electrical prob. cdi or plug wire, need help.

I've got a Z2-80 from BGF and have put about 100 miles on it. Some of the usual little problems til yesterday.

Specs on bike:
Z2-80 from BGF
port matched exhaust and intake, no hogging of cylinder.
Head gasket replaced with pop can gasket, sealed w/ copper gasket sealer.
- no leaks from head gasket.
pin hole in head. starts in plug threads and coms out between head bolt and plug, patched with jb weld and holding.

I've tried a few different plugs and all work.
-tried a autolite 275 and wow, power but, it melted out my stock plug wire.
new plug wire from chain saw- died yesterday
new plug wire from car, no spark today after running it.
tried friends stock wire as before to check for spark to rule out the cdi and still no spark.

Could my cdi ignition box be fried? Will changing plugs or wires have an affect on any other parts. This is the first problem we've run into and not been able to fix out of 4 kits running for the last 10 days. Plenty of set backs but nothing that couldn't be fixed on the side of the road or in the garage in a half hour or less.

Could anyone offer a suggestion? It seems that between the four of us we always have an issue in at least one bike. Frustrating, but all part of the fun until now!

Thanks,
Adam


P.S. I don't know how long the head will hold up so I'm ordering a new head jug and piston that I'll be porting, plus milling the head a CH.

Yes the pinhole was jb welded for a quick fix so I could ride and not have to wait 3-6 days for a new head. If I had the luxury of a TIG welder in the garage I would have happily welded the head correctly, these things aren't exactly expensive to replace parts so I am not too concerned with the jb job. The pop can gasket works great with copper gasket sealer and I can make a handful of them in 10 minutes for tearing down the motor. I've looked around and can find no suitable material to make copper gaskets, but I've read in these forums to check the craft stores so I'll do that.
Sorry for having to back up my shotty mechanical fixes. But when push comes to shove... anyway a new motor assembled shotty requires shotty fixes, a man's got to stay within the manufacturing tolerances. Haha!

I did narrow my electrical problem down to the cdi and could find nowhere locally that carries them. Most of the small engine repair shops, i.e. hardware stores had never seen anything like it. The shops that MAY carry them aren't open on the weekend. So now I am out of commission. Time to put in that order for all I need.

I took my bike to the family cabin and let my old man take it for a spin. He really enjoyed it and said he can mill the heads when he returns to work after Vacation. We have four bikes to work on between myself and friends so I want to send them with him all at the same time.

The CDI
What do those of you who've built a few use for replacements? OEM parts or upgraded parts? I remember reading that guys were using ?honda? cdi's. I also remember reading that the stock cdi puts out more than enough spark for these little engines. I'm wondering if thats only for a engine left stock, or if people upgrade to ?honda? for reliability only?

The beauty of thesse china kits is the price. I don't want to grenade the thing but if I do, big deal! Just rebuild it. This is my first kit and I'm having a blast tinkering with it. The next engine will be build as well as possible. I just want to learn the quirks to these kits on the first one so when I build the next one, sooner than expected because they're so much fun, it gets built with reliability and power/tuning in mind.
I've already learned a lot from testing and tuning on my bike and friends. Lucky for us we have 4 bikes to speed up our learning curve. And a ton of information that we've been reading on this forum. Everything we need is in here somewhere, its just not always easy to find. So I appreciate the time you take to help us new builders out.

Adam

Also, the thinner popcan head gasket is cheating for milling the head. thinner gasket decreases combustion chamber slightly, increasing compression, if only a little. I don't want to go to the moon on this thing, I just don't want to have to pedal to keep up to the other three. I believe the pinhole was the cause for me being ever so slightly slower, along with a few more pounds on me.

The whatever sparkplug is a cross referenced autolite plug, because I couldn't get the NGK recommended for these engines. The other used is a shorty plug because I had to change my plug wire to one without a 90* boot, so I would have clearance under the frame.

I don't like to be criticized for my build. It was researched well and done to the best of my ability with the resources I have during a holiday week when everyone wants to ride not stare at a tore down bike.

So please KC, if you have something to offer that will help I'd love to hear it. Otherwise if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.