Yes this is a nice bike I was looking on it wile deciding with wane to get and I ended up getting LS 650
Let us know how it is rides and the progress on it bringing back to life )
I'm interested

Yep, it was.

Steve, something to consider as you fight to get it to lite off for the first time.   You will need a spray can of quick starting fluid and some patience.

The bike has a sheet metal frame "plenum chamber" for those dual downdraft carbs.   The carbs were intended for things like snowmobiles and outboard motors, not motorcycles and I learned that if you don't run the bike for a week or so, enough fuel evaps from the bowls to make it a stone biatch to get it to start.   Getting to the carbs to even use a can of quick staring fluid is a pain in the ass, so a mod is in order.

I went to the front of the plenum chamber where you can see what you are doing easily with everything assembled and in place and I drilled a small hole in the plenum wall that I mated with a cork plug I got from Lowes hardware section.   The rubber plugs were too blunt and too big on the low end of their range, and I wanted the hole to be small.   An unobtrusive cork plug was just that, nothing big to look at.   Leave half the cork sitting proud as you want something to grip when you pull the plug out.

Quick Start Fluid Starting drill was only needed after letting the bike sit too long, but it was ALWAYS needed to get that first start up after being left sit too long.

Starting out with a fully charged battery .....  and known good gasoline

Turn the bike on, let the stroker fuel pump stroke the bowls full of gasoline, make sure your electric petcock is pulling from a full under the seat tank (you might have two of them like I did) and that poorly marked handlebar switch was not left on the "Reserve" setting --- you do want to have your reserve preserved, and on this bike that is easy to foul up as the bike will start and run it all totally dry if that Reserve switch is in the wrong position.

Spray a 4 second burst of starter fluid into the chamber and quickly replace the plug and hit the starter.   NO CHOKE !!!!   Never any choke, as when this thing gets flooded it is a sit all day affair to recover from it.  When it fires up, use the throttle to keep it lit until the fuel begins metering and flowing well then hand hold a fast idle for a half minute to warm the engine up a tad.  

NO CHOKE !!!!   Never any choke, as when this thing gets flooded it is a sit all day affair to recover from it.

There is a Virago 535 forum on a Virago Tech forum (all Viragos) that likely has my tech posts on this still on it somewhere.   Also please note that the electronics on these Viragos are all flaky bad from age and you will have to rig additional ground wires to various pieces of frame as well as cleaning the one to the engine mount.  Spark is always weak, so Palladium thin electrode spark plugs are a good idea as they will fire at lower voltages.

I always thought the flooding issue was really fuel on the plug electrodes combined with the weak spark issue to make up a stone no can start condition.

There are a world of issues with these old bikes -- read up, read up, read up.    Unless you love it, let it go as it will eat up your time like nothing I ever owned before.

They do not handle as well as a Savage, but they actually have a bit more pep than a stock Savage has.   However, they do not have more pep that a fully modded Savage has.

Only way to figure out the unmarked reserve is to either consult the appropriate forum or put just a little gas into the tank and see which setting gives some flow to the gas pump.

Or, you can guess -- just be prepared to be wrong about that guess.   I was wrong ......

        Remember to label that switch once you got it identified

Pretty soon you will begin to realize why I say the Virago 535 is the biggest time eater of a bike I ever ever had .....  it always had something flaky about it that required a mod fix from the Virago forums.

All parts needed had to be located used, as Yamaha stopped stocking all parts like 20 years ago, thereabouts.

Would a 2-1 carb mod be doable ?

I mean, if HDs run on a single carb, why shouldn't a itsy bitsy 535 ?

The Iron Duke ran fine on one carb.

There was a guy on one of the Virago forums who had a manifold made and went to one carb. When he got finished with the rejetting and got it dialed in to work well he said he had about 90% of the performance with the dual setup.  He said low end was fine, maybe a little better. Very high end was slightly less power available than before.

FWIW
As far back as 1956 I knew Amal Carburetors were junk and along with Lucas Electrics certainly helped lead to the demise of British Motorcycles.

My brother who worked for Aliis Chalmers Valve Division designed a manifold for my 1973 Norton and had a company in Allentown, PA cast it from the same stainless steel that is used on nuclear submarine valves.

We bolted a big Mikuni to the Norton, changed the jets a couple of times, and rode the thing for 30 years. It had a slide and a manual choke and worked like a charm.

Kenny G