I bought my (almost) five year old a meerkat 50 for christmas. Unfortunately (maybe) my brother-in-law decided to buy my son a sunl 110 and didn't tell me about it until the day before the meerkat arrived from raceway. Now I have both side by side. (by the way,my son loves the meerkat and wants to stay away from the sunl. he trashed my lawn today. of course i chased him on the 110. there is mud everywhere). When i fire up the 110 it starts up right away and runs fine. it runs for a few seconds and is driveable. With the meerkat, i have to start it up and let it run for at least 10-15 minutes before even thinking of moving it or it will stall, not rev up, or die out. I performed all of the recommended delivery tune up stuff to it. Does anyone else have this big of an issue with warming up a meerkat?

 

At first I thought you were talking about the show on Animal Planet about Meerkats[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img] Now I did not know there was a quad named a Meerkat[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img] Hopefully someone can help you out.

 

Have you tried a new spack plug? My son has a meerkat also, changed the plug in it within a few days and it helped. The manuel says that an NGK c7hsa plug is the replacement plug, I believe that is what I used.

 

That's one thing I haven't done yet. I will get one tomorrow and try that, thanks.

 

jmswat,

I have a 2004 Meerkat, the correct plug is an NGK C7HSA. I also believe your Meerkat taking that long to warm up might be natural for it. Mine takes that long as well, and after it does warm up it runs great. The guy I bought it from said it was fouling plugs alot, I adjusted the needle jet to lean it out a little and have been running the same plug in it for about 6 months now with no issues. As a matter of fact the only problem I have with the carb on that is when he goes over bumpy terrain the choke handle will work it's way up and choke it until it stalls. I usually warm it up, then tie wrap the handle down. But I know we have to warm ours up for about 10-15 minutes as well. A way I have found around that is to start it fully choked, once it starts move it to half choke, and slowly give it throttle until you get a good rev, rev it for a little and take the choke off. This usually cuts our warm up time by about five minutes. Hope this helps.

 

I changed the plug and got the same results. At least it not just me, I'll just accept it as the nature of the beast. Thanks guys

 

We had the same problem with a redcat mpx-90 and my dad suggested turning the fuel valve to off when not riding since then it starts up almost perfect everytime

 

On new meerkats, they take a few weeks to find themselves, and work the engine in. Otherwise, adjust carb; adjust valves. A properly tuned engine should not be too cold-natured. Although keep in mind, these are small carb'ed engines so some warm-up is needed. (They operate differently then an 8-cylinder with electronic fuel injection and on-board computer.)

Note to all: On new engines - its important to let run at idle speed for about 20-30 minutes out of the crate.

 

Did you make any adjustments to the carb at all? I see you are also in Mich. What youi need to do for the colder weather is change the clip on the needle in the carb slide. You lower the clip to richen up the mixture for easier starts and faster waqrm ups. These quads are cold blooded but if you do this it will help out greatly. Go to the kids atv forum and read my How to carb post. This will get you right on.

 

I forgot to mention. On Meerkats, there's a little plastic mounting tab under the front fender above the carb. This does nothing for keeping the fenders on, but does prevent the choke being fully closed (stops the lever from going all the way up). Cut this little plastic tab off. Will make a HUGE difference on cold starts.