New Member, first project bike.

Hey everyone! my name is Ben. I Recently sold a CBR600rr and bought a 550 dollar project. The bike I got is a 1981 KZ440b. It needs a bit of work to be street legal so I decided to do a weird cafe racer/ junk build. The engine is in pretty good shape and it runs just fine. But I want to squeeze a bit more power out of it and build it to be my own.
So far iv'e pulled off the handlebars, seat and a few other odds and ends. The wiring harness is garbage and the throttle unit is pretty janky. So I've decided to run the starter to a push button that i'll hide on the frame somewhere and completely remove the ignition switch. The headlight was a 10 dollar aftermarket piece o crap and so was the brake light. So i'm mounting a new headlight and wiring it to a toggle switch. The brake light assembly works but i'll have to replace the actual light once I put a fender on the rear tire.
I have a blog where I post about cars, bikes and my build. It's called martyr-machine on Tumblr.
I have a little experience working on cars and bikes, but not too much, so this will be a learning experience for me. I've helped my friend rebuild a 76 El Camino, rewire some of the stuff in his E150 van and i've installed plenty of car stereos. But this is my first time really working on a bike outside of basic maintenance.
I'll probably be posting on here quite a bit once I gather the parts I need for the bike. Nice to meet you all.
Heres a picture of the bike when I first got it and where it's at currently... I also painted the tank because I wasn't a fan of the orange.

:woohoo: looks like it will be a fun bike. I have to say that those CV carbs and pod filters are going to be fun to tune if your looking for more power. I personally prefer mikuni VM carbs for pods. But that is my preference. . good luck and post plenty of pictures, I know im interested to see what you do.

Welcome.
Steve

punisher11b wrote: :woohoo: looks like it will be a fun bike. I have to say that those CV carbs and pod filters are going to be fun to tune if your looking for more power. I personally prefer minuki VM carbs for pods. But that is my preference. . good luck and post plenty of pictures, I know im interested to see what you do.

Thanks!
I was talking to a guy at a local shop. he recommended Sudco carbs. Any experience with those?

You need to talk to a different guy. :laugh: :laugh: Sudco does not make carbs. They sell parts for Mikuni and Keihin carbs. Ed

I would switch to the mikuni VM carbs if you are going to do pods. For more power, you will want a dual set up. www.speedmotoco.com/mobile/Product.aspx?id=2683

Or you can do a two to one conversion with a vm34.

Oh man, just realized i had a dislexic moment and wrote minuki instead of mikuni :blush: . oh well. :lol: what I know is when I got my 440 the PO wrecked the airbox and the cap for the filter was MIA Those CV carbs are hard ( damn near impossible in my opinion) to tune with pods. Plus super expensive jets it seemed like. Where the mikuni carbs are easy to jet and the jets are really reasonable. I spent two months trying to make the CV carbs work right with pods. Never could. On the other hand I had the mikuni done in two weeks ( including shipping time for the jets) . plus I like how gutsy it feels with the mikuni. I do want to mention that IMO while nice to have "customized" it still isn't quite as nice as the stock set up when its well taken care of. I'm with dom, go with a dual carb setup if you want more power. Although the single vm-34 is really gutsy between 0-50. With a single 70+ becomes an issue.

Will changing the pipes to straight pipes make the carbs more difficult to tune? The current exhaust setup is a 2-1 but it looks like the previous owner had no clue how to weld... Seriously, I've never welded before in my life but I guarantee I could do a better job than that with an afternoon of training and practice. I'm considering getting a stock setup and just leaving the mufflers off in favor of a shorter setup. Or cutting the ones on there before the welds and just redoing the 2-1.

I have had the same experience with my 440. CV carbs were too difficult to work on. I did a single carb conversion.

The mikuni carb has parts easily available. I was able to get all the jets, needle jets and needles I needed cheap at a local shop.

My bike does great at the low end but struggles to get over 85.

MartyrMachine wrote: Will changing the pipes to straight pipes make the carbs more difficult to tune? The current exhaust setup is a 2-1 but it looks like the previous owner had no clue how to weld... Seriously, I've never welded before in my life but I guarantee I could do a better job than that with an afternoon of training and practice. I'm considering getting a stock setup and just leaving the mufflers off in favor of a shorter setup. Or cutting the ones on there before the welds and just redoing the 2-1.

The carbs from the factory are lean. The pods are going to make the bike run even more lean and the straight pipes are going to make things worse.

Straight pipes are also going to make you lose a lot of back pressure and can easily lead to trashing your valves.

If you don't have it yet, here is a link to the shop manual. You will be needing one for sure if you plan on getting everything running right.
kz400.com/WorkshopManFrameset-5.html

MartyrMachine wrote: Will changing the pipes to straight pipes make the carbs more difficult to tune? ......

Yes. Also, they will reduce power regardless of tuning. If all you are trying to do is make the bike loud they will work great. :laugh: Ed