Topic: What are my CB550's Carb options?

[tinyrobot]

I have a stock 75 CB550 that I recently picked up.  It is missing carbs and I want to get it back on the road this summer after I give it a good overhaul.  Thing is I have plenty of options in the garage but stock ones, but what are your thoughts?

I have a set of CR29s, VM29s, stock 750s from a 74 and stock 750s from a 78.  I have read that some of you have gotten the Mikuni VM29s to work and I know I can run the CRs.  My plan is too run the CRs on my CB750 and take those (the stock 78s) and run them on the 550.  I went out and it is clearly obvious the spacing is smaller, so what have you guys come up with?

ps. as always I have done a few searches but came up with little, sorry 

[SteveD CB500F]

There's an article in the Carb FAQs about carb spacing for this very reason.

We are trying to collect the measurements of all the carb types to help people who want to chop and change.

[tinyrobot]

I will get out the digital and start measuring my sets for ya to add.

[bwaller]

I recently finished rebuilding a set of VM28SC from an original year Z1 for my 550 race bike project, and everyone I have spoken to fiqure these are tough to dial-in and maybe a little large even for a "built 500" engine. However some of us also have VM26's and turboguzzi has had good success with these on his race bike.

I remember back in the day helping a friend try to get a set of CB750 28mm work on his stock 500 and never was happy.

Long story short... 29mm VM's on a stock 500 will be tough to make work especially with stock intake manifolds, and the 28mm Keihin's can be forced into place, but will need lots of jetting attention. I have a couple sets of PD's off the 77-78 model 550 as well as some from a 500 if that will help.