Fuel lines, best practices on CB500F

I've tried numerous ways and types of fuel lines on my CB500F, but there does not seem to be enough room under the tank petcock valve for the fuel lines to be used with inline filters without kinking. Right now I'm using Motion Pro lines I got from 4into1 with some small plastic inline filters I bought from the auto parts store. I have some good glass inline filters 4into1 sells but there just isnt enough room. Whats the best way to do this without kinking them? I'll post a few photos when I get home.

Two ways for a 500F: either buy 90-degree inline filters and mount them closer to the petcock, or mount the filters farther from the petcock -- about half way the distance of the fuel line from petcock to carb input.

get a filter for the inside of the tank and lose the inline filters. they always caused issues on my 550

Jayowen said:

get a filter for the inside of the tank and lose the inline filters. they always caused issues on my 550

Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what kind of issues? I've run inline filters on my CB550 for close to 25 years with no problems.

they restricted flow on mine. as soon as i went with the in tank filter i had no issues with fuel flow. maybe i just had crappy inline filters tho.

A lot of the paper element filters do not work very well with gravity feed systems - they are designed for fuel pump applications.


The best flowing ones for a gravity feed line are the metal mesh filters. They aren't as good at filtering out the finer particles as the paper element filters though....

The worst is sintered metal filters. They are terrible with a high pressure drop.

Paper ones for Push mowers are fine, as push mowers have even less gravity pressure then the motorcycle.

Are you using Motion Pro Premium Fuel Line? You can't make tight turns with that stuff. I'm not familiar with your bike, but assume it has a petcock on each side of the tank. How big are the filters? If they're small, they might fit down between the carburetors. Run the fuel lines across to the opposite petcocks. That might give you the slack you need.