TOPIC:

I have bought 2 spare sets of carbs because I got them cheap, I want to clean and swap and test them several times to get them all sorted but dont want to further damage the airbox rubbers so my question is will the bike run smoothly without the airbox so I can test all sets before refitting it for final adjustments..I hope the answer is yes but will try and be careful if its no...ta. PS my problem is unsmooth running on tickover and upto around 2000rpm .

Can't see why not so long as you don't travel down any dirt or gravel roads, you do run a slight risk of a fire if your timings not right, it's the same as in a car, you can run a car without an air filter but your not sitting on top of the carby with your legs spread in a car, just be careful. But as usual it's your bike, do what you want.

You should be OK for testing. You're looking for issues in the low speed circuit and the air cleaner will have minimal effect on the fuel mixture at low speeds. If you were going to be testing at mid throttle to high speed or wide open throttle then the air flow through the air filter would have an affect on the mixture, depending on which filter (paper media, foam or washable cotton ie. K&N filter) and how dirty it was. Just be careful and ensure you've not left any loose parts sitting somewhere that could be sucked in to the engine.

Some bikes behave horribly with the airbox removed.
I wouldn't rely on it for your tuning that's for sure.
As for the rubbers I have used urethane windscreen sealant to seal up diaphram rubbers before for testing purposes so it might help you out.

Thanks, I will try them all on and once I have nice tickover and response to 3000rpm will get the airbox back on, it pulled well on full throttle so hopefully I have the easier fault to fix, will post my results later.