TOPIC:

Hello,

Right now I have a 1980 kz440 with some cv carbs on it that are giving me a heck of a time getting tuned. To be honest I've wanted to switch to pods but the cv/pod combo doesn't work to hot. Does anyone know of a VM subsitute for the 440 that can be obtained fairly cheaply, or without hassle? Thanks,

-c

Whats so bad about tuning the CV carbs. You dont really need to do much to it. Jets don't need to be changed, Needle clip settings stay in the center groove and make sure all O-rings are in good order. What are you really trying to do?

I guess I didn't explain that very well sorry,

awhile ago I took my carbs to a mechanic to tune with a pair of pod k&n pod filters. I had those filters because I could not find the original housing for the airfilter for the 440 and decide that it would just be easier to switch to pods. I was told that pods and cv carbs don't work well together, which I found to be true, and that they give you dead spots or kill your engine on increased throttle. I've tried to find the filter housing but they are impossible to find even on ebay ( I was assured by the mechanic that the bike would only run right with the original filter.) I'm thinking that now it would be just easier to switch carburetors to VM which do work with pod filters.

Pods and CV carbs are compatible on the larger 4 cylinder bikes - I can vouch for that from personal experience as I have Keihin CV 34s on mine. However. I'm pretty pretty sure I have heard that it's almost impossible to dial in for pods on the 400 and 440s. Dont have a solution to your problem but you might find some pointers or at least people with the same predicament at www.kz400.com

Good Luck

I have run my 400/440's with no filters, pod filters, and stock filter, stock pipes, Mac two into one and open pipes with no real appreciable difference in performance or drivability. maybe I am a little more tolerant to the way they run but the 4 I have running are all about the same.
i would clean the carbs one more time and return everything to stock settings and see how it runs.

No filters Matt? Thats just crazy. Don't you get dust in your carbs? Scrapes on your sliders? I don't know

I am also missing part of my stock airbox and indeed it is incredibly difficult to find them anywhere. Why not try this instead of pods/new carbs? As soon as I get around to removing the remainder of my airbox im going to be doing this for sure

From TheGringo:

The Gringo wrote:

I bought an 81 550 Ltd this spring, needed the usual, carb clean, new battery etc. Being that it was 25 yrs old, the boots from the carbs to the airbox were hardened and therefore junk, so my choices were either new boots cost= $40 or pods also $40 or get creative. I chose to get creative and for a cost of about $3.00 came up with the following fix.

What I did was cut up a Scotchbrite pad and used the stock springs to hold them on the carbs. Not real pretty, but cheap and effective. Rode it all summer like this, still not convinced that pods would work any better.

yea, i know i should not run around with out filters, but when it was a free bike i just did not care. then my conscience got the best of me a couple years later and i put pods on it.
dust...smush thats what i always say

We basically have the same name so it sounded like I was scolding myself, I am Matthew