I just bought a 2004 Skeeter 150 Yamaha VMax and it has a hot foot.  I'm trying it out today for the first time.  Do I have to put the hand throttle full ahead and keep it there to start the engine and then use the hot foot pedal like in a car?

Thanks in Advance!

The old side mount control box merely becomes a F - N - R shifter. The hot foot is the throttle. Normally, most that install a hot foot also install some sort of steering wheel mounted trim switch as well.  Sort defeats the purpose of the hot foot if you don't.  

You need to have the shift in neutral to start the engine, then shift to forward or backward. When you move the shift past the normal gear engauging position, nothing else happens. You use the foot throttle then. You can rev the engine with the Hot Foot when the shift is in neutral just like in a car.

On some engines you can rev it while in neutral, the Yamaha 225 HPDI VMAX on my '07 Skeeter ZX225 will not really "rev" up. Once you start trying to rev it up it cuts out cylinders to keep the RPM's down to keep someone from trying to blow the engine up. Also while idling in neutral it only runs on 4 of 6 cylinders.

On some engines you can rev it while in neutral, the Yamaha 225 HPDI VMAX on my '07 Skeeter ZX225 will not really "rev" up. Once you start trying to rev it up it cuts out cylinders to keep the RPM's down to keep someone from trying to blow the engine up. Also while idling in neutral it only runs on 4 of 6 cylinders.

My mercury throws a "Neutral Overspeed Fault" if you take it to more than 2k rpm in neutral.

Thanks all - worked great!