Your idle problem is most likely a plugged pilot jet. If you have not cleaned it, remove the jet and soak it in brake clean or carb clean and then blow it out w/compressed air. I have even had to run a small wire CAREFULLY through the jet to remove varnish from sitting fuel. Also clean with the brake/carb cleaner the idle circuit from the pilot jet passage out through the idle port in the throat of the carb. Make sure your choke piston is operating properly. Good luck.

 

sounds like the starter drive is getting stuck they rust up if the recoil cover gets water in it. I beleive th r/es model made some pretty good power over the other one like maybe 10 horsepower. I think they similiar power to the stock 350/400

 

from what the book says, the re/s puts out 27 hp and the other 250s put out 22. Thats what i figured about the starter. I am going to pull it out and see what it looks like.

 

so i replaced the carb adapter as well as went through the carb twice more. soaked it and then blew all the passaged out. still difficult to start. fixed the starter problem. It won't start it with the electric starter. I have not checked yet to see what compression it gets with the starter. If it starts, it only starts with the pull starter after about 20 pulls.

It will start on 1/2 choke and seems to idle ok. If the choke is taken off, the engine races for several minutes and then eventually starts to die. I am assuming that the engine is getting too much air. i would assume this would be a result of some passage in the carb not getting enough gas to the air/fuel mixture. Not sure which one though. Does anyone know what the float level arm height should be? it was at about 25 mm from the carb body gasket rim. now it is about 20 mm.

Anyone have any suggestions of where to go from here? I guess i will pull the carb again and check the compression with the electric starter, and maybe ill break down and finally buy the carb kit but maybe someone out there has some other suggestions.

 

The float arm spec according to my Polaris manual is not done by mm measurement. When you turn the carb upside down (float closed position) the float arms should be parallel which the main body to float bowl mating surface. This is true for most all mikunis of that era. I assume you have changed the fuel filter. The fuel pump might be the next thing to check since you still appear to be running out of fuel at the carb. The passageway from the pilot jet exits into the carb throat, it's a small hole. I take a can of brake clean with the plastic nozzle and squirt it in the passage after removing the pilot jet and see if it squirts out the hole in the throat. I see no logical reason that the quad starts with the pull rope but not with the electric start. The only possible reason would be that the start position is killing the spark. Why it would do that I could not guess but it's easy to verify if you remove the plug ground it, hit the starter and see if there is spark. If so it should start on electric if it starts on pull. You have a gremlin in there somewhere, don't give up. You'll get it by persistence.

 

thanks for the response. I'll will keep everyone updated. don't worry, i won't give up thats for sure.