This question has to do with a single cylinder, four-stroke engine, with a kickstart and electronic start option set up.........
I have an idea....... I thought it might be beneficial for the motor, at cold start up, if I were able to use the kickstarting lever, to take the engine through its cycle, without actually attempting to start it, (bringing the piston back up to the top) and then using the electric start to start the motor.
I would not be attempting to start the motor, purely by the kick starter in this example. In effect I would be priming it, for the electric start.
I recognize that it’s not necessary to do this, but I was thinking it might be more beneficial to get things flowing, before I attempted to start it electrically; especially in a coldstart scenario.
So here’s my question: how many gentle pushes of the kick starter are required so that I leave the piston at TDC, so that when I hit the electrical starter, the piston is up near the spark?
Is it even necessary to bring it back to TDC, or could I simply give it a couple of gentle kicks, with no regard to where it is in the cycle?
Considering this is a single cylinder four stroke engine, I would presume that it would require four strokes of the kick starter, to complete a full cycle, but I’m not sure.
As I am gently kicking the kickstart, I can feel the difference stages that it wants to go through on the way down through the movement, but I am not sure where I am in the cycle when I’m kicking it.
I have watched, on YouTube, videos of how a single cylinder four stroke engine is laid out and functions, but I’m having a hard time translating that to what I feel when I gently kick down the kick starter.
Rather than going off on a tangent about how this “isn’t necessary,” or “the EFI system is sufficient” and all of that.......if you could just address the technical aspects, that would be great; thanks! I realize of course, that I’m asking a motor question in a forum that primarily deals with sidecars, but some of us have motorcycles that have side cars that are driven by motorcycles with single cylinder four stroke motors, so I thought it relevant.
