Cold Weather - Non-Starter

[thunderace]

Tried to fire up the 24 this morning in near zero temperatures with no joy. MOT is Tuesday morning

Tried heating the rear plugs on the gas ring and she tried to start but wouldn't keep it going. Even got so desperate I tried a whiff of Cold Start

Do any of you guys have any cold start woes and tips to get around this?

Is it possible to retro-fit a pre-heat system? I know glow plugs can be fitted to petrol engines as a pre-heat but I don't want the hassle of drilling cylinder heads to fit them. Is a water jacket the only viable option?

[veefer400]

Should fire ok in our current climes? Mine was fine at minus 8?

Is the choke cable broken?

[CMSMJ1]

Doesn't need preheat man. You need your choke to work and that is about it...

[Neosophist]

Doesn't need preheat man. You need your choke to work and that is about it...

Agree.

The coldest i've run mine is -4 (and this one lives outside) and it started fine.

Heck, the ZXR starts fine in the cold and they can be terrible for it.

I'd check the choke linkage, make sure it's pulling the plungers out enough.

You can see them if you look in the left side of the frame, see if you can pull them out much more when the chokes on...

you can adjust how far they pull out by moving the linkages around

[thunderace]

Think I'll be getting new plugs in the morning, all four have a pretty weak spark. I've got spare coils and HT leads so I may do a bit of swapping if I need to. Fingers crossed

[thunderace]

New plugs and she fired up straight away and without choke on a frosty morning.

The old plugs didn't look too bad but they were CR9EK

A nice new set of CR8EH-9s later and we're ready for MOT tomorrow

[veefer400]

Fa
Kin
Soo
Pah!

[Neosophist]

New plugs and she fired up straight away and without choke on a frosty morning.

The old plugs didn't look too bad but they were CR9EK

A nice new set of CR8EH-9s later and we're ready for MOT tomorrow

CR9EK!

Those are ZXR400 plugs! There also non-shouldered, the C8EH9's are shouldered plugs.

(you may not have noticed unless you look closely)



C8's (notice the shoulder)



CR9Ek's (no shoulder)

You have a weaker spark becuase your using resistor plugs (the standard plugs with this bike are either C8EH9 or U24FE9) and the bike has resistor plug caps.

Most people use CR plugs as they are cheaper and the bike still runs fine with them.

I use genuine honda brande ngk C8HE9's as I managed to get a box cheap from Japan.

Good job it isn't the other way around.. you can damage the spark plug insert putting the shouldered plugs into the non-shouldered plug

[thunderace]

Thorncraft made me laugh yesterday morning when I went in for plugs. Apparently C8EH9 doesn't exist and never has done Same goes for resistorless plugs NC24s don't use resistor HT leads And this guy has been in the game for over 20 years and 'knows his 400s'?