Friday I discussed this with Jim Haugen the Gasgas Technical advisor. He suggested that I check the electric start bendix for binding in the end cap on the left side engine case. I removed the starter and the left side cover. I did not feel what I thought was excess binding when I rotated the bendix gear, but I polished the hole inside that outer bendix cover anyway and now my starter works from cold. At least it did last night. I used a dremel tool with a felt polishing pad that was a snug fit in the bore of the case hole. Polished it up dry for about a minute, until I could feel the aluminum getting warm and then I stopped. Looks nice and shiny in that hole now. Took off very little material, but seems to have made a difference in starting.
Apparently even a little binding of the bendix will cause very high current to flow to the starter which drags down the battery voltage so the CDI can't fire the coil. I could see that was my problem before because I monitored the spark while cranking and only saw a fraction of a second sparking for several seconds of cranking.
Larger diameter cables help because not as much voltage gets dropped on a thicker cable with less resistance so more voltage is available for the CDI and coil. But in my case the #8 AWG cables were not enough.
I am still using the 150 CCA battery that the dealer put on the bike to replace the dead stock battery when i picked up the bike.
My bike still will not start in gear. Too much clutch drag I think.
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