Been there before with both my 98 wolverine and my 2001 kodiak. You need a stator, if it won't start on the starter, but it will pop start or pull start the pickup coil is bad, your bike will have 2. On my 1998 everything ohmed out in spec and it was still bad. My kodiak was the same it would pull start but no spark or erratic spark on the starter. New stator and bang starts right up.
There are a couple of options; you can buy some aftermarket pickup coils and solder them in, which often the colors are not the same as factory and it is easy to get them backwards.
You can get a complete aftermarket stator for reasonable price, and it may work, many people have had bad luck or needed to get 2-3 new units to get it to work.
Or you can do what I did and pay for the OEM stator assembly which worked perfectly every time for me.
However I will give you some other specs to check before you decide because it could be a bad ignition coil, plug, or wire. I think your CDI is fine because it still starts up and runs on the pull cord. You will need a multi-meter (about $20.00 bucks at most auto parts stores) to do the following checks, and make sure the battery is disconnected or else you ruin it.
Ignition Coil Resistance total not more than 17.5k ohms thats with cap, wire, and coil. Breakdown-
The coils primary circuit should have .3-.5 ohms.
The coils secondary circuit should have 5.5k-7.3k ohm by its self.
The wire should have little or no resistance 0-1 ohms would be fine.
The cap is fine as long as it has less than 10k ohms resistance.
For the next step disconnect the stator from the wiring harness. For US models its a 5 pin harness
The pick-up resistance is measured by checking between the (-)white/red wire and the (+)blue wire and should be between 460-560 ohms \
Next check the the wires on the source coil in the stator, they are in the same 5 pin harness (for US models) +Brown wire and (-)green wire, the resistance should be between 270-330 ohms.
There is a resistance spec for the CDI box but my 98 service manual doesn't list it, but even if its in spec it could still be bad, so....
Good luck, if you need more help let me know I can post some picks as well.
