Buying a non running bike for $1500 was a stretch back then but worth every penny looking back now.

The day I picked it up

Modifications / Upgrades:
CB400 Super Sport foot pegs and shift linkage
CB650 cam for more lift and duration
Dual front disc with stainless steel brake lines
’78 rocker box
Progressive rear shocks
Nissin front brake master cylinder and steel lines
Electrosport regulator rectifier
Starter delete
Slim wiring harness
Left control only (hi/lo,on/off,horn) from an XT500
Uni pod filters
CB650 points cover
Finned stator cover
Early CB350 tail light
Slim seat

Here’s how it looks today.

79-80 cb650 actually have pretty good stock-oem carbs IMO: 29mm bore, mechanical slide and accelerator pump. However, if yours are getting shitty and want a nice upgrade, brand new keihin crs29 smoothbore race carbs are the way to go. 

If you have the shitty 81-82 constant velocity carbs, bummer for you. Def upgrade to the keihin crs.

Benefits of keihin crs smoothbore carbs

• Brand new. Still made today. Every and any part is available still
• Every single circuit is tunable to a fine degree 
• They’re not too difficult to tune
• You’ll prob get a few horsepower assuming you tune them properly
• Choke is on the carb body so no more shitty cb650 pull choke near handlebars
• Nothing beats brand spanking new carbs… Best upgrade for any bike IMO

Keihin crs29 jetting for cb650

• 115 main jet
• 220 main air jet
• 68 slow jet
• yy6 needle – middle
• Air screw 1 turn out 

If you have a 4-1 exhaust, and you’re basically at sea level, above is the jetting I recommend to get you in the ballpark… to then fine tune.

Things to note

1. Intake spigots need to match up: if you have 79-80 you’ll want Keihin intake spigot number 020-024 (below pic) for a Suzuki gs850. Needs to be long enough to clear the petcock as seen in below photo. Also need to shave off 1mm from the end that sits into the intake boot so it seals properly.
2. Pod filters won’t really fit. They hit the frame on cylinders 1 and 4. So I’m running the velocity stacks that come with the carbs.
3. You’ll need a different “pull” throttle cable. Use the “push” from the CB650, and then buy a “pull” from a 78 Kawasaki kz1000. KZ cable is slightly longer looking but the cable/housing ratio is what you want.
4. Where the cables thread into the carb holder…You’ll need to bend the tabs up and to the left a hair, so the cables clear the frame of the motorcycle. Seen in below pic.
5. Get a pair of new rubber intake boots. Might as well, right.

Conclusion

Yea, if you have a 4cyl jap bike… These are the best carbs you can pick up, hands down. I also have a set on a 74 Kawasaki z1 and I love them. Don’t put carbs on your bike that are too big bore. Some people upgrade to the Mikuni RS34, which are too big. For a 4cyl, I love the Keihin CRS, and for a twin or single cylinder, I like the Mikuni VM.

These carbs will work great on any 70s Honda CB 500, 550, 650, 750 4cyl.

However, on 500, 550, you should run the keihin crs26. Slightly smaller bore will work better.

Adam was looking through the website at stuff from back in 2010. He found the below picture and said “wow, yanns bike was really clean”.

I said no fucking way, it’s some random persons bike that came out for a Thursday ride. Long story short, I was wrong and yes it was yanns. I bet $50. I thought no way…

His bike had a real rough past 6 years. Kinda feel bad for it. Sorry…
Love you Yann.

Photos by Alex and myself.

Day 1:
Met up at Ben’s garage and then raced out of the city to make it to the Red Rabbit drive-in just before it closed. Setup camp at our favorite Duncannon camp spot from previous COTT trips along the Susquehanna River. Route 322 through Duncannon is basically a trucker spot and has more strip clubs than you’d think. We tried them all out and ended by getting kicked out of the last stop because somebody couldn’t keep there hands to themselves. Ended the night by the fire with Ed drinking my whiskey and becoming agro Dad… then made the post below which he didn’t remember the next morning. haha dick.

Day 2:
Woke up on the Susquehanna and had the first river bath of the vacation. Packed up and headed West on 274 towards Raystown Lake. Only did 100 miles but it took us all day which was fine when there’s no real plan. Went through Orbisonia, PA and checked out the old trolley cars and steam trains from the Industrial Revolution. Finally made it to Raystown and parked the bikes in the woods and went on foot searching for a cliff jumping spot Ed knew of. Ed showed everyone up by diving off the 40′ cliff.

Day 3:
Woke up on Raystown Lake. Andrew and Devyn arrived overnight and somehow didn’t wake anybody. Devyn slept in the tent without poles haha. Headed out to the local diner for food and to figure-out the days plan. Decided on going to check out a blue hole that I knew of from back when I lived in State College, PA. It turned out to epic as I remembered with a 35’/40′ and 25′ cliff jumps and clear water that has this wild blue/green hue. After wearing ourselves out swimming we heading towards the closest town and walked in the first bar we found. Cheap beers, a jukebox, and some local characters made for a fun time. Finished the day with a ‘family’ dinner at Burger King.

Day 4:
Slept in after staying up late and night swimming when the lake was like glass. That morning we split ways with Devyn, Andrew, and Alex who were heading back to Philly. Ben and I took off for The PA Grand Canyon. Again, tons more miles of great roads all the way there. Made it to Wellsboro, PA where we had a drink at the Penn Wells Hotel which was built in 1869. Charged up our phones and got some recommendations of places to go from some other people at the bar. Checked out the view from the Grand Canyon and setup camp in the State park.

Day 5:

Last day of the trip. Woke up with some coffee and split our last beer and hit the road towards Bloomsburg to check out a cycle museum a guy at the bar recommended yesterday. More fun roads with nobody on them all the way to Bills Bike Barn only to find out they were closed. Fortunately, Bill pulled up in his Willy’s Jeep and Ben talked him into letting us check out a portion of the museum. The guy has some real gems like a Moto Guzzi Lemans 1 in mint condition and a Moto Guzzi dump truck powered by a single cylinder motor.

The loose plan is head out to the Raystown Lake area to ride some country roads, find swimming holes, drink beers in bumble fuck bars, eat at Mom & Pop diners, and basically enjoy PA on our old motorcycles.

Our first stop is: Duncannon, PA.

Trying to pack pretty light.

Looking forward to spending some time on my 550.

Dan is from Collingswood NJ.
He emailed me saying he just rode his Honda cb from Milwaukee back here to philly area.

Check out the PDF he put together, it’s a good little read.

Homeward-Bound [PDF]

Yea we drank too much in Milwaukee trying to make the post from yesterday…

Milwaukee is wayyyy cooler than Green Bay. Green Bay can suck a dick.

So… We did stuff.

Hangover pending… we’ll update tomorrow.

So we met a 21yr old dude named Blake from this little town here called Christmas. Super nice dude.

He camped with us the other night. He’s a local here at pictured rocks.

He showed us some badass shit.

He said he used to swim distance competitively… And would swim from island to island here which is like 5 miles and can hold his breath for 3 mins.

He told us a story about him ice fishing and he fell through the ice and the current in Lake Superior was so strong he couldn’t pop out the hole he fell through… So he had to swim under the ice to the next hole he could find and popped out there and he thought he was gonna die. So f-ing nuts.

He showed us a spot called “paradise” which is rock jumping spots off of the shoreline. We probably swam 3/4 of a mile in Lake Superior. It was gnarly. The sandstone rips you apart like a electric sander if you hit it wrong. It caught me a couple times.

Also ate fresh blueberries.

Then he took us to one of his fishing holes and we fished for 3 hours.

I dunno about you… But I do not have patience for fishing. It was cool this one time as a novelty thing but overall… It’s not for me.

– we made our way to pictured rocks which is a national park which borders the south end of Lake Superior.

– crazy 300 ft tall cliffs that go down into the lake

– water is insane crystal clear

– hung out and took a mid day nap at a corner store

– got pasties for dinner

– a “pasty” is similar to a meat pot pie that is enclosed on all sides… It’s okay. It’s their big thing up here I guess

– we camped at some random spot on the lake. Met a dude named Blake who is a local and he’s showing us some rad shit tomorrow

– woke up on the beach and a maintenance guy called the cops on us but cops never came

– headed north back over the 5 mile mackinaw bridge towards pictured rocks national lakeshore in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

– mackinaw city is a horrible tourist trap. Never go there

– we were served lunch by a dead lady who charged us to plug our phones into the outlet to charge them. Lame

– lazy day of riding

– met a church pastor with a sweet 82 Goldwing

– we swam in Lake Superior. Cold as shit

– napped on beach

– we met some cool girls from Detroit. We camped with them

– got boozed up on the beach till 2am

‘Where the men are men and so are the women’. – guy at the lunch spot stop.

We tried to get up and out of Leno’s place before he got up and pulled another wild card on us. It was a 3 mile dirt road back to a real road.

We crossed the border and rode a boring straight highway to Mackinac. We ripped 3 wide on the highway doing a 100mph for miles without seeing other cars. Crossed over the 5 mike long bridge which is mainly metal grate… Sketchy feeling but pretty rad.

In Macinaw Ed asked a guy where all the babes in bikinis are and he laughed and told us that they’re all corn fed women here.

So we found a beach drank our whiskey and then setup camp and went swimming. We had a good laugh about the previous night and were happy to sleep easy tonight.

Things got real weird last night…

Real weird.

We met some random old dude named Leno on a harley at a strip club. He told us we could camp at his place… So we took him up on it. His place was on a bad ass lake.

He’s basically bi-polar.

We show up at his place and he was drunk and stoned.

Things started off fine. We were boozing by the fire.

Then he told us he’s not allowed in America anymore.

Then he was telling us about his previous motorcycles and got real mad when we started asking questions about his bikes.

Then it got extra weird.

He got mad at Adam and said “don’t fucking disrespect me” and basically got real mad at us and made it seem like he wanted to fight us. He was ready to punch adam no lie… We did nothing to provoke him I swear.

Talk about awkward.

We talked him down and then instantly he seemed like it never happened and got happy and gitty again.

In the morning we peaced out.

We did other stuff earlier that day but its not worth over-explaining like:
– fixing Ryan’s bike
– eating ice cream by lake
– worst strip club ever
– McDonald’s dinner

We woke up at 5:45am on the Georgian Bay to rain and heavy wind. Ed’s rain fly ripped in the wind so he wasn’t a happy camper. We were up early to catch the ferry to Manatouin island which we just made.

It pretty much rained off and on the entire day so we didn’t make it far. We found a little bar and hungout so Ed could sew and glue his tent back together.

Decided to find camp spot and wait out the rain. I once heard that a graveyard is always an easy renegade spot because nobody hangs out in a graveyard at night. Well that was wrong cause we watched a dude dig a grave by hand in the rain until dark. That was creepy. That prompted us to take a hike into the woods were we finished a fifth of whiskey and checked these rad water rapids.

Shitty weather but turned out to be a fun day.

Damn, this day was awesome.

– we swam in this place called the grotto in Bruce national park. (Lake Huron) It had carribean looking water and cliffs. Tons of people

– we cliff jumped for a while. It was pretty epic

– our cycles are running solid which is nice

– we got fish and chips from a place called “the fish and chips place” and it wasn’t that great and their tarter sauce was a rip top thing of Kraft tarter. Lame

– food in Canada blows

– we met some cool girls from Toronto. They filled us in on a couple things.

– we camped at a spot called mermaid lake and watched a meteor shower. The camp spot was amazing but we got drenched last night in rain

– after leaving buffalo, we crossed into Canada and swam in lake Ontario. It was insane cold

– our buddy Ryan from Chicago is joining us on half of our trip. We met him up in Canada

– 3 of us made our way up in to the Bruce peninsula. It’s surprisingly awesome up here

– last night we camped at lion head point

Shit. Off to a rocky start.

– we left sat instead of fri

– night before leaving I dropped a bolt into my engine while double checking valves. It fell down the center cavity into the crankcase. By a miracle of god I fished it out somehow…

– morning we left Adams bike pissed out a quart of oil all over his rear tire on the highway. His starter freeze plug popped out. (Above pic)

– we are staying with Adams sister in buffalo ny right now

– we did 450 miles to get to buffalo. Not fun. Trying to keep it around 200 per day

– we ate buffalo wings. Not bad

– I was out till 5am last night

Trip Goals:

– Swim in all 5 great lakes

– Don’t pay any tolls. Blow through them all following cars through easy pass

– Take a ferry across as many Great Lakes as possible

– Get flashed while riding

– Do 100mph with the bikes all packed up

– Only piss outside

Ten reasons I’ll never come back to Albany:
1) it’s colder than Philly
2) no one lives downtown. Deserted city.
3) people look / act like mutants
4) everyone is fat
5) no motorcycle scene here
6) zero attractive girls… Unless you like fat chicks
7) no good food / restaurants
8) no good colleges to go people watch at
9) there are no gas stations downtown… wtf
10) we’re sitting in the worlds most horrible McDonalds wet and cold

– after seeing too many homeless people we left Portland
– headed to mt. Washington
– climbed it like champs
– kinda a big workout for an old bike
– cold as shit at the summit. 30 degrees
– headed to George’s land in s.e. Vermont
– you know George… Burly guy with the cb500 four
– blasted the ton for a while
– on the way met some older gent who’s ridden across country on old bmw’s
– he’s also ridden across country on a 125cc Vespa
– Andrew Watson met us for the night on his cb500 four
– sitting by campfire now catching up
– Adams goatee beard is coming in real nice

Stopped by a local vintage shop and shot the shit with the guys at Metric Motor Bike.

Tomorrow we head further south slowing making our way back Philly. Shit is unfortunately coming closer to an end. We plan to be riding back into Philly Saturday night and are trying to end it with more than a few beers somewhere… So comment and call it out if something is going on.