I'm running out of patience with my 2010

[davecampbell]

I have a 2010 RMZ250 set up for the woods. Fastest bike I have ever had for the woods. The only problem is that I struggle to start it when hot. If it dies during a race I lose 15 seconds or more kicking it and then I am worn out and angry when I get going again. It has a rekluse core exp so it isn't stalling all the time but even when I just shut it off when play riding it can be a bear to start. I adjusted the valves and it seemed to make no difference. It has about 50 hours on the bike. I'm about ready to trade it off for a 2-stroke that I can start and try to drop down to a slower class.

[Kato7]

I feel your pain and experience the same problem with my 2010 and now my 2011. I have this awesome woods bike while it is running, but is a prick to start and has cost me time in tests.

You have probably already done this but try winding your cold start knob 36+ turns out and when you go to kick it, get it to rock just past top dead centre, before giving it a full kick through. Sometimes it helps.

[dirtbikersa]

Are you guys using your hot start? Very rarely does it take more than 5 kicks to get my bike going after stalling it or crashing.

[Orion6781]

When I bought mine i had a hard time starting it coming from my 2008. my 2008 would start 1-2 kicks every time. the 2010 is much different. you must find TDC. in order to do that, just slowly push on the kickstarter until you hit what feels like a stopper in the stroke. release the kicker all the way up and give it a firm full kick. once i mastered this my bike has never given me any problems hot, cold, wet, dry.

[davecampbell]

try winding your cold start knob 36+ turns out

This is the setup I was using but the resulting rich condition at idle seemed to me to cause flameouts. I set the idle stop 1/2 turn higher and then backed the cold start knob back out. Seems to have helped make the flameouts less frequent but has not fixed the hot start issue.

[benmoto]

i had my valve seats re cut and has made the problem alot better. it might be worth having a compression or leak test done. just because the valves clearances are spot on there could be a bad seal between your valve and seat.

[davecampbell]

it might be worth having a compression or leak test done. just because the valves clearances are spot on there could be a bad seal between your valve and seat.

Good point. I will check that.

[livharder]

i engage the hot start when hot and a little faster idle should do it.

[yamahakid88]

Are you guys using your hot start? Very rarely does it take more than 5 kicks to get my bike going after stalling it or crashing.

werd, hot start lever is a god send a 4 stroke, i dont know what i would do without it!

[davecampbell]

i engage the hot start when hot and a little faster idle should do it.

This seemed to fix it for me. The bike idles higher than I think it should but seems to start better and fix the stalling issue.

Ok, now I got to figure out what we did to my son-in-laws bike. We put new intake valves in it because the shims were getting thin in them. Now it starts first kick 90% of the time! It starts WAY better than when we put a new head with new valves on it. I'm wondering if it is the valve timing. With the slight stretching of the timing chain the little timing dots don't always line up perfectly. I spent a lot of time with different combos until I got them as close as possible but it was impossible to have them right on. Now I'm thinking I want to go into mine and try a tooth one way or the other to see if mine will start this easy! Either that or just steal his motor LOL

Edited November 19, 2011 by davecampbell

[funkinalive]

ill have to generally agree the bike is harder to start then the old carbs, i find that kicking it hard doesn't help. i usually find TDC and kick it over 3 times consecutively with the hot start in. usually does the trick