carb help!! air drafts makes my engine stumble

hello everyone,
its been a while since ive been here, works been keeping me pretty busy.
heres my problem. i have a 81' kz550 with TK carbs. When im cruisin down the road and a strong air draft hits me, my engine stumbles. it feels like it dies just for a split second. im thinking the low pressure draft messes up my carbs.

anyone know of something like atmospheric vent or something on the carbs that i could baffle?

thanks

Don't know about TK carbs, I'm afraid... Are you using pods? I thought I had the jetting pretty close but revs would sometimes drop slightly at 3-4K rpm due to turbulence. This went away when I installed larger main jets.

yes i am running pods. i was also thinking that the jets could be a little lean, but this really ONLY happens when it catches a big draft. so i just dont know. dutchz, what kind of bike/carbs/pods/jets/exhaust do you have?

thanks for your input

I have a similar occurance ocasionally when it's windy...particularly a side draft.

All I do is tuck my legs in tight, keep my pods pretty well oiled, and have my jetting as close as possible.

I have seen people who came up with an air shield to avoid this ordeal, but they always looked a little hokey to me.

You could go back to a stock airbox and have "still air" as WiredGeorge says and she'll run much smoother in the wind!

You could also try velocity stacks with mesh filter over the open ends. They would be alot more side-wind resistant than my K&N pod filters for example. Heck, maybe I should try that...why didn't I think of that before? I used to run stacks on a 78 KZ1000 and don't ever remember being bothered by the wind.

Good Luck.:whistle:

Post edited by: neilage66, at: 2006/06/22 21:44

put a stock airbox on it.

As has been noted, the stock air box will cure the turbulance issue. If you don't want to run a stock air box, learn to live with this issue. It affects both round slide and constant velocity carbs.

Thanks for the replys, they are always helpful. I think I am going to just leave it alone.

Have a good weekend everyone.

buzz

buz0340 wrote:

yes i am running pods. i was also thinking that the jets could be a little lean, but this really ONLY happens when it catches a big draft. so i just dont know. dutchz, what kind of bike/carbs/pods/jets/exhaust do you have?

74 Z1 / stock 28mm / UNI pods / 125 mains, needles on top notch / Hooker 4-2.

What I described would happen at freeway speeds when moving knees out. As neilage66 described, tucking knees in will fix this. Issue however turned out to disappear when switching from 120 to 125 main jets, so I can once again let it all hang out :lol:
I can live with the disturbance that strong (I mean STRONG) crosswinds can cause. This is occasional and doesn't bug me.
Main jets are around 3 bucks a pop. The most it's gonna cost you is 12 dollars. And since you are running pods switching them will be easy. Ahhhh, the benefits of not dealing with the airbox