went ahead with lancers carb tuning guide which was as its titled; very straight forward. My results however, were not. From 0-4 turns out (yes, 0 turns. Couldnt turn it in any further) The bike ran well. Once I got to about 1 turn out it did slow a teeny tiny bit but it certainly didnt stumble or start to stall and it picked back up as I went past 1. As I turned out to 4 there was no noticeable difference from 1-4. At 4 I couldnt turn it out any further. Whats the deal? Until i can get it straight i decided to settle at 2 turns out. Purrs like a small mountain lion after a kill. The backfire on shutdown seems to have converted into a "pfoot" kind of fart but sometimes it did that anyway as opposed to "bang".

no tach. I'll lower the idle speed and give it another go. By the way thanks again. I got a circlip at NADA. Amazing how much quieter the bike is, and smoother. Primo work you do.

lowered revs. Had to rich it out half turn to get it to start and stay idling. Richening it more had no considerable effect so I turned it back to 2.5 . The pfoot/bang is now hit or miss as it was before. Will turn it out to 2.75 or 3 just to see how the backfiring turns out.
Took a half hour ride in between rain. Put a little too much oil (a mm above the full line) in it and when I got home it was smoking a wee bit. changed oil AGAIN and put a bit less in. Idled it for a while (20min +/-). No smoke. Figure smoke is from too much oil, running too hot or a combo?

I put in the larger pilot jet I got from Lancer about 3 weeks ago.   I was at almost 3 turns out on the stock jet and still had a back-fire.  

  Well, I did the preset before startup at 1 turn out and it seemed to run fine.  Back-fire almost all gone.  So,  I didn't play with it.

  Then,  first week I filled up before I hit resevre,  46 mpg.  hmmmm... it was only about a third of a tank on the new jet, maybe the smile factor had hit.     Then, this past week, I was riding home from work and knew I was getting close to hitting reserve.   I was waiting for the characteristic idle drop at a light to know it was getting low.  Well, the idle climbed.... WTF?  I switched over to reserve and got gas , 41  MPG ... WOW!!    Got home and played with the screw.  now it's only at just over 1/2 turn out.  
    So what happened,  normally a correctly tuned carb when the fuel shuts off (like when you need to switch to reserve)  the idle should drop a bit as the fuel bowel get to the "almost out" state.   When a carb is too rich,  when it gets to the "almost out" state, idle picks up because you are geeting to the "correct" mix.....

I haven't checked the spark plug yet,  that is the best way to check , but it just so tedious to get to.