I must be missing something ! When I kick the KXF over it feels like the auto decomp is not working, it is really really hard to kick through. The motor has just been rebuilt (and it runs fine once it is started). I have a shop manual and have checked it over quite a few times, the spring, bolt everything look just like the manual says they should.
Anyone got an idea or two for me to try, or look for?
Thanks.

If you have too much clearance on the exhaust valve it will not work correctly as it barely bumps the valve open to let the compression escape.

looking closer I see that the decomp shaft is just barely (if at all) touching the valve bucket. Looks like something is out of line maybe. With the valve cover off I can see the cam opening the valves, when the decomp comes around nothing happens. I should be able to see the decomp open the valve shouldn't I?

Did you torque down the cam cover caps @ 104 to inch lbs. It almost sounds like to me you over tightenend them causing drag on turning over the motor. Don't run the bike. To know if you have done this you will see excessive wear on the cams. I know because experianced the same senario myself.

The correct torque is 80-84 in# a 104 is way over tighting the 04 manual has a misprint.

104 inch # is a mis-print? I have already run the bike, it seems to run fine. The only thing wrong is that it is very hard to kick over, it goes thru the stroke fine until it comes to the compression stroke and it is like hitting a wall. It feels just like my old KLX650 when the spring fell off the 650's decomp.
Thanks for the help, I will recheck the torque.

But when got my bike i checked the factory torque before i undid the bolts and they had it set at 104 also. Maybe that is why a few guys are seizing there intake cam! Where or how did you find out about the the misprint?

Did you check the valve clearance yet on the exhaust valve the de-comp opens? It will just BARELY bump it.

Yes the valve clearances are in spec, and my understanding of it would be that if the valve specs were out it means that I actually have less clearance and the valves would not be completely closing because of it. The only things a little out were the springs, they were about half way through their service limit. I replaced them and the piston rings while I was in there. I'm pulling the motor back out today and will take to my Kawi mechanic. I will post what I find out. Thanks, and please keep the suggestions coming.

Iwas told by a buddy of mine that is a service manager at a local Suz. Dealer, I think they have corrected the misprint in the 05 manual.

Check that you have not shimmed the valve with autodecomp. in activated pos.

Actually I thought the valve clearance might be on the loose side(too much clearance). That would prevent it from working.

OK I missunderstood. I'll check the clearances again and I will also check to make sure that I never set them with the decomp activley working.
When I looked closer yesterday it looked like the decomp shaft was not going all the way into the slot in the exhaust cam. It looked to me that the slot in the cam was 3/8 inch longer than the decomp shaft (or the shaft was not sliding all the way into the slot in the cam shaft). Can anyone tell me if this is normal? If anyone has the valve cover off, could you please take a look? If you look at the exhaust cam from the back of the motor you can see the decomp. shaft and the slot in the cam as the cam turns. Thanks for the help guys. I'm running out of hair.

Well the motor is back together again. I took it over to a local Kawi expert (mechanic) and showed it to him. He agreed that the decomp was not working, and that the cams looked too far over to the chain side of the motor. I left it with him for the day, he could not see any reason for the miss alignment. The motor turned over smoothly, the cams were timed correctly, the valves were shimmed correctly.
Because we couldn't determine the cause of the problem, he removed the cams and inspected all of the parts, the cams, the bearings, everything. Everything is in spec and not damaged in any way.
He reassembled the top end of the motor, thinking he would see something out of wack as he put it back together. He completely reassembled top end and this time when it was done the auto decomp works! I can kick the motor over with my hand! The auto decomp works!
What's different? Now there is a 1/4 in space between the bolt that holds the auto decomp shaft into the cam and the rubber gasket. Before this the head of the bolt was right up against the rubber gasket. It looks like everything has moved over (away from the chain side) 1/4 inch.
It sounds impossible to me too. I don't really understand what happened or is happening. I'll take a picture before I install the motor to better illustrate this. I also hope it runs! Wish me luck.

Good news! The bike is together and it starts and runs great! This problem is the weirdest one I've ever had. Somehow , someway the cams must have been off set 1/4 inch . As I described in the previous post everthing looked good (and the bike ran good too) except the bike was very hard to kick over.

The end of the story is a happy one. I have no hair left from pulling it out and scratching my head to the bone. But since the bike is running again all is forgiven.

There is supposed to be a half of a snap ring in the groove in each cam roller bearing which locates the camshafts correctly in the camshaft caps. There is a matching groove in each cap. Someone must have left them out the first time around. There is no way it could move over (left-right) if this snap ring is in place correctly. They are easy to lose as they are small and sometimes stick to the bearing and other times to the cap. I would make sure they are there before running the bike again, as it could play havoc if the chain jumped off due to them sliding around side to side. Just pull the valve cover and the cam caps, to be sure. Unless the Mech admits he left them off last time!