Hi, I just recently purchased an 07 kingquad 700 with just under 2000 miles. Before I bought it I test drove it and it ran great. A day or two after bringing it home it became difficult to start. I read through the forum and found that these things love batteries so I checked mine. It seems to make a difference that it will start more times than not when the battery has just been charged, but its not always a guarantee. It acts the same whether I use the electric start or pull start. It acts and sounds like it is going to start but then it doesnt.

Can anyone give me the run down on what to look for? I also notice that it smokes on start up but clears up as it's running. I'm assuming that it will need the valves adjusted (despite the prior owner saying it was recently done). Could the valves being out of adjustment contribute to the hard starting?

When it does start it runs very well, idles, accelerates. A few times it has sputtered and shut down after a hard acceleration, which makes me think I may have a fuel issue. When I bought it the fuel light was on and there wasn't much gas in the tank. Are these machines sensitive like that - does the sending unit have a filter/screen that may need cleaned? Injectors get clogged?

I've load tested the battery and during starting it drops to between 10.3 - 12.4. On average the battery measures 12.5 after sitting for a day or two.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. And if someone could point me to where I can get a service manual that would be great also.

 

I would go for cleaning the injector first. Fairly easy to do, remove the airbox, it has some sensors attached so make sure they are disconnected, and there is a small tubular spacer in the airbox mounting rubbers, the front one is in just the right place for dropping into the throttle body when you are pulling the airbox out. Remove the injector and poke down the top carefully with a tiny screwdriver to remove any debris that are in there. Then blow out with compressed air.

There is a "tea bag" filter in the tank, but the rear rack, rear plastic and tank have to come off to get at it. They are difficult to remove from the pump, and I'm not sure if you can get new ones from Suzuki, we "bodge" Mitsubushi Evo filters in, but they hang out of the tray they are supposed to lie in.

I doubt if the valves have been set, shimmed tappet buckets are the most difficult valve adjusters known to man, and won't alter it smoking anyway, that is either worn valve guide seals or worn rings, the cylinder is teflon coated, so can't be re-bored.

Just a thought, the wires to the temp sender often break and make the bike bad to start, but the FI warning light comes on if this happens.

 

ok - i will pull the injector later today and clean it. It's probably not a bad idea to be thorough and look at the sending unit as well. I've got the entire front end plastics off, might as well take off the rear too! I'll let you know what I find.

I have checked most of the wire connections at throttle body. Pulled apart, cleaned with compressed air and reinstalled. They were packed pretty well with dirt. There are no lights on the display.

I've seen posts on checking codes - would mine have any codes if there are no display lights on?

 

You might keep a battery tender on her too. Smoke on start up, could be worn valve seals, if it doesn't foul the plug, probably not of much concern.

 

No, if the FI light isn't on you won't get fault codes. If you use a 700 every day, do the battery to regulator wiring mod. If you only use it once a week, then a battery tender or fitting an isolator switch to the battery is a must, as the ECU has a high power consumption, even with ignition off, and drains the battery in a couple of weeks.

 

Thanks Hydrex and Merryman for your suggestions. I certainly appreciate it.


Yes, I did read a few threads about using a tender so I have purchased one and will put the leads on the battery to make it convenient. I didn't get a chance to pull the injector but hopefully I can do that tonight. Is there a tech article on the battery to regulator mod?


Could the bad valve seals be contributing to the hard starting? How big of a job is it to replace the seals? The plug did have some scale on it, I cleaned it up for now but have a replacement on the way. Is it normal to have valve seals replaced at 2000 miles/300 hours?


Also I did notice that the tube that connects the throttle body to the airbox seems to be short and barely makes contact with the throttle body. It looks as though the only way to mount the airbox is on top of the three mounting tabs, as opposed to under them. Is there something missing or is it possible I have a motor mount that is wearing and allowing the engine to settle? I know I need to get this closed up before doing any riding.


Thanks again for your help.

 

Yes the airbox sits on top, and your engine probably has settled a bit. As long as there isn't a gap between rubber tube and airbox, you are not going to get unfiltered air through. The battery reg mod is simply to run fairly thick wires direct from battery pos and neg posts to the regulator pos and neg wires. I tee them in with scotcblocks just where they enter the connector, and fit a 30 amp fuse in the pos wire, (I know, two 30 amp fuses in parallel will take 60 amps to blow, but what else can you do?) The difference to charge rate is fairly spectacular, from 13v max to 14.5v when you fit them.

Almost forgot, to fit new stem seals you have to remove the cylinder head, so you may as well check piston rings for wear and re-shim any valves that have the wrong clearance. A fairly big job.

 

Ok - so I took the injector off and cleaned it and blew it out with compressed air. I reinstalled the injector and held the throttle open to watch the spray pattern. It appears as though all of the nozzles are working ok, its more of a stream than a mist and it hits the opposite side of the throttle body. I'm surprised how much fuel this thing disperses!


All in all it did not help with the start problem, but it's atleast one more thing ruled out.


I do notice that with the battery charger attached with a 6 amp charge, it does start more often than not. The battery measures 13.8 off a fresh charge and holds at 12.5. I assumed that this was acceptable but I also noticed that the battery is undersized (220 cca) for this machine. I have the correct YUASA battery on the way. Is it possible that this is all battery related? I thought I had ruled this out because it acts the same whether its started electrically or by the pull start.


Even with the 6amp jump with the charger I have to thumb the throttle a bit to get it running. Any thoughts?

 

Problem solved (or atleast I hope!) - the TPS sensor was out of calibration. thanks to some great articles on here and Nyroc I was able to put it in dealer mode and it showed the TPS as _COO. I adjusted it until it was -COO and it fired up much easier. I still have to thumb the throttle just slightly so maybe I should tweak it a bit further but I want to see how it runs once its warm before I move it again. Didn't actually get a chance to ride it, just had enough time to fire it up for a few minutes this afternoon. Even popped over with the pull start without hesitation.


I still need to figure out whats going on that is keeping my airbox from sitting down onto the throttle body correctly. The rubber sleeve on the underside of the air box just barely contacts the top of the throttle body. From the pictures I've seen of the factory setup, I have all the right pieces, just can't get them to mate up. Any thoughts?

 

Oops, I had forgotten about the movable TPS, we do far more work on 450/500s and their TPS is fixed, even though the set up looks identical.

That big 700 motor is on a slant and will tend to settle down and forwards, lift the throttle body up a bit in the inlet manifold, if the fact that it doesn't fit the airbox properly worries you.