Hi !! Welcome to the site .
Sounds like you have an electronic ignition from your description .
Check to see if your ignition coil is a dual output black and gray coil .
Notorious for issues case cracking being the most common issue .
Do a check of the primary and secondary circuits of the coil .
Primary resistance 1.5 ohms, secondary resistance  11-13 k ohms .

Quote from: Tiedie on May 04, 2026, 04:49:15 AM

Apparently my photos are too big to attach.

NO! No. no , no no , no no! Not accepting that 

Shrink your photos please. MS Paint wil do it, or almost any other photo application.

ADMIN. Eject this member immediatately unless there are pics!!!!     

I'm having no success with shrinking my photos.
It's crazy I can post some pictures and others are too big. 1024kb is what it tells me is maximum.

Thanks for your advice.  You've answered a side question about measuring distance between timing marks - hadn't thought of counting the teeth!  I think this is now resolved.  There is the 'main' universal curve then one for dual plugs and a hybrid one.  The hybrid one is 32 degrees with a slightly smoothed out advance curve.  On this setting With Z lined up at full advance, the S is at the top of the aperture, so a little bit advanced but pretty good.  The bike certainly starts and idles fine now so I'm leaving it at that!

Hello - I treated myself to a Enduralast electronic ignition recently.  I have a straightforward question on what is the standard maximum advance on a 1988 mono, ie. with the BMW electronic system/Hall sensor set up.  From my experience with this new system, it seems it is not 32 degrees as set out in the Haynes manual.  Can anyone confirm what it actually is?

Here's the back story. The Enduralast instructions are aimed at all airheads with a couple of exceptions.   The key point is the system maximum advance is set at 34 degrees which they reckon is the best for all models regardless of original set up, except for, of course, R65s and later Hall sensor models like mine!   In this case, they say go with/stick with the standard 32 degrees, but a whole side story on diameter of flywheels and distance between the timing marks.  I initially set it up as standard at full advance (Z), but I could not see the idle mark (S).  I expected this to be visible, but 2 degrees out, ie. about 3mm.  Start up from cold was definitely worse and lumpy, but rides fine once warmed up albeit the tickover is higher.  So, I am thinking it is too far advanced at tickover.  I then thought I'd try it the other way around by advancing the timing at full advance to 34 degrees and therefore reduce the advance at idle (3mm above the standard crankcase mark).  Definitely ran better at low speeds but I still could not see the S mark at tickover.  So, assuming the Enduralast system is definitely 34 degrees, then it follows that the standard maximum advance must be less than 32 degrees on my specific model.  See question above!   If it is, I think the Enduralast system must be faulty.

Thanks for any advice!

I've always just put up with the vibration, so if it was me I'd replace the non-standard rubber washer with a standard metal washer.

From back in the day one of the vibration solutions was to use shoe rubber or polyurethane. 

The vibration disappeared from my 83 R65LS when I installed the Siebenrock 860 kit. In a FB thread (mainly Tony Smith's input) we came to the hypothesis that BMW were using matching pistons for the short stroke R65 engines with the same tolerances they used for the long stroke 247 engines. This gave the vibration. So, you might fix the vibration by installing an 860 kit or by balancing the pistons you have.