[bmetras]

Thanks for the great tips... I'm going to pull the carb and see what I see.. although it only has 1230 miles, it's over 9+ years old, so no telling who did what to it.. I was told by someone that the vacuum fuel valve at the gas tank could cause an over rich problem if the diaphragm failed, but I checked that today, and it seems to be working well.. no gas coming from it with engine off and no vacuum.. when I pull vacuum on the lower port, then fuel flows freely from the upper port.. so the fuel valve is working .. the fuel evap lines were disconnected ... I re-connected them and it is running better, but I also did not clamp the snorkel tightly to the carb intake and left the clamp off .. ran to the bank between cloud bursts .. it was very rideable .. I'll test more when I have some time... meanwhile, I'll check out the carb jets and needle position as you suggested .. when I had it running on the stand, I checked that the carb diaphragm/slide assembly was working well with a mirror while I ran the engine to WOT .. it looked to be working great.. Thanks again for the response..