something has changed on my xt that ive owned for 6 years recently, its a 4pt model and has done 44000 miles, its to do with cold start, its quite puzzling, normal procedure is when cold no throttle full choke and it starts up fairly quickly, 2 or 3 turns of the starter, then half choke to no choke within a couple of minutes, what its doing now is still starting readily but on half choke only then off within a couple of minutes, runs fine and hot start is as normal, the battery is one year old yuasa, the only thing ive done to it was to change the fuse box/solenoid combination jobby which good used ones are easily available off fazer 600's etc, there was a little crap and corrosion in places as expected on the old one, so all ive done is excluded any of that as a fault, i havent touched the starter connection or main earth which is on the starter mount, i went that route to start with because the starter turns fairly slow though no real difference to normal when cold and quicker when hot, the thought was it wasent getting enough voltage etc, its like its getting too much fuel on full choke when cold and sometimes can result in a backfire, or am i barking up the wrong tree, and its this damn e10 fuel thats doing it, have to travel 10 miles to get e5, any ideas appreciated

don't know much about characteristics of 4pt, but generally, main earth used to be bolted on crankcase behind cylinder, while starter receives positive.

one thing more sure - according some recent experience, some fuel additives might cause different troubles.
of course in terms of carbs, not in terms of starter spin speed.

Are your inlet rubbers on the carbs split or damaged.

Firstly the earth is on one of the starter mounting bolts, looks like it always was.
as for the second one, yes i have tested that, easily done when you spray wd40 around those areas, as if there was a fault there the wd would get in and the bike would rev up, and thats not happening so ok there.
i went on the thought weak spark, so changed it for a good one that i knew was ok and no change there either, of course that dosent rule out coil etc.
also further investigation into the carb will probably needed, cannot get the drain screw out as a previous owner has knackered that, so will have to wait until christmas hollidays until i get time to look at them, it does mean a delimma between now and then as its my daily rider so its a fingers crossed thing for now, i dont know if there is some water in there but it would be strange as normal operation is good after its eventually started from cold.

cracked it, its one of two things though, first is a possible smite of water in bottom of float bowl, maybe enough to cause issues in starting when cold, its the less likely one but as ive had the carbs off today and what barstewards they are, worse than my xjr1200 and thats saying something, the other most probable issue appeared, the manifold to the block on the slave carb side, the rubber part had detached from the metal part, which is strange as no symptoms appeared when i tested with wd 40, so it was carbs out firstly float bowl off to get rid of any water that maybe there and then use silicon the stickey type as the rubber part is fixed with some sort of glue when new and age comes into play and gives in, put it back together and started from cold full choke, success, for now anyway

Mine was the same, no high reving with easy start but when i took the carbs off the manifolds fell apart.