sounds like its WAY LEAN NOW (to little fuel) maybe readjust your fuel/pilot screws

 

I say ditch the pod filters for the stock setup. that'll help a LOT for you. the factory engineers dont put all that time and money into R&D for fun.

 

You rejetted? Did you change or is there an after market exhaust on the bike? I don't know what pod filters are but judging from what Lawn said, I'm thinking that you might've re-jetted hoping for more HP?

QKEN: I have question for you: after rejetting and assuming the stock exhaust and no fuel mixture adjustments, is it possible that the bike is now running too rich at low rpm's logic being that the rejetting was an attempt to compensate for a flat spot on the power band higher up in the tach?

 

Another reason why Lawn Masters is one of my favorite posters, I'm not kidding. Kawasaki engineers are whacko gearheads, if they could find 1/2 hp with a pod filter, they'd do it!

 

re-jetted cuz it needed it

the bike came with no air cleaner asm and i had some pods lying around,the pods make it leaner so I just went up one size main jet and put some adj needles in its and it cures the problem. its beens running fine for 3 to 4 months.I agree that it sound like its lean but with winter comes cooler more dense air which in effect makes the air move slower through the carbs so
there is a chance that Im rich,Iam going to make some adj tonight and I will let you know.

 

COLD AIR = LEAN
WARM AIR = RICH
both apply until you compensate with more/less fuel
could be those pods are just crap. my ZRX runs perfect and ill lay money on it makes 125hp+ at the rear wheel. if you tune the bike correctly you can run pods all day long.

 

warm air /cold air

I was always under the impression that cold air being more dense moved through the carbs at a slower rate which would make it rich,and warmer air being less dense moved at a faster rate causing lean,this was some old gray beard who told it to me,and he used the example of being at sea level and
then driving to the mountains,and I have seen first hand living at sea level
when you go up to the mountains you get lean and need to make adjustments
accordingly,am I missing something?...oh and the pods probably are crap,I agree with the tuning it right you can run anything.

 

KAO: Quick physics lesson: Cold air cannot hold as much vapor as warm air (any kind of vapor, water, gas, etc.); ergo, there is more gas vapor in warm air than cold air when it enters the carbs. When you see condensation on a glass of ice water, that is the result of the water vapor in the warmer air hitting the cold surface of the glass and turning into liquid--it's not that the cold air is more dense. That jives with QKEN's "rule" which proves my theory wrong (thanks QKEN). So it's running lean...

I have a question about the re-jetting (I'm not trying to challenge you--I'm learning myself): you said that it needed to be re-jetted, why? You didn't mention whether-or-not you have an aftermarket exhaust but even that shouldn't require re-jetting on an EX500--only a mixture adjustment. I used to belong to ex500riders.com before it died back in July where an EX500 guru (FOG) said that under no circumstances should the bike be re-jetted; he's done every configuration possible on the 500 and the most he's ever gained on the bike is 1 HP when tuning 500's for racing with a dyno (he did that for 20 years). If there's a flat spot he always says the same things: clean the carbs and adjust the pilot screws.

We have a new forum for the 500 specifcally if you're interested in joining:

http://diycycle.com/

The guys there are really quick to answer questions; 90% of the time you'll get an answer within an hour. And FOG is a moderator there so if you want to pick his brain, he's available.

Hope to see you there.

 

jetting

the bike has full muzzy exhaust,and those cheap aftermarket air filters,when
I picked up the bike it was not running,the starter clutch gear was broken,replaced that cleaned and rebuilt the carbs and it fired,put new plugs in it but it had slow low idle response and a dead spot,anfter messing with it I determined it was not getting enough fuel.I could adj the idle mixture screws
out as much as I wanted but it would fix the problem completly.I bought a few
jets and adj needles(I dont like shimming them).and installed 1 size bigger main jet and tried it with the clip in the middle position,100% improvement,moved the clip on the needle up and tested no significant change moved the clip down and tested found better performance(which richened it up.so I tried going two sizes up and tested-all bad-checked plugs
and it was obvious it was too rich,went back to one size up from stock and the needle in the #3 position tested performance great,checked plugs and had a perfect burn.thanks for the physics lesson,so if I under stand it right,then Iam running lean which makes sense now when you put it like that.
have not had the chance to make any adjustment yet but i will let you know and Ill check out that forum thanks alot.