Steve,

When you put the oe intake back together and you still have the same problem you will see  that the problem is not the pods. I would tear down the carbs at least as far as when you did the pods. Carefully reassemble. Look for missing or damaged O-rings. Replace the jets (they are cheep). Something in there got dinked when did the pods, You just have to find out what.

Maybe torn or misaligned diaphragm, tweaked needle, a tiny spring gone missing

new jets, new o-rings, diagrams look good, intakes manifolds no leaks, tried different jets,run better with a 122 pilot jets. so must be lean, plugs show rich.

 I don't think its sparks because the top end is great. the bike is a 2005  72,000 miles. 

Ok Mick, will try that tomorrow, 

I want to thank you for the help on my broken middle shaft I did the fix myself and it worked great. rode it 333 mile Of hard mountain driving, the most on and off of throttle you can do. and it's working great!

Mick, when I installed the pod kit I took the carbs apart from each other. Are there any o rings  between them that can cause a vacuum leak, 

 Mick, what does that diagram do? the small one on the sides. Can that cause a low-end problem?

I'm not sure on those.....

It's remotely possible that your TPS got altered or disconnected while all this was going on. I think overly advanced timing would make more of a difference at low RPM. No harm in checking.

Tested it open and closed tested good 4 weeks ago will do carbs one more time tomorrow. will check again will also check if the pins got pushed back. It acts like timing when if jerks and bucks, and miss or slides don't open. slides feel good when moving them with a finger.

2005 1100  v star  72,000 miles

pod kit

145 mains jets

two washers under the needle

17.5 pilots jets

2.5 turns PMS

stock bike exhaust

k&n 600 air filters 

just want it to run as good as a stock bike,. 

I'd be using 147.5 mains....

Besides the many “seat of the pants” impressions that many have believing this mod increases performance, is there any documented evidence showing the improvement, i. e. dyno runs or the like?

LOL....... it wouldn't be written in the Knowledge Base if it wasn't documented. We've seen several hundred dyno runs at least since about 2001 and thousands have done the modification....and I've never seen anyone that know what they were doing  go back to stock because it didn't work.

No "impressions".....just uncorking some HP. No smoke and mirrors either. If you know a little bit about Yamaha motorcycles, you know the Virago has the exact same engine as the V Star  1100. The Virago was rated stock at 62 HP.....the V Star stock at 52 HP. Change the convoluted stock intake and add a good full exhaust system, you can reclaim all that HP...plus some. Pretty simple. Best change I ever did to the 1100.