Well......I have had this Kamodo 110 for a couple of weeks now and so far it has been OK for a kids quad. I have been reading up on these threads a bit and noticed that people seem to hate these brand X things for the most part. And the guys that do like them like to tinker with stuff. I drove old VWs for years and it was kinda the same thing.

Anyway, This thing has been difficult to start cold from the get go. I bought it used from someone who didn't like to tinker. What I have had to do usually is take out the plug and wire brush it off (black and sooty) and heat the end up with a lighter (old 2 stroke trick) then put her back in and it would fire off at about 3/4 throttle. Once it ran for a minute every thing was fine. Sometimes the plug is soaked with gas too I might add. I dont use the choke as it seems it is getting enough gas. The spark seems a bit weak to me. Idles a little erratic sometimes too.

Saturday we took it out into the woods and it ran for hours just fine. Yesterday we took it out again and I couldn't keep the thing running. It wouldn't start for me either unless I went through the routine. It would sputter out and die too. The boy rides it and he is heavy handed with the throttle. Said it died when he was on it too. Saturday was dry out and Sunday it was pretty wet. The air filter was dry though.

I'm a tinkering type so after I brought it home in a huff. I tried to adjust the carb. The idle screw seems to have very little effect. I can start it but not get an idle. I turned in the mixture screw all of the way and backed it out 2 turns then worked my way out to 4 turns. No dice. Any help?

Just to double check me because I have no book for this thing....Spark plug gap is .020", the mixture screw is the one kinda recessed into the carb body and the idle is the screw with the spring and I was trying to dial the carb in with the aircleaner off. Any of this wrong?

Sorry about being long winded, just trying to be thorough. Thanks for any tips.

 

I would start by cleaning the carb and if that doesnt help, try adjusting the valves.

 

Thanks MWQ. I thought about the valve adjustment thing. I think that I see how to get to them. Anyone know what to adjust them to?

 

I have set all my chinese quads at the same dimension as my 4 stroke hondas. .002 stone cold! Valve adjustment plays a big part in 4 strokes starting easilly.

 

sounds to me it's running to rich, the plug shouldn't be black and sooty, try adjusting the carb and replacing the spark plug. plug gap is .028

 

OK, guys thanks for the help. Would you believe me if I told you that when I took the carb off, I realized that the choke operates the opposite of how I thought it did? I feel kinda dumb. It is usually something like this though for me. I did up the spark plug gap to .028", Bill, that seemed to help too. I fought it to get warmed up but once it did and I got the carb dialed................WOW! We had been riding it with the choke on the whole time. I could only get up my driveway in 1st. Now it'll do it in 3rd. I am going to have to have a talk with the boy before he rides it next 'cause the power is like doubled. This is starting to get beyond kids quad now.

I have the LT50 dialed in pretty good. I was riding that out in the woods on a fast trail following the boy on the 110 Saturday. He was having to work at it to keep me from passing him. Not now.

 

Could you tell me where the valves are? I have a 150 atv. My quad takes forever when
I use the kickstarter (now broken). The battery takes a long time to charge so I've been
relying on the kickstarter. Thanks for any help on this[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

too tight a lash (clearance) and it'll hold the valves open slightly and hurt compression and power. this is NOT usually the case as a valvetrain wears. too loose a lash, and the valves will make some noise and will have some negligible effect on cam timing, but will not cause noticeably adverse performance. lash generally decreases as the engine warms up, so this issue can clear up as the engine warms. unless the rockers were out of adjustment from the factory (too tight), i can't imagine that's your problem. 95% of the time, hard starts are carb issues. a quick way to check if your valves are sealed/closed is with a compression check, or leakdown check (preferred).

 

Well when I try the kickstarter it doesnt really have any compression at all until it hits the
bottom, where it has very little compression. Is it more than likely the carb? Maybe the
carb is clogged somewhere? Thanks for any help.

 

pour a little gas on the air filter element (maybe a tblspn or so), and give it a try. that should richen the mixture enough to get a few coughs out of it. if it does try to start, that's your answer - carb too lean /not enough choke effect. that's assuming it's too lean to start which is usually the case. cold engines can barely tolerate a fuel mixture lean of stoich, but can be waaay rich and still start ok, assuming the fuel is being atomized properly.

my jetmoto 110 starts up beautifully each time. starts up better than my zrx1100 or ltz400. it ought to be the gold standard for how these things should start. our chinese pitbike is another story - give it any throttle at all and it'll flood. need to then pull the plug, clean it, ... i havent pursued correcting it since we know how to deal with it.