ok guys ... maybe im starting it wrong or these bikes should just take forever to start ? i turnt the choke all of the way on and crank, no start ! i turnt the choke off and crank, no start ! i turn the choke 1/2,1/3,1/4, 3/4, you name it ! and it takes 5 min atleast to start ! what gives ? is there a secret way to start these things ?

 

No secret, mine starts within a second every time as long as it's not too cold. I would recommend cleaning your carburetors if you haven't done it in a while. Also could your battery be weak? (just an idea).

But generally these bikes start pretty easily.

 

When it's cold I set choke at max and hiting the start buttom, starts very easy. Then I gradually lower the chocke so it's rpm is around 2500 all the time, atlest for 2-3 mins before turning off completly and riding away :-)

 

Mine start within second when cold. Choke to max, and start. Thats it.
Coldest I've tried to start the bike is -10C (14F). No problem.

 

Hm... seems I spoke too soon.
The last week I've been getting the exact same symptoms as the op
(Cold start problem only below 50f (10c). Starts fine when warm).

Gonna start with the easiest and change the plugs.
It's been 3 years and 17.000km (11000mi) since i last changed them.
Have been wantng to change them for some time now anyways, just
havent gotten around to it.

Cleaned and synced the carbs last year and its been starting and running
perfectly since then, so im hoping its just something easy like the plugs.

To be continued...

 

Well i changed the plugs.
The old plugs didntt look that bad actually, but I changed them anyway.
Cleaned the air-filter, drained the carbs and tank and added fresh fuel
while I was at it.

I haven't inspected the carbs yet, but from what I could see underneath the air
filter, the carbs looked sparkling clean (no dirt, no oil, no nothing). Added a bit of carb-cleaner to the gas just for shows.

Now... whether or not this has fixed my cold start issue is hard to tell as
a heatwave has rolled in on the neighborhood. This morning the engine
started immediately. Hardly had to use the choke at all.

It seems that my engine runs smoother now though, with less vibration.

Anyways... Ill keep you posted if the cold start problem remains.
(I just have to wait for the weather to get cold again).

 

A small update...

So far I have not encountered any starting problems.
So it seems that new plugs was all the bike needed.

The bike feels smoother now as well. Also the fuel consumption
seems to have decreased, so I've decided to measure it.

Burned up one tank last week. For the whole tank I rode
the bike hard on purpose. Lots of hard breaking followed by heavy
acceleration combined with low gears and high rpm's.
Got 0.51l/10km (46.1 mpg) on that tank.

This week I'm doing the test all over again, but riding more casual.
No heavy acceleration. Results still to come...

 

thanks viking for your input !!! i still have the problem of cold start .... it starts perfect hot, but when let sit over night it takes me putting the batt charger on it and cranking it for like 5 min. then it will start.

 

sounds like you're losing a battery, or something else in the charging system.

*edit* the reason I say that, is a baby-sat a Yamaha FZ1 all fall/winter that had a similar issue with a battery that was on its way out, and on cold nights, it wouldn't fire the bike at all, even with a battery charger hooked up. If it warmed up, you could get it to start, but you could tell from the headlight that the bike was leaning heavily on the stator for juice.

When I dropped in a new battery, it never had another problem with cranking other than the normal cold (40-50deg F) starting on a cold set of carbs.

 

Well, the R/R is prone to failure on the F2's so that might be the source of the problem.
Either that or as junky says - the battery.