Well I've browsing around these forms for a couple weeks now and tried many things now, I'm running out of other options and felt it was time to join.

I bought this from a friend who said it was running fine 1-2 years ago when they parked it. They never drained the gas out of the carb and it was sitting outside the whole time. I got it for $300 so I think I got an okay deal, I had to re-upholster the seat with marine vinyl, the bolt on fenders are shot but main plastic is okay, it needs a new front differential I think, and it needs some new tires.

The problem:
It starts on 2 rotation every time and it idles great. I havent checked the idle speed but it sounds like it's in speck lol. Originally it would fall on it's face and die when ever I tried to rev it at all. So that led to 2nd and 3rd carb rebuild. Now it revs great until it gets higher in the band or I make it out of first gear, anything that puts a load on it and it will backfire like crazy, bog down kind of like it's chugging and it doenst have the power to get out of 2nd gear. It doesn't smell like it's running rich.

What I've done/replaced:
Gas tank was flushed but the petcock was shot, I've ordered a new one but it's not here yet. So I made a new gastank from a water bottel and an in-line filter, it's hanging from the bars so it's higher than the carb. The fuel line is new and clean.

The air filter looks mostly clean and there are no obstructions from the air box to the carb.

I checked the compression and on a cold engine I'm getting 150psi using the electric starter.

The carb was varnished up and in really poor shape so I soaked the carb in carb cleaner for two days and rebuilt using new seals, jets and needles (everything that was in the kit). I set the float so that the bottom flat areas were parallel with the carb body. It was only off about 1 or 2 mm, but it was still running like crap so I tore it down again and found it still had crud show up in the screen on the float valve. I cleaned and rebuilt it again this time making sure it was clean, though re-using the new kit. I then rebuilt it a third time, this time using a tip I read in this forum, I boiled the carb and all non-plastic/rubber parts in lemon juice on the grill for about 45min. It came out looking like a brand new. I made sure that I could trickle water through all the passages before using the step by step directions in the Clymer to re-assemble. I set the pilot at approx 2.5 turns out.

It was still having the problems so installed a new NGK and then tested the coil, the coil seamed to have good spark but the secondary had no resistance at all so it was replaced with a brand new one. I cleaned all the electrical connections in line with the ignition.

I noticed that the choke cable would not open all the way because it was so rusted and gummed up at the lever side, I replaced it with a mint condition used one and it opens with ease now.

The battery is also brand new.

The oil level looks good, it needs changed but I don't want to change it until I see if the "hard to shift" problem is caused by out of adjustment clutch or if the clutch just needs replaced.

Any one got any ideas of the next place to try?