Help with a bad starting XT600

[Peril]

Here is my problems,which I've copied and pasted from HUBB forums..To which I've had sod all response about.


This big pig (1VL Tenere) has problems starting.
Floods very easily when kicking over.
So I decided to pull the carbs out and have a look.
Float level was set very high,17mm.So therefore it was dumping a hell of a lot of fuel in,hence hard starting.
I changed all the settings back to standard,except I only changed the float level to 22mm,rather than 25-28 for stock,just to be on the safe side.
Jets are all standard,none have been drilled out,needles are stock too.
Now when I put it all back to standard it coughed and farted.Fine,I'll richen it up on the needles.No matter how much I dropped the clip down the needle,it wouldn't fix the bad (lean) running.
Put everything back to the way it was and it ran fine again.

Now come to part two of the story...Couple of weeks ago I had a nasty crack in the r/h crankcase.
Motor out job,so able to inspect a few things.
Noticed the head was heavily ported.A Ha,that must be why the carbs have been played with.
Plus the fact its got a free flowing muffler makes me think I should be looking at a TT600 for jet sizing as a base level.
I did find some specs,for a 2003 model. They ran a 150 & 145 main jets.Makes me think I should bump up my primary to a 150 and try the secondary at say a 135,working up to the 145 to see how it runs.

Now at the moment,the mixture looks good,plug is a nice colour and even the muffler has a nice brown tip.But it has a bad habit of blowing nice big flames out the back and backfiring into the airbox when it refuses to fire and also sometimes while idling,just drops revs and cuts out.
Should I have a crack at this myself,or hand it over to DAS and say "fix it Phil"?

[Motu]

The XT600 carbs can be a bit tricky,but once you get them sorted work very well.Mine is now 621cc and has a Supertrapp - I run 132 primary,104 secondary,with the needles one clip richer than stock,and part from pops and crackles on over run and gear changes it runs very well.

I'd go over those carbs again with a fine tooth comb and set them up as per workshop manual.The workshop manual is available online at the Hubb.

[Peril]

I have tried running the carbs back as per factory settings,only to have it run very very lean.Plug was white with pinkish specks on the insulator :crazy:
One thing I have forgotten to say,the seconday needle was set to run as lean as it can (clip at the top) and primary was in stock,3/5 position.Since putting it back together,I dropped the primary one richer than stock and the secondary on the 2nd from top setting.
Would a bigger,ie drilled,pilot jet help out starting? Not going too over the top,say take it from .46mm to .50mm.