I don't know if the 550s come with CV carbs stock but generally speaking, pods and CV carbs don't like to play nice.
Pods probably won't add a whole lot of performance unless you're racing because they're designed to suck as much air into the system as possible. You really don't need this unless you're giving it full throttle. You could look into poking a hole or two into the airbox like this http://www.ex-500.com/wiki/index.php?title=FOG%27s_Airbox_Mod.
As best I understand, unless you're running the piss out of your bike on a daily basis pods are mostly for the aesthetic look and not the performance.