I want rid of my damn air box

Ive been re doing a KZ650. I have to pull my carbs off yet again to give em a real cleaning. I do not want to fight with the air box any more. Besides the rubber boots are pretty shot. I want to put pods on to make it easier. But will that make it easier? I'm no mechanic, though good with a lot of stuff on this bike, but this requires jetting and I have NO IDEA how to go about that. Is it possible for someone to direct me in this procedure?

Thanks much

Those carb boots are a pain, but if you put them in a pit of boiling water for 30 seconds they are very easy to work with. If they are already on your carbs, just pour hot water on them until the become malleable enough to pull them into your airbox.

Might consider brand new buttery soft flexible air hoses.

www.z1enterprises.com/detail.aspx?ID=1477
www.z1enterprises.com/detail.aspx?ID=331

Good Fortune!

You can buy nice, soft boots that will make life easier, or you can simply ditch the airbox and spend the next 2 riding seasons trying desperately to find the correct combination of jets, needles, astrology, and voodoo that will make the bike run smoothly across the powerband. If you do remove the airbox, be sure to order one of these necklaces:

I love you guys

Thanks for the input and thanks for directing me to a vendor with those boots. I've looked all over the place!!! Hell I think I bought ONE BOOT last year off eBay for half the cost of all 4 new.

Ha ha ha thanks for that.

Myself and 650ED share the same hate towards pods. Here's a STRONG suggestion... do some searching on "pods" vs. "airbox" and you will be reading till your eyes bleed... and then long story short, KEEP your airbox installed..

Thanks I'm sold on keeping air box. I may need a new float or 2. Any suggestions on where to get em?

Dialing your carbs in for Pods is not witchcraft. I ran pods since 1979 until my bike was totaled last May. I never had any of the problems with the pods you hear people talk about. I am a big fan of them.
I started with a base line of,
Raised the jet needle one position.
Replaced the pilot jet with a 17.5
Replaced the Main jet with a 102.5
Each bike is a little different so the above is a baseline. Don't let people scare you away from them. I can remove my carbs in about 2 minutes instead of 30 minutes of fighting with them.

baldy110 wrote: Dialing your carbs in for Pods is not witchcraft. I ran pods since 1979 until my bike was totaled last May. I never had any of the problems with the pods you hear people talk about. I am a big fan of them.
I started with a base line of,
Raised the jet needle one position.
Replaced the pilot jet with a 17.5
Replaced the Main jet with a 102.5
Each bike is a little different so the above is a baseline. Don't let people scare you away from them. I can remove my carbs in about 2 minutes instead of 30 minutes of fighting with them.

But didn't you need to do a bit of tuning to get them working well?

Yes I spent an afternoon dialing them in but it was pretty easy without the airbox. You need to just be patient and write down every change you make and the performance gains or losses. I got mine dialed in perfectly.

Been lurking here for a while. I have read several posts on here that say they have problems when they get rid of the airbox. I jetted my suzuki vtwin with pods and folks had the same problem.

What I believe is the problem when folks use pods is they put in new mains and new pilots but try and use the stock needle by putting shims. You have to treat the needle as the other jets in most cases replacing it with a richer one which has a different taper. Once you find one that is close, then you can fine tune it with the clip.

I have a kz1100 and getting ready to put pods on it. I found a spreadsheet where you can compare various needles. I put in the stock needles for 82/83 kz1100 models (those with a 1 to the right of the needle) and compared them to some other Mikuni needles. I created a pdf for you to view. www.outerurban.com/images/Mikuni_Nadeln-KZ1100.pdf


The 4CG14, 5CF58, and both 5GX needles are stock on various KZ1100 models. To read the chart, those that are toward the top right are lean and those to the lower left are richer needles. As you can see the stock 4CG14 (pink), 5CF58 (blue) are lean. I found the 5IX11 may be the best for me to start with and is available. At least I stand a better chance than staying with the stock needle.

Bottom line is that you generally cannot keep the stock needle (at least in the US). It must be treated just like any other jet when trying to tune the carb.