Have been having a hard start issue. Finally checked my valves this weekend.
Bike has somewhere around 3500-4000 miles, speedo is off due to swapping from S to SF wheels often.

Exhaust read .005 and .007 so both could be reshimed. But the intake is so tight I cant even get a feeler gauge in.

What would cause the intake to tighten up so much?

 

cegusman, I was looking at your post about the diaphragm and noticed you said the valves hadn't been adjusted at the 3-4K mark. Did you mean they were never adjusted as far as you know? If they have been adjusted, did you do it or did you have a shop do it? If these valves haven't been adjusted before, then just manufacturing tolerances and break-in would not be too unusual to find your results. If they were honestly adjusted 3-4K ago, then it's something I'd keep an eye on, as they shouldn't get that far out of spec that quickly. On having a dealer do the valve check on the first service, it's unfortunate to know that some shops don't check the valves as they should...especially on bucket/shim types like ours.

 

Never been done. Guess its was just time, I will do them myself. Friend has a shim kit and we will get them back to spec.

So I assume putting them on the looser end of spec is recommended?

 

The valves will tighten with wear, so when adjusting, go towards the max free play. It will be longer till the next re-adjustment.

 

some tips...

1. remove the inside cover carefully as there are little hollow metal tubes underneath the bolt holes that may get stuck to the cover and fall out...don't drop it and it's different sizes, so make sure you remember where each goes....
   
2. use white out or nail polish to mark the cam and cam chain before you do anything....
   
3. put a long screwdriver or metal rod under the cam chaim and over...don't drop the chain...
   
4. use a strong magnet to remove the round covers with the valve shim...again, don't drop the shim....
   
5. remove and scrape all the factory silicone around the rubber half circle gasket....if your bike is like mine, you'll have ton of hardened kawasaki silicone...apply very light sealant around and just a tad extra on the half circles....if you don't clean the factory silicone well, it will most likely leak...if you drop some in the engine in the process, don't worry too much....i found it all when i did my next oil change on the oil filter...

 

Easier yet... put zip ties through the cam gear to hold the chain in place. You wont have anything to worry about at all..... hard to see in this pic, but i put 2 wire ties on each gear to hold timing chain in place. The ties are black...

 

I like that idea

 

Takes all the SCARY out of doing the valve adjustment.

 

do you see that metal hollow cylinder on the right closest to the cam chain?..those are what you don't want to drop....

 

No clearance at all!
Sorry for being a doubting thomas but are you sure the engine is at TDC of the compression/firing stroke?