Left cylinders lean, Right rich

Ok the bike is a mostly stock kz1000 with pods, 29mm smoothbores and a baffled 4 into 2. Heres my dilemma. At idle and low speed cruising, the left two cylinders will cough out the pods, and the right two cylinders popping ou of the pipes. This is all happening with the air bleed screws 1 and 1/2 turns out and the carbs bench sync'd. If the left two screws are 1/2 a turn out from the seat they are happy. I can bring the right two out to 2 - 2 1/2 turns and the popping is less debilitating but still very consistent. I should mention that the right two cylinders will compress to 120-125 while the left ar at ~140.

Whats going on?

Have you checked the valve clearances? Presumably the jetting is the same in all 4 carbs and the intake is the same in all 4 carbs, exhaust is the same, yadda yadda yadda, which would lead me to believe that fuel/air mixture from the carbs isn't the culprit. And if I'm not mistaken the 1 and 4 cylinders share a coil and the 2 and 3 cylinders share a coil so it probably shouldn't be a firing issue. That really just leaves valve clearances I'm thinking. Of course I could be wrong and someone may know better than me, so feel free to chime in and educate me if you do!!!

What type pods are you using?

I havent been under the valve cover yet to check the clearance, I was hoping to bandaid it till this winter (fresh head on my shelf).

WG, they are old k&n's, washed and re-oiled.

Dido on the valves. How clean are the carbs & what size pilot jets are in it ? Seems pretty far out on the screw adjustment. Pilots may be plugged if its had old gas in it

The pilots are 25. I think i narrowed it down to the valves out of lash or not getting a good seal: I can have the bleed screws out of the carbs and it makes no difference running. Carbs are as clean as I can get them. Moneys tight otherwise they would be having a day at the spa with wiredgeorge and the other head would be on.

As a side note I found it interesting that if the choke is fully on she runs like a raped ape, if not a little smokey. Is this a sign?