Starting a flooded bike.

There are two drills to starting a downed pig But, First if you crash...lay it down, fall over (that last one is all the time for me). Make sure you don't have GAS coming out of the air box. This is where most of the argument will come form.

Most will tell you to hold the decompression lever in, while holding the kill button and kicking the bike through 3~5 times, up to ten times to clear out the fuel. Then at times if it was a real good spill there is so much fuel in the cylinder this can still not work and you start all over again.

The Race way:

You pick yourself up off the ground in a daze wondering where the bike is. Find the bike and pick it up. Fight the pain and hope you are pointing the right way. You pull the throttle wide open and grab the front brake! This is important....it stops the throttle from moving while you kick the bike over. Find TDC and kick as hard as you can and go! I have had a few argue with this but, once it is done without the throttle moving it works!

The main thing to know is the bike has way to much fuel in the cylinder to start so, you need to add lot's of air to get the fuel to fire. If you kick the bike over slowly to clear the engine and the spark lights the fuel the bike is on fire! Starting the bike the Race way pulls everything into the cylinder not back firing into the air box.

Some of my good friends that I ride with didn't believe it and it did not work for them. But, once they got the front brake thing down it was almost every time one kick...two at the most... .

Hold the throttle wide open, holding the front break.....find Top Dead Center and kick!

Once you use a pumper the stock carburetor just isn't any fun! If you don't mind the trouble of the initial setup (lot's of jets) the Mikuni was two years trouble free for me and it's a better (smoother) carburetor. I have owned and ran all three. I made the stock carburetor work....it can work but, it is nothing like a pumper...If you haven't ridden a BRP balls to the wall, drop offs, popping up and over walls, just looking for the edge, then you might never know the difference. The Edelbrocks biggest fame is how easy it is to tune and its ability to get the Oinker started and keep it running, no matter what! I have my Edelbrock pored out to be a 40mm X 42mm and it rips on my bike. The Mikuni TM 40 can be tuned to perfection as I said, that takes major time and effort to tune, in the end, it sure is worth it! It is power on everywhere all the time, never lagging always spot on through out the throttle movement. A pumper is not needed for the casual weekend warrior or fire road rider but, it still is nice even there!

Timing:

Under 550~650 rpm the auto decompression is slightly on and makes a ticking noise.
 I do not use the manual's TDC way of adjusting valves. It is stupid! It was made to make things "easier" to understand but, in the end it makes it much harder; do to the back spin from fighting the pressure at TDC. The Auto decompression turns on if the engine just starts to spin backwards. Anyone that adjusted valves in the 70's (for cars like the 240Z) can do a valve lash job the right way. Look into the valve cover; you can see the intake lobes, rotate them with the kick till they are pointing down, make sure the rockers are loose and adjust the intake. Then move the cam (with the kick) so the exhaust lobes are down and make sure the exhaust rockers are loose, really check the left, this is the one the auto decompression pushes down. If you move the cam to far you will see it engage, (exhaust rocker on the left will get light before the right) If the engine moves backwards you will see it engage. If the left side is much looser then the right it was engaged last adjustment and there was a loud tapping in the engine. There is no reason to use TDC to adjust the valve lash.

For checking oil

I ride the bike for 5+ minutes. (not just idle it but, ride it after warm up) Then I check the oil and it should be about 3/4 of full on the dip stick. This is only if you have about 1.75 quarts of oil in the bike. If you have more it takes quite a bit to move it to full due to the pressure it take to pump the extra into the frame. 2 quarts will read just above full and at this point you are starting to apply to much lower end pressure to the seals. I believe the bike was designed for two quarts but, that was found to make to much pressure and Honda reduced how much oil was to be used. They didn't change the dip stick marks to show the change.