Topic: Home made pod deflectors. Needed? Any alternatives?

[b1jackson]

You are going to have to take that back down to 100 mains.  It is either 100 or 98 for your stock 550.

The guy with 120s is on a 750.

Really?  I do have to pop off the carb bowls anyway to remove any rust sediment from the PO's tank rust issues.  I do have some stock jets ( I think they are 98s) from another rack of carbs I have laying around for a 1978 CB550K.

[Pan1cReaper]

On my 75 stock is 100. I went to 105 with a 650 cam, Uni foam filter in stock air box, and 4-1 pipe. May not be necessary but seemed to be happier.

[TwoTired]

The PD carbs on the 550 came stock with 90 mains.  But, without the stock exhaust, that will be far too lean.  The correct air filter box will will help with jetting.  Withou knowing the exhaust characteristics of the exhaust you have, its all guesswork.  But, 95-105, should be a decent guess for the ballpark range.
You'll need a tuning process to get it right.

Cheers,

[b1jackson]

What a job getting it back together.  Airbox kept slipping off the carbs.  Boots were soft enough but just could seem to get clamps to bite.  Finally got it back on and original box installed with 98s. Still starts in a split second with no choke.  Nice running machine.  I'll do a road test soon.

[b1jackson]

Road test complete.  Pulls hard and smooth.  The top end bog seems to have dissapeared.  It smokes a wee bit at idle.  I never touched the air mixture screws from what the PO had them at.  Perhaps they are set and turned out to the larger jet size and therefore a bit on the rich side now with the 98s and factory box.

[BobbyR]

You made the right decision. Now you can move on to other things.

[b1jackson]

Well it did get a re-fresh while on the table.  Chrome all polished.  Frame touch up paint job with some rattle can VHT., swapped in some chromed pieces from another bike.  I actually put it on the table just to remove the exhaust to re-paint it but I couldn't help myself!