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Sorry for my 1st post being so needy

So i just picked up my first bike a couple weeks ago. Its a 1982 KZ550. It warms up fine, and drives great except when its warm, it doesn't seem to want to accelerate up hill. I have plenty of power at the start of the hill and then it will just start sputtering half way up. I have also noticed that when i try to rap the throttle quickly during idle, it wants to die. Even when warm. I've spent the last week going over multiple forum posts and information but need some help on a direction with this.

Here's a little bike background. I found a picture of the bike on PNWrider.com along with the previous owner from 3-4 years ago. Couldn't find a build thread or anything but did see that he mentioned the bikes has been ported, jetted, had 610 wiesco pistons installed, regeared, exhaust and "etc". The bike is very clean and it looks like this owner knew what he was doing. Owner i bought it from said when he purchased the bike it did not run and he cleaned the carbs out. Not sure if that meant pulled off and soaked or just took some carb clean and blew them out. The only thing I've done is throw some spark plugs in it, and ordered a factory service manual(which is not here yet ). And yes, it still has the airbox installed.

I work on cars for a living so I am definitely mechanically inclined. However, my background with carbs is not very large and i admit they intimidate me a bit. But, i feel i may need to just rebuild these things. But before i do that, i wanted to check the vast knowledge of this forum and see if anyone has any ideas or advice.

Thanks

What model Kz550? Kz550A, Kz550C, Kz550H?

If it was made in 1982, it could be a 1983 model, which then had KZ550M shaft drive as a another model.

When going up hill, the engine gets loaded more, so the RPMs don't freely rev as high for a given throttle position. This leads to a rich condition. So if the bike was rejetted rich, then going uphill would make things worse.

Blipping the throttle at idle also causes a momentary rich condition. If you blip it too fast it may die.
If you have TK22 carbs, they are mechanical slide carbs which should not be blipped to the extreme. The motor will stall if you do it too fast or too open, from idle. Being too rich will exacerbate the problem of blipping.

However, not being able to accelerate up a moderate hill probably means other problems may be happening. Have you checked the mechanical advancer and the timing?

Kz550 as best I can tell. That's what the title and badging states. Ill give it a once over when I get home just to make sure.

Cool, that's what I was thinking about the throttle blip issue.

I haven't check anything like timing yet since I don't have a factory manual yet.

There's several factory manuals and other manuals in my signature for the non-shaft drive KZ550's. Download them all to be covered. The manuals will have photos of bikes so you can get an idea of what you have.

oh sweet! i downloaded all your links the other day onto my phone but totally forgot to try the manuals on my Desktop.

OK, its KZ550 A