Maiden voyage-fuel issues

[nickmo]

Good morning, I finally got my project assembled enough to ride so I ripped it down the street a few times.

Initially it gave me a few problems. The right side was starving for fuel and it ran very rich. My fuel line configuration changed because Im using a tank from a Honda, which I believe is the source of the right cylinder being starved. I'm not sure why it was running so rich though. After it warmed up a bit it all seemed to clear up and run fine. The several laps I took around the block went great and it was faster than I expected!

After I turned it of and let it sit I noticed that the carbs were leaking from one of the holes on the face of the intake. Not very fast, maybe a drop every minute or two. Just enough to keep a small spot on the case wet.

Anyways, here are my questions:

Why are the carbs leaking from that particular spot? And
Why is it running so rich on start up?

I was going to chalk it up to the floats but I thought I'd check with you all first.

There's a short video on YouTube that my brother took, if you search "nicks cafe racer" it should be the only one. I was a little long on the clutch

The setup is: 1979 special with stock carbs and open pipes with torque cones. No air filters for the test ride.

 

[Ironsled77]

Float level and needle and seat would be what I would check first. If its starving for fuel that would be lean. I think you are confusing bogging to be fuel starvation when it is over fueling the cylinder. What do the plugs look like? What carbs are you running and jet sizes.

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[jayel]

nick are you using a honda fuel valve/petcock? they are nortorious for poor fuel flow to one side... I run a double tee arrangment on my cb450 to get enough gas to both carbs, I would imgagin a 650 with it's greater fuel needs would compound the problem

 

[nickmo]

The carbs are stock, and as far as I know the jets are as well. More specifically, I was getting white vapor out of the left cylinder which never stopped firing, and the right cylinder would only start runnng when I choked it with my hand. I think the issue there is that fuel was only being pulled into the carb when I had my hand over it. I took the white vapor on the left as unburnt fuel and the right as being starved. I may be mistaken though, you may be right. I'm not using a petcock, I welded a pipe threaded nut to the tank and screwed in a brass fitting with a 1/4 barb. From there it's a single line to the filter and splits to go to each carb.