Support brace for 29mm smoothbores

Has anyone come up with a way to help support the weight of a set of 29's with pods on a KZ900/1000 ? They just hang from the boots & clamps and really pull the boots apart in a hurry. Id like to figure out a brace to help hold them up. Fire any ideas at me please

Here are my thoughts on this. Mind you they are
just thoughts and NOT set in stone...

In 35+ years of riding z1/kz's and most all have had
pod filters. I have NEVER had a problem with the
carb boots. (Yes) they do get old and crack/split
Is it because the carbs are hanging on them or is it
because they are made of hard rubber and live in a
hostile atmosphere? Heat+Gasolin I'd pick the latter.
If you get around 10 years on a set of carb boots i'd
say that not bad. All thing considered.
29's way haff as much as the old 28's. I have put 40K
on a Z1 with 29's and pods. and there was never a
problem with the boots sagging.
I always use SS hose clamps. They are wider then the
OEM clamps and support the carbs better.


All im saying is I don't worry about it.

XENU

I guess you could make a cool bitchen bracket but when I ran pods I just ran a couple loops of bailing wire from frame to carbs, adjusted son carbs were hanging in middle of up or down movement. Better safe than sorry i say...

I've got 29's on my bike as well,and mine do NOT sag one bit.They are in there solid.
Are you sure that your carbs are in the boots all the way?:huh:

Loosen the clamps real good,and with your right foot on the rear brake,give them a good push from side to side.
They shouldn't sag.:huh:

Regardless of what other folks do, carbs and pods do put a bit of strain and I have heard some stories about folks having early carb holder failure as a result. On my personal ride, a 79 KZ1000E1 shaft, I use VM26 carbs which are a bit heavier than 29s and use a Z1 airbox which is probably a bit heavier than pods. The Z1 airbox just sits out there without support. The weight does cause me worries so I took a loop of wire and wrapped the wire around the airbox and frame to support it. When I get a chance to muck with a set of BS series carbs I have, I am going to modify an actual shafty airbox that is fully supported to take the bigger intake venturi of the BS carbs... just gotta find some time hehe.... I would like to use the much larger shafty box because the bigger the airbox the better. I won't be using the lower part as it requires too much work to fit it under the battery box. I think the lower part was likely used to make the thing more quiet.

Very easy and low cost: Couple of heavy duty zip-ties from frame to carb rail. Holds them up pretty well and I´ve had this since I heard a set of RS34´s dropping of the boots.

The long zip ties is what I did but I was looking for something that wasnt quite so crude. Doesnt matter I guess, you cant see them anyway once the tank is on

There's no doubt the carbs weight contibutes to the intake rubbers going bad, it has to. The ziptie thing works, but zipties don't like the weight of the carbs any more than the rubber intakes do and they will only last a short amount of time. Who cares though as they are cheap. This may not apply to the 900 and smoothbores, but on a 650 there is a nice steel bracket thing that sticks up vertically towards the center of the carbs, then there's a nice 6mm valve cover bolt about 1/2" away from there. I got a thin piece of metal and drilled the 6mm hole for the bolt and filed ect to make kind of a finger latch type end on the other end to latch around the metal braket on the carbs. If you make it right, the metal latch will hold the top of the carbs from gravity trying to pull them backwards and downwards. So look for possibilitys like this.

i had a set of 34mm carbs off of a gsxr on my old kz1000 and had the same problem. what i did was use an old piece of throttle cable and 2 electrical ends that go on a stud, i crimped and solderd the ends to the cable, looped the cable over thecenter frame tube and connected the cable ends to a couple of screws on the carb bracket. i kept it that way for about 4 years until i sold,i never had a problem with it and you could hardly see it.

wow-i think u guys are worrying way way too much.

dnyce wrote:

wow-i think u guys are worrying way way too much.

Well, maybe but...I know the guy who dropped his RS34´s:huh: He rides about 30kkm / 19kmiles per year. Out here he´s known as the guru of light-weight Kawis. He owns a few of 550/650´s and a 750 Turbo.

IMO Better safe than sorry. Also I could tell you about a guy who drove into a pothole and cradded his Kerker K-canister in two....know him all too well:P Everything can and will happen. Thats the Murphys Law;)

If you use black zip ties, you can't see them. They have worked well for me for many years.....chris3