yes, you can. and you can make it charge. the lighting system is completely seperate from the ignition. You will have to float the ground on the stator (the wire from the lighting coil that grounds to the stator plate) (front coil on plate) solder a wire to the wire that was grounded to the plate and run the wire up to the area of the cdi etc., then remove the voltage regulator and install a rectifier (I got mine from baja designs, but you can get them anywhere, just get a universal one) they are about 30 bucks. then follow the instructions that came with the rectifier to wire it and the battery in.