Choke all the way on, start with a quick throttle blip to get her moving. Idle starts at 2k, and I wait until it hits 3k. Pull off choke, drive away.

 

I had this problem last year. I changed the battery and was amazed at how fast it started! The battery "seemed" good, but once I changed it, the engine cranked over considerably faster, and started withing a second, as apposed to the 10 to 15 seconds of cranking with the old battery.

It's not just the cranking speed that counts here, it the amount of voltage that is being delivered to the ignition system. The higher the voltage, the hotter the spark. When the engine is being cranked over by the battery, it may only be delivering 10 or 11 volts to the ignition system. A new battery may be able to crank the engine and maintain a 12.5 or higher voltage output.

The old battery didn't go to waste, I use it for my fish finder now.....

 

Sorry to sort of hijack, but did you sync the carbs 2 at a time? #1 and #2, then #3 and #4, then #2 and #3? Would that accurately balance them? I wan't to make my own and can only make a 2 cylinder one. lol

 

one other thing - my bike sat for almost a month during a teardown without being started. I made sure to crank the motor for several seconds with the engine run switch in the off position until the oil light goes out, indicating that oil pressure has come up.

 

Hmmm... that oil pressure thing is entirely new to me. I was unaware engines sitting related to oil pressure issues. most of the issues I knew of came from carbs sitting up and the fuel gelling and plugging up your carbs.

 

I was just looking at it like the same situation as building a motor for a racecar - the first time you try to crank it, you cut the spark so it can't crank, thend turn the motor over on the starter until you see the oil pressure come up. (Or the light go off) The first few seconds after start up are hardest on motors since the oil hasn't really started flowing yet. Might as well try to make it easy as possible on an 18 year old machine, in my case :-)

I would only think it beneficial if the motor has been sitting dormant for long stretches of time, or maybe right after an oilchange. An engine run regularly probably has enough residual oil in all the galleys and journals to not be anything major.