First of all...What a great site. Lots of informative posting and resources. I am new to the group and the proud owner of a 1996 GS500E. The bike was a great deal and only has 4K on it. The only problem was it had been sitting in a garage for 5 years. I was able to get it running but it would not idle and was hard to start. I did all the obvious stuff... Drained and cleaned the tank. Replaced the plugs. Took the carbs off, cleaned them up and installed new stuff from the rebuild kits I bought. Well I fired her up and it runs better, but has a real had time idling when its cold (even with the choke on). Worst of all, the low end power is terrible. I have to ride the clutch just to get her going. After that, she runs great. Excellent mid-range and top end power. I have bought a re-jet kit and am wondering if that is going to solve these problems. I would sure appreciate any advise to help steer me in the right direction. Its finally getting warm here in Utah and I cant wait to hit the road. Thanks

Welcome!

Did you adjust the idle screw?
I forget, do 49-state medels have size 40 pilot jets? Did you remove the brass plugs over the mixture screws? And, turn them out 2-1/2 turns (minimum)?

Edited for stupidity

You need 40 pilots in non bleed, you have 37.5's ... and jet kits are harder to tune IMHO ... keep your stock needles ... They are better than DJ needles ... The non jet kit rejet method is far better ... 40 pilots 1 #4 washer under each needle, 125 mains and 3 turns out on mix screw ... and whatever you do ... no matter what the kit tells you ... do not drill out your slides ...
Cool.
Srinath.

You didn't get the rebuild kits off Ebay did you? The one's I bought had a questionable float needle. The design of the needle is different from the stock version. When I was messing with it today I noticed that when the needle was inserted into the seat the wire retainer on the needle would actually hit the seat body before the needle contacted the seat. Or it at least appeared that way. The actual needle appears to be 1 millimeter shorter than the stock but the seat looks identical in size. Maybe someone else knows more about this.

Derek