well i got my 92 ex500 yesterday, tore it all apart and cleaned the carbs, cleaned out the air box (it was a mess), changed the oil and filter, changed spark plugs, emptied out all the dirty gas and put fresh gas in it, I fired it up , fired up nicely, but it almost sounds like it has a valve knock or something (i dont really know what that sounds like, but just my guess), took it down the road and it has no power, very unconsistent, you get on the throttle and one second it'll hit, one second it wont, i didnt sync the carbs, i was hoping i could get it running good enough to ride it into the shop to get them done, and it still will not idle when the choke is forward , anything i should check? if anyones really good at determining what a noise is , let me know and i'll send you a video of it running

 

thought of another thing, the air filter was 100% junk, so i took it out, still have all the air box parts, could this be causing a problem? i know that on sleds they run lean without a filter, hoping maybe a new filter will help, its running 130 main jets , are those stock? oh yeah the batterys pretty weak too, i know that might have something to do with it

 

No air filter WILL lean out your bike. Get one in it asap.

Having out-of-sync carbs on your bike especially being that it's a two cylinder will make it run very rough at idle. But, when you have the throttle open halfway or better, having unsynced carbs won't make that big of difference.

The valve tappets on your bike are unlike many other motorcycles out there because they don't use shims to set the clearances. Instead, they use a set-nut and screw to either tighten or loosen the clearance between the valves. It is very easy to check and set them. You should take a look under your valve cover to see what shape they're in. If the noise is really bad, there could be a broken tappet.