And wait just a GOD DAMN minute!!! :O Please tell us all how you put a kicker on yours................??????? How does it work?
:lol
Good eye!
Let's put it this way... it starts easier now (with the higher compression) than it did with the electric starting system. Having a 4-stroke, kick-started machine confuses the hell out of everyone. I would not go back to electric start.
MOF burns ya drag'n up SM though - ouch. Fused my riding pants to my boots first day out. You've got to cut out some of the plastic on the right-rear fender to allow for a complete down-stroke of the kicker. That exposes you to the pipe and not havin a shield doesn't help either. If you look on the back side of the right-rear fender on all YFZs, you'll see a curved line. That's done at the factory as an aid in trimming plastic for the kicker.
There are some problems w/ the kicker arm not being able to return all the way in. I'm having a different pipe made to resolve this. I'll put the Sparks pipe on my wife's YFZ or sell it to someone local. I called Sparks and they (at least the guy I talked to) really didn't seem to care. That's OK, I'll buy where I'm supported.
If you go to the parts section of
www.yamaha-motor.com, you can look up the starter system for the YZ450F bike. You'll need both kits #1 & #18 as well as all the other little parts on the diagram.
The plug that is currently in the hole doubles as a plug for the starter gear housing once the starter is removed.
Because the YFZ has auto-decomp, you won't need a hot start button - good. I still use the key to start the bike (or close the ignition circuit I should say), but will be removing/reworking that in the near future as well.
I'm down to about 315lbs on the machine now and am looking to loose another 5lbs or so. After that, I'm done with the weight savings effort.