The International CBX Owners Association

The firing order is 1-6, 2-5, 3-4 where both cylinders fire simultaneously. George is absolutely correct, the stress is significantly raised in the chain because the lobes are all fighting the springs at the same time, whereas when the cams are in correctly this load is distributed more evenly. Since it is a 'wasted spark' engine design, it will actually fire on both cylinders so power will seem close to OK. So while there are no extra forces causing problems with the camshafts, there are huge extra forces on the chain, which lets go. If the bike has been run for some time, but stopped before catastrophe occurred it may still be worth replacing the chain...

The guy who flipped the cams on the bike I picked up said it sounded different and seemed to have more mid-range. I was picking it up for a friend and we never fired it up. The bike was driven with the cams flipped about 25 miles and was starting to make some serious internal noises. So we were told. We flipped the cams and replaced the cam chains and tensioners. Tensioners looked pretty worn for a low mileage bike if I remember. And the oil screen had a lot of crap in it.

The worst part about this is, a good cam chain will be very hard to find. Honda no longer has them, and the aftermarket has only junk.

Think there is a problem with conflicting information in the Shop Manual.
In the schematic on page 11 (picture of the plug wire routing), it has coil position 1 to plug 1, coil position 2 to plug 6, coil position 3 to plug 3, coil position 4 to plug 2, coil position 5 to plug 4, and finally coil position 6 to plug 5.
On page 286 the the schematic of the ignition system has coil 1 to plug 1, coil 2 to plug 6, coil 3 to plug 3, coil 4 to plug 4, coil 5 to plug 2, and coil 6 to plug 5. They are different. On the page 287 it has the firing order as 1-5-3-6-2-4. That's different. I believe it is 1-6-2-5-3-4 according to the valve adjustment I did.
Just trying to route the plug wires to the correct position from the coils to the plugs.
Am I wrong with the Shop Manual? Thanks......Bud

The left coil fires both #1 and #6 cylinders at the same time
The center coil fires #3 and #4
The right coil fires #2 and #5
This is called "wasted spark".
It doesn't matter which outlet from that coil goes to which cylinder of the two it serves. They will both fire at the same moment. One will fire on combustion the other will fire in dead air (so to speak).

I did this drawing as a reminder when I was restoring my bike -

That answers it and thanks for the great explanation and graphic.
Still curious though, is that information conflicting in the manual?

When you are walking in the dark, it is always good to have a flashlight. Thanks guys!

Bud

Great support, Heli!

There are a few mistakes in the FSM. Most were corrected in the later versions, some perhaps not.

Dave

I can send the discovery of conflicting information to someone for the correction. Thanks Dave.


Bud

Honda isn't going to correct anything. If you mean correcting the downloadable version, I assume it's just a copy of Honda's FSM. I'd just make the notes in your paper FSM, if you have it.

Dave

Thanks Dave,

I purchased it online. I will make the notes.


Bud