TOPIC:

Hola, amigos... I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya (a cookie to anyone who gets the reference)...

I have come to the conclusion that I need to pull the carbs and bring them to a buddy of mine who is wise in the ways of carb-fu. This raises the question... HOW THE HELL are you supposed to get these bloody things out?

I followed the instructions in the manual and loosened the clamps on the intake side and rolled back the springs on the airbox side, but there's no budging to be had. Do I need to remove the intakes entirely?

Thanks!

Emissions system removal is fine. If you have pods, it doesn't work as it should anyway.

Put vacuum caps on ALL carb holder vacuum ports. Find the two hoses that come off these ports and trace them to your vacuum switch. Remove the vacuum hoses (cap those ports) AND the switch. Remove the BIG hoses from the switch to reed valves and back to where it went into the air box. Put all the stuff in a box and label it and put it in your garage. It will NEVER be reinstalled but it will make you feel better. Then take some BLACK RTV and fill the two snouts atop the reed valves with RTV and let it set till it hardens. You plug them because when the reed valves flop open there would otherwise be a direct hole down to the port just in front of the exhaust valves outside the combustion chamber. In other words, you don't want flames to come out if the bike backfires as the flames would be right under your gas tank. Some folks will one of the emissions hoses across the two snouts but you will still have that hose awkwardly placed in my opinion

Can I disconnect the vsv from the carb vacuum lines, cap the carb vacuum nipples and not have to remove the vsv and plug ports on valve cover?

In other words would it run right if carb vac lines were capped not connected to vsv?

Robby,
The last post in this thread was made in 2009. You are not likely to hear from any of these folks. Unless there is a problem with the Clean Air System, removing it will not change how the bike runs one single bit. 
As mentioned elsewhere, if you want to remove the system, you will need to cap the two vacuum ports used by the system as well as the large hole in the air filter box, and you will need to make or buy block off plates for the reed cages. Some people connect the reed cages together with a hose, but I think that looks rather ghetto and provides an opportunity for leaks in that hose.