83-86 550 2 barrel carbs

[TheCafeKid]

cafekid,

did you get to measuring the carbs for us?

Paul

Crap Sorry man, i totally forgot by the time i got home from work last night. I will make a note for myself and measure tonight. I dont have internet access, but if you or Ray wants to leave me a number i can give one of you a call and tell you what i end up with. It will be a bit late when i get home (Around midnight or so EST) but i have no problem giving someone a ring if you dont...

[Colorado85gs550]

I just measured:

3.750 across
2.285 up/down

we have approxiamately 1/4 inch of flange length to strap to

[Billy Ricks]

Crap Sorry man, i totally forgot by the time i got home from work last night. I will make a note for myself and measure tonight. I dont have internet access, but if you or Ray wants to leave me a number i can give one of you a call and tell you what i end up with. It will be a bit late when i get home (Around midnight or so EST) but i have no problem giving someone a ring if you dont...

I have Ray's number, PM me. It will still be 9 out his way.

[Colorado85gs550]

I just pulled the boot off of one of them with the box in place.....gonna be a nightmare to put it back on!!

[Colorado85gs550]

I have ray's number also....

mine is:

719-302-0345 late is ok.....I'm MST

[Billy Ricks]

Nevermind TCK, looks like it's covered.

[TheCafeKid]

I just pulled the boot off of one of them with the box in place.....gonna be a nightmare to put it back on!!

Shouldnt be too tough. I must admit though I was doing ALOT of cussing when working on that same model. It HAS to be the single hardest GS to get the carbs in and out of. Taking the battery box out is helpfull in getting an extra 1/2 inch or so of wiggle room. Also, when you goto put that boot back on, give the boot a shot of PB Blaster or WD40 for some lubricant, it will help. And if you have a hair dryer or a heat gun, it also helps to heat the boot up so its nice and plyable.

[Colorado85gs550]

Shouldnt be too tough. I must admit though I was doing ALOT of cussing when working on that same model. It HAS to be the single hardest GS to get the carbs in and out of. Taking the battery box out is helpfull in getting an extra 1/2 inch or so of wiggle room. Also, when you goto put that boot back on, give the boot a shot of PB Blaster or WD40 for some lubricant, it will help. And if you have a hair dryer or a heat gun, it also helps to heat the boot up so its nice and plyable.

great advice....will do!!

hopefully we get some custom pods made and the box goes BYE BYE

[Colorado85gs550]

here's a thought.....

what if I was to shove some air filter foam into the boots and eliminate the box now while we wait for these pods to be made? will this act as enough filter?

[TheCafeKid]

great advice....will do!!

hopefully we get some custom pods made and the box goes BYE BYE

From my own experience, I am just about done with affixing CV carbs with pods. Yeah, it makes it easier to get them in and out, but unless your bike sits for weeks at a time where there might be a chance of them gumming up, once you get it running well, how often do you really have to do it? I am big on the performance aspect, and do a lot of tuning and tinkering. But ive come to the realization that you simply CANNOT tune all of the flatspots out of the CV carbs. You can get them damn close, with a LOT of tinkering and trial and error, but the fact is, a change in the temp and/or weather will change them fairly drasticly from day to day. Im to the point where I am half tempted to put the airbox BACK on my 1100ES. And in all honesty, I or just about anyone probably wouldnt notice a difference in performance other than it running SMOOTHER. A track bike is a different story, and those guys have that stuff down to a science (and alot of em arent running vaccum carbs anymore either) But for an everyday rider thats something you put alot of miles on, if you were to ask ME to do some work on your bike, unless you were adament about it, I would highly suggest leaving the airbox, installing a nice K&N drop in filter, pull the lid off the thing and tune the bike for your pipe/borekit/whatever from there.. Just my opinion though.

[Billy Ricks]

here's a thought.....

what if I was to shove some air filter foam into the boots and eliminate the box now while we wait for these pods to be made? will this act as enough filter?

Did you ever contact skreemer? His signature line shows he's running K&N pods.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/member.php?u=247

[Colorado85gs550]

Did you ever contact skreemer? His signature line shows he's running K&N pods.
http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/member.php?u=247

yeah, skreemer took some pods and glued them to the carb boots to make them work....

we were hoping to get some from K&N directly made for this carb....

[TheCafeKid]

Wait I thought there were already pods MADE for that carb? The guy I worked on that bike for said he HAD a set of them and wanted me to jet the thing for it, but i told him i didnt have time right now to do it, but perhaps in the future. I will give him a call and ask him where he got those...if in fact they were correct for that bike to begin with...

[Colorado85gs550]

From my own experience, I am just about done with affixing CV carbs with pods. Yeah, it makes it easier to get them in and out, but unless your bike sits for weeks at a time where there might be a chance of them gumming up, once you get it running well, how often do you really have to do it? I am big on the performance aspect, and do a lot of tuning and tinkering. But ive come to the realization that you simply CANNOT tune all of the flatspots out of the CV carbs. You can get them damn close, with a LOT of tinkering and trial and error, but the fact is, a change in the temp and/or weather will change them fairly drasticly from day to day. Im to the point where I am half tempted to put the airbox BACK on my 1100ES. And in all honesty, I or just about anyone probably wouldnt notice a difference in performance other than it running SMOOTHER. A track bike is a different story, and those guys have that stuff down to a science (and alot of em arent running vaccum carbs anymore either) But for an everyday rider thats something you put alot of miles on, if you were to ask ME to do some work on your bike, unless you were adament about it, I would highly suggest leaving the airbox, installing a nice K&N drop in filter, pull the lid off the thing and tune the bike for your pipe/borekit/whatever from there.. Just my opinion though.

I agree with you TCK....

I ride up and down a mountain pass thats pretty windy daily, and since I have both a dragstrip close by and a nice road course/oval track at PPIR, I will be tuning this bike for the 600 retro class.....

[Colorado85gs550]

Wait I thought there were already pods MADE for that carb? The guy I worked on that bike for said he HAD a set of them and wanted me to jet the thing for it, but i told him i didnt have time right now to do it, but perhaps in the future. I will give him a call and ask him where he got those...if in fact they were correct for that bike to begin with...

K&N discontinued production on them and when I emailed the K&N customer service people they asked for measurements for some custom builds..........

rapidray confronted me about a contact he has with K&N and we started the ball rolling on this!