I have a 2004 Sportsman 700 that is extremely hard to start all of a sudden. It was always a little cold natured but now it has gone to extremes. I don't get a chance to ride it alot , maybe once every 3 weeks or a month lately but yesterday it took 20 min. to get it started. It would fire every once in awhile and once it backfired real loud and scared the $*^#@ out of me hehehehe. Can someone give me a place to start looking on these cause I know nothing about fuel injected engines.

 

For starters,you might just drain the old fuel out of the bowl on the bottom of the carb.should be a screw on the very bottom or the carb.turn this screw until you start seeing gas coming out.probably has a tube on bottom of carb,gas should come out of this tube when you turn the screw.let drain for about 30 seconds then tighten you screw back up.if this dont cure your problem, you might take the bowl off the bottom of the carb.when you take this bowl off,you should see two jets that you can screw out.The smaller jet is the one your looking for.take this jet out and make sure you can see all the way through it ,if not then clean the hole out.hope this helps

 

The original poster said "fuel injected engine". The first responder gave some excellent suggestions for carb'd engines. We need the original poster to confirm which kind of engine he's got before we can proceed.

 

Nightal, two places to start are the fuel filter and fuel pump. Low fuel pressure at the injector will cause hard starting.

 

Did nightal get his years mixed up.I didnt think polaris made EFI in 04.someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

EFI came out in 2004

 

Hi guys,,sorry didn't get off work till late here to respond earlier. My 700 is in another town at a little cabin I have but I know I remember seeing EFI on the side of it. I appreciate everyones help. I'll check the fuel filter and the pump. I assume you check the pump by disconnecting the line out of the pump and put a longer line out to a small bucket and just turn the key to on but not trun it over and that should start up the pump , correct? Or is this a bump that runs off a cam? I only have the generic book that came with the 700 and lists all the models and tells what the specs are on each and it says the 700 has a BST 34mm carb on it . Im not sure if that is gospel without looking at my 700 again. I'll repost if I am wrong though. Thanks a million though.

 

Running the fuel into a bucket will only tell you that you have flow. If you have EFI, the fuel pump must also build pressure. I have not worked on the Polaris EFI so I do not know exactly what pressure is required, or how that pressure is controlled.

 

FYI: Since your SP700 says "EFI" on the side, it's fuel injected and won't have a carb at all.

 

If by chance that it is a carb and not EFI, turn the gas off at the valve. I believe it is located on the left side of the bike, in the side panel. This will aid in starting the machine.