Motorcycle Repair: jetting a 1989 Kawisaki ZX-7, stock air filter, muzzy exhaust

Question
I own a 1989 Kawi ZX-7, the H1 model ninja.  I have just bought the bike and it came with a full muzzy exhaust system, all smog has been removed,it has the muzzy block off plates and all other ports are capped from smog. the airbox is completely in its stock form, but I did take the stock air filter out and replaced it with a K&N slide in style filter. Its a direct replacement for the stock one. it has an ignition advancer on it and I was told by my local shop the cams are degreed, advanced he said. So I am trying to get the bike to run good, the bike has stock 36mm keihin carbs, the CVK models, it runs 130 main jets, with 38 pilot jets.  I have put in 136 main jets and 42 pilot jet and the bike has to be at like 4.5 turns out on the pilot screws still.  So I started to do this tape off trick, my air box is not ram air, its just got two holes in it one on each side to breath, well if I tape off all of one hole completely, the bike runs awesome, if I tape off all of the one hole and half of the other, the top end really bogs bad, so I know my low end can be taken up a bit, as it runs great still with the  one and a half sides taped up.  I know this means the bike is still lean, but my real question is by how much approximately.  I have had this bike apart so much its driving me crazy.  If I close off one side of the hole in the air box, approximately how much of the air does that restrict to the bike?  What would be your thoughts as to main jet and pilot jet sizes to move up to, one or two sizes on both?  Or do I need to to go up like a lot or what?  Well any help or thoughts would be appreciated as I am probably close to blowing this bike up due to such lean conditions.  Or is it not that much of a jet change is needed by either circuit and I should just leave it taped off?  but that really doesn't seem right to me.  Well thanks for your time and all.  I look forward to hearing what a pro has to say, I have heard so many things from friends and post boards, I am just not sure what to do.  They all say something so different I could spend years messing with this bike, when all I want to do is ride it and have fun.

Thanks again,
Jeff Lundell

Answer
Jeff, Kawi sport bikes are really not my forte. As you said you could spend the rest of your life trying to make it do something that it probably doesn't want to do.

All the mods you mention are to get more horsepower out of the motor and the more you tweak it the less flexible it will be at lower rpms. The degreed cams probably are making the situation worse for a street application.

I would take the cams back to stock configuration, seal up the air box, cork up the exhaust system and then take the whole thing to a bike shop with a dyno so they can do appropriate air/fuel mixture changes using real instruments, not just the seat of your pants.

Bill Silver