Weird one for you guys. My bike is a bitch to start when cold. When warm, it runs perfect, idles well, and will restart easily if it was on in the last 3 hours or so.

But, cold starts, yeesh. It takes about a half hour to start my bike in the morning. My routine is to crank for about 10 seconds, then let the battery recharge for a minute or two. I'll throw in a couple push starts as well. Initially, the bike will turn over with just choke and no throttle. After about 5 seconds of that, the bike will only start cranking if I give it wide open throttle, even with full choke. After many many minutes of cranking, she'll eventually fire up, but only on cylinders 1 and 2. I have to keep it at WOT for about 30 seconds before the bike revs up and then idles on all four as if nothing happened.

All four carbs are getting fuel (I drained carb bowls) even before the bike has started on two cylinders. I've cleaned the carbs three times now according to the instructions on the sticky. Still no dice. All the spark plugs are new, none are fouled, and all are getting spark. My bike used to be a CA model but all relevant hoses have been removed. I currently have tried 2 turns out on fuel screws, 2 1/4 turns, 2 1/2 turns, etc. Some settings cause backfiring, some don't, but none help start the bike faster.

There's a distinct smell of gasoline as I'm cranking the bike at wide open throttle. The choke operates as it should, pulling the enrichment valves (or whatever you call those) out of the carbs.

Dunno if valves are in spec, haven't checked those yet. Charging system is fine, have a manual CCT installed. Could it be ignition timing?

 

how cold are your cold starts? often vehicles (bikes especially) will have two different plugs listed, one type for warm climates, and another for cold. look inti this, at the very least, I would change your plugs over for new ones.

 

It has trouble starting in 50 degree Fahrenheit weather, and the plugs are new NGK Irridium plugs. I'm confident they're not the problem. Same problem existed with the plugs I had in before the new ones.

 

If you aren't supposed to put NGK irridium in, you shouldn't have. From my experience with cars I can tell you that the fancy plugs typically deliver worse results than the cheap stuff the motor was manufactured around. In the case of the F2 the irridium just may not be meant for the bike.

Silly question, but did you remove the caps from the top? Those can cause the plug caps to not seat right, and result in additional resistance.

Take your finger and jam it in your exhaust port (on the bike, god that sounds wrong). Drag it around the edge and the inspect your finger. If it's covered in soot you are running rich!

 

I'll check the port tonight. I got whatever plugs were recommended on the NGK website, but like I said, I had the same problems with the old plugs so I'm not thinking it's a spark issue. The caps seem to be seated pretty well as far as I can tell.

 

Any news on this? I have problem gettting all cylinders to fire, actually been a problem now for awhile and still can't get it right.