KZ650 Base Jetting

Hi all, been awhile since I've been on this site.

I have lots of experience with KZ650s but it's been awhile!

My neighbor just picked up a 79 KZ650C and it's got some carb issues. The carbs on the bike are smoothbore 26mm carbs with an accel pump. I didn't think any of the 650s ever came with the accel pump!

The bike has a 4-1 header and will run either pods or velocity stacks. Right now the stacks are on the bike as the owner prefers them. I'm trying to talk him into the pods.

Anyway the carbs are dirty and need a rebuild. So in the meantime we've got a set of 26mm smoothbores without the accel pump that were just completely cleaned and rebuilt. But I need to figure out some baseline jetting for them.

Right now we've got 17.5 pilots and 115 mains in it. Which I seem to recall as correct for this config.

Bike has proven very difficult to start and won't idle long. I've pulled the drain plugs and all the carbs are getting fuel - and no leaks. We bench set the float valves and they seem to working fine.

The starter clutch is bad, so that isn't helping. The kicker is also blocked by a set of custom rearsets. I'm going to pull that peg tomorrow and get the kicker working and see if that helps. We'll do the starter clutch once the bike is running decently.

Any suggestions on getting this bike running? Is my jetting close to correct? Should I go down to a 15 pilot jet?

If they're 26mm carbs, then they've been replaced as the FSM shows the C had the same carb setup in '79 as my D2--VM24SS with accelerator pump. The stock jet on the VM24SS is shown as 97.5 main and 15 pilot jets.

The accel pump was a feature of the '79 model year. However, I have a '79 650B (Lincoln built) with a set of non-accel pump carbs. I don't know if they were stock on it or replaced sometime in its previous life.

I'm not much more help as I run stock airbox/jets/exhaust.