Hi everyone. This is my first post on this forum so if I messed anything up or something like this has been posted in the past, I apologize in advance. I promise I did some searching
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Time for a long story.
I recently purchased a 1975 CB550F with 6000 miles on it with the intention of it being my first street bike. It is in great condition and looks like it was stored inside all its life. However, the previous owner stopped riding it and let it sit for a while. When I brought it home, I drained all the gas, put new ngk plugs in, changed the oil and got one cylinder firing. After that, I realized that I was being lazy and should have just taken the carbs off from the start so I did. When I opened the carbs up, I found the mains, which are size 100, were clogged so I unclogged them. The pilot jets seemed fine, size 38, but one of them was broken so I had to fish that out. Just for kicks, I installed the carbs back on the bike and cranked it over to see if anything would happen and it started right up on every cylinder but the one with the broken jet which is the left most cylinder. It would idle fine but once given gas, it would die. After that, I ordered 2 #38 pilot jets, 4 new #100 main jets since the old ones had o rings that were crumbling and looked on the forums for possible reasons to why it would die giving it throttle which yielded the carbs need cleaning again.
Once the package came, I cleaned the carbs with cleaner down every passage way and they look clean now. I installed the new jets only to find out that the PO had drilled out the pilot jets big enough to stick a .65mm drill bit straight though it. So, I bought 2 more #38 jets, put everything together, started it and fired right up with all headers getting warm although the left most cylinder was still a but colder than the others but not by much. I vacuum synced them all and had it idling smoothly at about 1200-1300 rpm. However, once I gave it more than I'd say a 1/4 to 1/3 turn, it would bog and sometimes just die. Today, I checked if the needle clips were in the right position on the outer two cylinders. I found them in the second notch from the top. The carbs are stamped 069a but, I found out today that the #2 cylinder's carb is marked 022a which cannot be right.
For more information, I am using the stock airbox (read that it is the best system unless you are seriously racing), had the cam chain adjusted, the COLD compression is 120 psi on all 4 cylinders and when you look down the spark plug holes, you see nothing but factory crosshatching, mixture screws 1-1/2 turns out and the valves are adjusted to 0.003 intake and 0.004 exhaust. The spark plugs on it are black but the only action it has seen is idling and blips up to about 4k.
Do any of you have any advice on why it is bogging down on throttle? I know these do not have an accelerator pump (is that what they are called?) so it will not immediately pick up on throttle but it should not just die. One thing I have not done yet is check the ignition timing but it does rev nicely when giving it light throttle inputs. I have also not checked the needle position in the inner two cylinders, which includes the 022a carb, as it is hard to reach with the carbs still on the bike but having one 022a carb still cannot be right but it should still rev right? Or is all of this normal and I am expecting too much out of this thing? Any advice would be awesome.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give as many details as possible. Also, this is not not street legal yet as the title is in the mail so no plug chopping yet.
