OK so I have an update! Thanks RS Hutchinson...
I finally found a guy in town that works on older asian bikes - and he was going to pick the bike up and do some testing for me yesterday. However the day before, I went back and:
- re-checked valve clearance (not much adjustment needed)
- adjusted the timing (this is where I gave up)
- reset my idle - dialed it back down
If you remember - I had slow throttle response and was chasing down timing, until I got the very low compression readings. I have 100+ hours into my disassembly and reassembly + a few bills $$ into the head reman/valves replacement and tank repaint...
The last 2 things I did were key - and I cannot stress this enough:
- put a lot of fresh gas in
- new, solid charge on the battery
HFS if the bike didn't start right up and GOOOOO! Just like before - all the HP was working for me and had immediate throttle response! Yahoo! I drove it to my kids school for a band show that night - it was 74 degrees in Cleveland. Just too bad the Indians didn't have the same luck!
So - I was surprisingly baffled. here is what I think happened - please learn from my errors (Remember - I was about to tear into the timing chain, carbs, and potentially the lower unit to replace the rings and so on):
1) Doing my compression test, I believe that the combination of some worn threads on the nearly new compression tester, some slight valve mis-adjustment, a weak battery, and lack of lube in the cylinders/valves (until i did the wet test) gave me the low compression readings
2) While adjusting the timing, I was so focused on the idle and timing, that I really was not aware that with all the stops and starts my battery was really low (and a no-start made me think I needed to re-adjust, but sometimes it would catch), and also with low to no gas in it, I would get fooled when it stalled or wouldn't throttle up, thinking the idle or timing was bad - leading to more adjustment and more use of gas and electricity
In the end, the issue WAS my timing, and the advancement of the ATU (by rotating the unit slightly) made the difference - but I couldn't see it because of low gas and battery power used during the adjustment - and a bad compression test mis-lead me down another path. Stupid? Yes! Happy? Very! The way it came about was like magic - Thanks to everyone for their help.