"the book says to not crank th
"the book says to not crank the starter for more than 5 seconds at a time. that's what got me to trying different cranking routines. the position of your choke and the neutral throttle lever position are 2 other variables to experiment with. one other item, i keep my plugs very clean and I think that helps on starting also. I bought one of those spark plug sand blasters at Harbor Freight Tools for about $10 and it's paid for itself over and over. in fact I'm still running my original 1999 spark plugs. they almost never wear out, just get oily carbon on them and makes for hard starts I think. of course you'll need a small air compressor for the spark plug cleaner, but i use it for everything including cleaning carburetors, etc.
good luck!"