Topic: Keyster kits

[vintagekat]

Hi -

I'm new to the forum and new to the SOHC4 scene.  I just bought a 73 CB500 and she's a beauty Unfortunatly I think the seller was a bit optimistic in his description of her mechanical soundness, because shortly after purchase the bike was trailered to a local shop where she sits suffering from various engine type maladies. The good news is that my mechanic says she'll be good as new after a moderate chunk of change and about a days worth of work.  Well, I contacted the seller who was very decent about the whole thing and is willing to pick up the bulk of the cost- thankfully.  However, the seller said that a couple months before he put the bike up for sale he rebuilt the carbs with Keyster kits. But my mechanic says that these keyster kits aren't worth crap (to put it politely). Anybody else have issues with these carb kits? If so, I'd like to maybe pass on that info to the seller for his future reference because, I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm full of crap. What are ya gonna do?

Anyway, love this forum and I look forward to learning more. Basically I bought this bike because it's cool  and I wanted to l
learn how to wrench.  I've been riding motorcycles for about 10 years and I really don't know a thing about them mechanically. Maybe I should be embarrassed by that, but modern bikes are built so well that I never had occassion to learn - right just twist the throttle and go. Well the plan was to buy an older bike, and when things went south use it as an opportunity to learn- with generous amounts of help from my more mechinically inclined friends.   However, I wasn't expecting to take the accelerated course so she's sitting in a shop right now. Oh well, the best laid plans...

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Cheers!

[Bob Wessner]

I contacted the seller who was very decent about the whole thing and is willing to pick up the bulk of the cost- thankfully

Wow, pretty decent seller indeed! Welcome to the forum. As for the Keyster question, you will likely find, and get responses from folks who love them, and folks that hate them. I recently did a rebuild on my early 750 with Keyster kits, but found that the float valve springs on the kit were much stiffer than the originals and the needles had a different (richer) profile than my originals. So I used my original parts for these two items. Can't say I hate them, just found these differences and preferred not to deal with them.

[Geeto67]

I used the keyster kits for my cb550 a couple of years ago. To call them crap is to put it polietly, they are probably the worst fetid smelling wastes of money I have ever encountered and if I ever meet a keyster employee I am going to kick him straight in the nuts.

My 550 carbs had been sitting for a while, no leaks but the bowls looked cruddy and the think didn't idle. So I disassembled, soaked in carb cleaner, cleaned all passages very carefully (i had rebuilt carbs before but usually using parts from honda) and reassembled using every piece from the kit. The gaskets were crap, they werent the right size and wouldn't stay in the groove, I ended up freezing them and then bending them to fit. The float needles were too small so all the carbs pissed fuel out at an alarming rate. The bike still didn't idle well either. In the end I ended up using all the original honda parts (cleaned up of course) and some gasket  maker for the fuel bowls. The bike ran great after that and haven't had a problem ever since. Thank god I saved all my old parts.

Anyway, the lesson learned is that if the carbs are being rebuilt because of sitting, just clean and reuse everything. If you absolutley need a float needle because it is worn out, find a honda replacement (honda sells them individually), it will save you time and money in the long run. 

With 750's the kist are a little better but not much. Personally I think they are cheaply made and therefore have a lot of discrepancies in the tolerances which can account for the occasional success story using a keyster kit. However out all the people I know personally who have used them, none have had an success.