Trying to get it to run right.

Hey fellas,
Last winter I picked up a cheap 79 kz400 LTD sanz mufflers from a shop owner. The thing has pods on it and apparently was ridden around a farm by the prev owner. I'm trying to get'er runnin right but right now its got some troubles. Let me start by saying the plugs were changed, the oil is fresh and the carbs were thoroughly cleaned. Among my problems are: It does alot of backfiring while decelerating. Also when its idling, cylinder 2 fires intermittently only to pick up when I give it gas.

I checked the main jets and they were strangely warped. I then replaced them with those from a 440. Today the bike topped out at 80 MPH I'm wondering about the air mixture. HELP

I'm not sure about the other things but If the carbs aren't synchronized it will cause the problem of one cylinder pulling only intermittently until you add gas. Its basically like one carb is open further then the other so while your just holding a steady pace one cylinder is being told to speed up and the other is saying wait I don't have enough air yet. Of course when you go to accelerate both cylinders want to speed up and it all works again. To sync them you can start off with bench syncing them by just looking at the butterflies and adjusting the set screw in the middle of them so that it looks like they both are closing at exactly the same time. That should help alot but the best thing to do would be to get or make your own manometer and use that to sync the carbs. If you look in the filebase there is a pretty good description of how to build and use one. Even if you don't need it read it anyways its kinda entertaining to read. It could be something else too of course. Like bad plug wires, dirty points, or something that I'm completely missing but since you said you had the carbs off I would start by syncing.

Synching... I'm afraid you could be right on that. It Would make sense. But would that explain why my bike has trouble starting without starting fluid? Nevermind I'll bet the mixture needs to be enriched to compensate for the pod filters.