Carb adjustment with new pods

[jcknapp]

Hello all-

     I am completely overhauling, dismantling, and adding on a few things to my 1971 CB500four.  I just finished the new front brake, new master cylinder, drilled our rotors, new bars, new gauges, blah blah blah, etc...... Pics def to come. I am running a 4 into 2 exhaust system with the carbs adjusted and synced to that specific exhaust and the stock air filter box. However I want to clean up that triangle where the battery, regulator/rectifier/control panel live with the air filter box. So I've decided to get rid of that giant dinosaur of a airbox, change the intake to K&N pods, combine the regulator/rectifier and switched to a Shorai lithium battery with a custom box I am building. So far everything has gone pretty smooth. knock on wood

I do want to swap the air filter to the K&N pods and was wondering if anyone had any experience rejetting, syncing and making these little guys work on the carbs?? I haven't done the conversion yet but will be in the next few weeks and wanted to get a sense of what I am looking to get myself into. Some people say stay away dont do it while others say its super easy if you got the gauge to sync them and the time and patience.

So yeah any info would be greatly accepted, appreciated and definately used!!!! Thanks guys and gals....

J

[LesterPiglet]

From all the reports I have read these engines don't like pods. Apart from being a nightmare to get running properly they are not as efficient as the standard setup.
Welcome btw.

[jcknapp]

Ahhhh Lester. Youre bringin me down. haha. I hear both sides of the tale. One saying "dont do it !!! you'll never get them right", and the other says " I've done them before, kinda some work but it came out great!!!"  Ill keep searching and maybe just try and see what happens. Cheers

J

[Ewan 500 K1]

Pods work fine on my K1 with 4 into 4 straight throughs and rejetted to 110 mains. Has a bit of a lean tendency , so could maybe got to slightly bigger mains. ... needed balancing of course. ... and MPG suffers.  With standard 100 jets it seems to lose a bit of mid range ooomph.

Intersted in your combined regulator/recifier , whats the crack with that....... and where d'ya get your drills for the disc drilling, cobalts ?, price .... or even are they still in good enough nick to sell on . Disc drilling is nearing the top of my list of things to do next ?

[jcknapp]

Hey Ewan-
    Thanks for the reply. I think you are right. I am going to just probably start doing nothing and then begin diagnosing from there maybe re jetting, adjusting jets, changing, etc. I also heard if you check the spark plugs after the engine is warm they can tell you alot from the color of the plug. I heard this on another forum. Guess I'll do all the research and take everyones info into consideration.

As far as the combo regulator/rectifier I found a nice outfit here that sells them. They cut down on your weight( not by much) and clean up the rats nest on your control board. Honda is notorious for having wires going everywhere and sometimes being complicated. I am doing everything I can to greatly reduce this. One by doing the combo, another thing I did was buy a lithium battery which is a fraction of the weight. Literally it weighs the weight of a cup of coffee. Super light!!!! No joke. And it's lithium so I can hide it under my seat sideways because there is no battery acid to worry about and they can be placed into positions like that. A great purchase!!!!

The drilled out rotor a buddy of mine did here in Brooklyn. He did it on a CNC machine. It came out beautifully. I have attached a pic. The drilling out will reduce weight on the rotor as well as keeping it cool when braking and it looks pretty badass too. Anyways I could go on and on but I won't haha. Thanks for the input as I will use it and hope my info has helped you out too. Cheers man

J-

[florence]

When I bought my 500/4, seventeen years ago, the airbox was missing so I have individual air filters made by SB, I think, I can't remember now.  Anyway, they are excellent if a little noisy.  I have larger jets (110? I think) and a laser exhaust from the eighties, very loud; at full throttle it howls.  The performance is better than standard, it has more power at the bottom and top end and no flat spots, tickover is perfect.  The power band is a little more aggressive. 

I had the carbs balanced by a local bike workshop, worth every penny because they got it right and I didn't have to mess around.

I think my bike is more fun for it's modifications and they make it perfect for the period it was made.  In the seventies and eighties lots of people did this to their bikes because they believed it improved them.  I'm inclined to agree.

However, I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you don't mind a bit of experimentation to get it right.  Your bike will certainly be easier to set up with the standard equipment.