When you turn the idle adjustment **** does it actually do anything? If turned to far out it will come out from the carb as there is no stop on it. Then you have another fun project.
If it’s not that your fuel/air mixture screws might need to be dialed in. That could account for the smoke also.

 

I went back to the bike today with the intent of starting it up and letting it get up to temperature to see if the rpm dropped down to something sensible... except it won't start again. It cranks and sounds like it wants to start but simply would not. The FI code is once again showing 12/13/14/15 which is all four fuel injectors.
I only just cleaned them out and put them back in. It ran at high revs that one time and now i get the same old FI code. It was below freezing again today - but I don't think that should have an effect.
Do you think the fuel injectors are dead? When I tested the resistance they were within spec. I cleaned them out and hooked them up to the battery to open/close them whilst cleaning them. What else can I do? Do I just suck it up and pay for new injectors?
Anyone got any ideas? Thanks.

 

I also want to add to the above; does anyone know if anyone makes aftermarket fuel injectors for the F4i, or who made the OEMs for Honda? I can only find the OEM injects and they are $100+ a piece.

 

The latest update...
Took out the fuel injectors and cleaned them (again), checked the plugs and they were already black after just one engine start, so cleaned those and put them back.
I also checked the wax fast idle unit - the small pistons connected to it would not move by hand. I turned the idle adjustor until I could move the little pistons by hand could see them operating fully.
The bike started on the first crank and revved at about 5000rpm, I figured it was just the carb cleaner used to clean the injectors so I left it to get up to temperature. Sure enough the revs started to drop on their own and by the time it got to 120-130 degrees it was idling at about 1500rpm, so i trimmed that down using the adjuster to about 1300rpm.
Once it was up to temp I revved it a few times; at first it took the revs a few seconds to drop back down to idle, but after blowing out a big black cloud of crap from the exhaust it seemed to be much more responsive.
I stopped the engine and left it to cool off for 10mins and after that it started on the first crank again and sat happily at 1300rpm. After that I left it for an hour or so to really cool down. It started quickly again but very quickly jumped up to 4000rpm, it left it to warm up but it was still at 3000rpm when it started making a horrible metallic scrapping sound so I shut it down.
The bike has so many bolts missing that I'm hoping that the noise was something on the outside of the bike thats worked lose rather then something from inside the engine.
I'm still curious whats causing the revs to be up at 4000rpm or so on start up and why the plugs were black after just one run.... I ordered some used injectors off of eBay as I wonder if too much fuel is getting through? Also, I should add that all of the above was done without the airbox on the bike.
Does anyone have an idea on the high starting rpm or the black plugs? Any help is appreciated.

 

I wish I knew enough to be of help but your tenacity has my unconditional moral support!

 

" it started making a horrible metallic scrapping sound "

This doesn't usually end well. Fingers crossed for ya.

 

hopefully it’s nothing major . Check your headers for a leak regarding the noise, also check for air leaks around the TBs , erratic idle can sometimes be caused by this. Rubbers on old bikes goes rock hard and easily cracks when being worked on. Make sure everything you removed went on as snug as it needs to be.

 

Thanks for the advice.... thats one more thing for me to check when the temps get above freezing again next weekend.
In the meantime I have another question that I hope someone can help me with.... this past weekend I decided to stop thinking about the starting issues for a while and replace the fork seals, oil, etc. Everything was going fine until I got the dust cap off of the right fork. It had been concealing a big dent/flat spot in the rim of the lower fork and it prevents the oil seal and bushing from being removed; so now I need a new right fork too.
I found a right fork that is straight and in fair condition on eBay from a 2000 CBR F4 - does anyone know if I can use this part on my 2003 F4i? I've read through a bunch of forums and I see people saying its a straight swap and others saying that they are different sizes. The part number is different but the diagrams look identical to me. Has any one had experience with this? Thanks.

 

AFAIK, forks on the F4 and F4i are the same 43mm.

 

Thanks - my concern is that I will have the left fork as OEM and the right as a 2000 F4 and I don't know how safe that is. They have different part numbers so something must be different? I plan to use the guts from my existing right fork, I just need to be sure that all the holes for things like wheel axel and brake calipers line up.