TOPIC:

I found a company on ebay that sells block off plates that allow you to keep the reeds in place and take the place of the reed covers. I just tried to look it up again to get a pic but couldn't find it. The hose was 20 bucks cheaper and does the same thing so I went with that instead

$20 will pay for gas or toward something else you need.
Steve

Ape race parts sells billet aluminum cam cover block off plates for around 50.00
but I just went the cheaper way & spent about 2.00 for a hose & 2 clamps
P.S. I left the reed valves in, that was about 6 yrs. ago , with no issues
Pete

swest wrote: Having the breather in the valve cover is a good idea. You can tell it gets hot in there by the color. Not a problem with a fresh motor but when things get worn, a lot heat is trapped up there.
Steve

Those reed valves don't let air into the valve cover, they suck air directly into the exhaust port just behind the valve. It was an attempt to skirt emissions regs that didn't really work. The idea is to bring fresh air into the exhaust and covert CO into CO2 and to burn any hydrocarbons that were left after combustion. There has always been a debate about wether those smog systems actually worked, our just diluted the exhaust.

At any rate they are a useless system, and removing them won't hurt anything, but it wiill remove a bunch of unnecessary parts from your bike and make service a bit easier.

The APE plates that Petes talking about are very tasty.Ive had my eye on them for a while now. They are a luxury item though,so theyre at the bottom of my list. Ill just be using a rubber hose .

I deleted that crap on mine just because I noticed one of the hoses was split and a PO had just tried to tape it. Rather than spend money on replacing parts that aren't doing anything I bought a variety pack of plugs at O'Reilly's which fit the 3 respective ports nicely. Of course I had to plug the 2 vacuum ports as well.

The plug on the airbox gets in the way of removing the carbs so I'll eventually get around to putting a flat piece inside the box using the screws that hold on the port.

You can trace the covers out and make your own if you have access to a scroll saw or band saw. I ised some 3/16" aluminum to make these for my 1300 project.

Nice job Tyler !!
Pete

OK I'll bite.... when in the 720 degrees of crank rotation are those reed valves supposed to open and how?
Allowing what air from where into the exhaust port?
I assume on the Ex pipe side but isn't that a high pressure area when the Ex valve is rather open, slamming the reed shut?
So, it's only open in some really minor time span of "cavitation of the tuned system"?
Seems really lame to me.

missionkz wrote: OK I'll bite.... when in the 720 degrees of crank rotation are those reed valves supposed to open and how?
Allowing what air from where into the exhaust port?
I assume on the Ex pipe side but isn't that a high pressure area when the Ex valve is rather open, slamming the reed shut?
So, it's only open in some really minor time span of "cavitation of the tuned system"?
Seems really lame to me.

I think everyone agrees that it's lame. The idea is that after the exhaust valve closes there's a low pressure zone created at the reed valve from the hot exhaust gases going out the pipe that opens the valve and sucks fresh air in.

Well, considering that in the car world, from that era, cars had belt driven air pumps and a whole mess of doodads to push air into the exhaust, the Kawasaki system is nice and simple, and takes almost no power to operate. Every car I owned back then, the air pump was rusted frozen. They were a huge pain.

The Kaw system is far less of a pain to get working correctly, and far easier to delete.

missionkz wrote: OK I'll bite.... when in the 720 degrees of crank rotation are those reed valves supposed to open and how?
Allowing what air from where into the exhaust port?
I assume on the Ex pipe side but isn't that a high pressure area when the Ex valve is rather open, slamming the reed shut?
So, it's only open in some really minor time span of "cavitation of the tuned system"?
Seems really lame to me.

Its based on Bernoulli's principle. When the exhaust valve opens high velocity gas rushes throung the exhaust port when is passes across the small port for the emissions system at high speed it creates a shipon effect and draws fresh air in. Just like a siphon tube in a carburetor. The air supply comes from a hose connected to the airbox that goes to each reed valve on the valve cover. The reed vales ensure that exhaust gass cannot back up into the air system. There is also a vacuum operated valve that shuts the air supply down during high engine vacuum. This valve stops fresh air from entering the exhaust ports during hard deceleration and engine braking. There is too much unburned fuel in the exhaust and the emissions system would cause terrible backfiring during engine braking.

That's how it's supposed to work. The smog pumps in cars were designed to do the same thing and were used in 80's and early 90's. They were just as useless and had no actual effect on emissions. Today all of this is handled by catalytic converters in cars and exhaust reburn systems in diesels that actually work to clean up the exhuast.