Need help from the carb gods..

Havent been here in awhile, whats up to everyone? You guys got me thru a rebuild of an 82 kz550, which is my daily driver, pro paint job last year, still runs great!



But, my problem is with a suzuki. An 89 Katana 750. I have a hobby, i pick up 100-200$ jukers, fix em up. Kz was the same, picked it up for 100, this suzuki got for 150. Sitting for awhile outside usual stuff, tank rusted, i por 15ed it.
No airbox, *k&n filters*, jet kit, vance and hines 4-1. Has mikuni bssumthing carbs, cv.. 1st question, the tk carbs on my kz are cv carbs, correct? Note, after por 15, did NOT use inline fuel filters, after it wouldnt idle i re cleaned carbs, put inline filters on, noticed gas was orange and had crap floating in it. <anyone have problems with ethanol?>. Thought por 15 was coming up or.. panicked, cleaned tank out, no rust, not orange, think it was ethanol. Switched to shell 93, thought there no ethanol in it, but.. So, anyway, after cleaning carbs and being hospital clean about it i finally got the thing to idle.
I gotta make this long story short, ive had these carbs off and on a hundred times, tried raising/lowering needles, pilots, fuel screw adjusts, everything, this big black bi&%h just wont run at mid to high rpms. I can roll on, or ease the throttle to get her into high rpms but cant get it to redline, starts stumbling/choking/whatever. Cant floor it, it does the same.. Ever take off on ur kz and forget the choke is on and try to floor it? Very similar.. Hoping u guys can throw some different suggestions other than "put the stock airbox that i dont have back on", ill tell you if ive done it> last 2 things im thinking of trying is lower the mains, have 130's all across, and turn in the fuel screws. Thats my thinking, getting too much gas at high rpms.. Thanks all..

Have you tried just running the pods with the stock jetting, only turn the mixture screws richer till the idle comes up smooth???

Might be the ticket - except for the mains likely, which at that time, you can bump maybe 2-3 sizes to try out.

Remember, even though you throw on pods and 4-1 whatever, always start with the stock jetting, and make changes to one component at a time - then test. It will save time in the long run for the extra effort now.

Good luck.

I wish I could help ya with the Katana, but don't know anything about those.

Sorry toget off topic, ...
That green looks fantastic! And wait a minute, that looks like a KZ550D1 frame? The A models had tubular frames holding the rear footpegs. Yours are the aluminum bracket type from a D1 gpz, no?

violentvintagecycles wrote: ...82 kz550...mikuni bssumthing carbs, cv.. 1st question, the tk carbs on my kz are cv carbs, correct?....

Somewhat difficult to see the carb cover on the handsome green bike pictured, but carbs look to me like manual slide (non-cv) carbs. And not like a CV carb which has a large round cover.

I could very well be mistaken, especially if they are BS carbs, because BS carbs are cv carbs.

Good Fortune!

From what I can see they don't look like cv carbs to me. CV's usually have a square top with a round protrusion in the center for the diaphrams.

Thems tk22 carbs.I gotta set on mine.:woohoo:

hes working on a katana 750,wrong picture up there!
im thinking the katana came stock with cv carbs

The Katana likely had CV carbs, as was mentioned.

Regarding the question about your KZ550 carbs: the 82 KZ550 A3 has TK-22 carbs. They are not CV. There are no diaphragms on the TK-22 carbs. The throttle is all mechanical linkage (rather than vacuum operated).

You can tell modern CV carbs because they have a big, round chamber on top. This houses the diaphragm.

My signature has a link to TK-22 info.

I had a tx750 that ran like crap with certain pods. They can cover the holes on the front of the carb which will affect those cv's. The pods from mikes xs work good as they don't have the rubber lip inside.

Sorry about that, this is my nightmare bike right now, 89 suzuki katana 750.








I know the katana has cv carbs, wasnt sure about the kz, there def tk22's, not cv. Reason i asked about that is alot of people telling telling me you cant use pods on a cv carb and i say hogwash. :pinch:

However, i am going to check to see if anything gets blocked by them, as roundporch suggested..
I cant see all the other posts or id quote the guy who said to go back to original settings:

Most is all stock settings, except jet kit, which is at the leanest setting, mains at 130 which im gonna drop, and the fuel screws. Gonna work on that, but not for a couple days.
Start a new job tonight, going from a manager of a dunkin donut to a dump driver. :silly:
Im terrified, almost 40 yrs old..:blush:

TK carbs are manual slides.
Katana carbs are CV.

violentvintagecycles wrote: Sorry about that, this is my nightmare bike right now, 89 suzuki katana 750.

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I know the katana has cv carbs, wasnt sure about the kz, there def tk22's, not cv. Reason i asked about that is alot of people telling telling me you cant use pods on a cv carb and i say hogwash. :pinch:

However, i am going to check to see if anything gets blocked by them, as roundporch suggested..
I cant see all the other posts or id quote the guy who said to go back to original settings:

Most is all stock settings, except jet kit, which is at the leanest setting, mains at 130 which im gonna drop, and the fuel screws. Gonna work on that, but not for a couple days.
Start a new job tonight, going from a manager of a dunkin donut to a dump driver. :silly:
Im terrified, almost 40 yrs old..:blush:

dump truck driver? say hello to my buddys at dot/department of trouble/department of tickets! :woohoo: