasher unit) so they aren't drawing as much current and hopefully have more juice for the headlight

If this is used for "street use", why would you not use a battery. Some jurisdictions require for safety in the event trouble on the side of the road. With the 6 and 12 volt batteries, why not, no hassle, spillage, etc. I would get tired of replacing blown bulbs and/or fuses. Good luck.

well.......
i understand what you are sayin about havin a battery and valid point. but for as little as im going to use the bike its likely to be dead all the time and i have an electric start ttr50 yamaha with a battery and frankly im tired of buying nem 50+ dollar batteries every time it drains so low that it wont take a charge anymore. i was hoping other people had tried this method of wiring but i guess not.

and i would get tired of replacing blown fuses and bulbs too....hence the installation of the regulator which i was instructed would stop that from happening. im gonna have to try to get ahold of the original guy that suggested it to me and see if he had to do any strange wiring.........

Originally Posted by motodevo

When you say you've eliminated the battery do you mean you just didnt install a battery

no... the regulator says it is designed for motorcycle lighting systems using no battery