An introduction

Hey everyone I joined back last March, I asked a few questions then left. Recently I came back and now I'm actively involved on the forum. I thought I'd introduce myself.

My name is Joe and I'm a college student, I go to SDSMT in Rapid City, SD for Mechanical Engineering. I've been riding dirtbikes for oh... a long time. I'm pretty mechanically inclined. I've worked on just about everything at one time or another. Kind of a jack of all trades but master of none.

Three years ago one of my buddies got it out of a barn or something with I think about 4,000 miles on it. He had her running in no time as it had been properly stored. He rode it for two years and put about 1,000 miles on it. Then last winter he let it sit with old gas in it and the carbs got really green and dirty. I bought it from him for $500 and fixed up some electrical stuff and cleaned the carbs. It ran pretty well and I had a friend of a friend sync them for me just to be sure. Since then I've put about 3,000 miles on and have been having a great time.

I going to put some new tires on before I go riding this year. I've been thinking about going with intake/jets/exhaust but would rather have a good always reliable stock bike than a poor reliability/running perfomance bike. I've been thinking about putting those 12" shorty mufflers on the 4 into 2 header and getting the stage three jet kit from dynojet. For the intake I've read all about the issues of pod filters and want to stay away from the possibility of that going wrong. I think I may modify the stock airbox for more airflow instead. I was thinking about cutting out a larger portion and glassing some type of something to hold a larger rectangular K&N filter in the general area where the stock filter is. (perhaps a car filter)
Other future plans include polishing everything possible(if I can find the time)

Well that's a long read I'm sure and if you made it this far you want some kinda pictures. I've attached a pic I took last summer of the XJ700 Maxim.

 

Welcome back! Just a quick thought on going to a K&N filter or an automotive style air filter. The reason people recommend against changing to the pod filters is because it alters the air volume entering the carbs. As such, you must re-jet to correct for the increase/decrease in air or you'll be biased lean/rich, depending on which way you went with your modification (I presume you intend to increase the air flow, which tends to lean the mixture). Even doing your modifications to the air box will change the flow characteristics from stock and may require re-jetting. Keep that in mind before you go carving up the factory air box.

Oh, and nice looking ride! Don't forget to add it to your sig.

 

That's about the plan. More air flow means more gas which = more power. I want to drop them stock mufflers and put those shorty ones from dennis kirk on, I wouldn't mind a little more noise. And from what I hear the stock ones are the equivalent of trying to breathe with a noose around your neck.
I don't have the bike with me but when I get her out here next weekend I'll take some pics and use ms paint to show what my plans are.

Off topic for this thread but I'm curious on where all the back pressure is in the stock exhaust. I'd assume the majority of it is created by the mufflers but I saw somewhere that the collector box had a big impact on it too.

I'm not new to modifying so I know there's no correct answer until were on a dyno but what ballpark range of power gains am I looking at by just freeing the intake, replacing the stock muffs with free flowing ones and a rejet, of course.