Flooding and clutch slipping help

Failing to adjust the valves will damage the engine; the clearance decreases with mileage and when the clearance is all gone the valves/seats burn. The manual calls for valve checks every other oil change for good reason. They are not optional. Poor hot starting and/or stalling is a classic sign of tight valves. Hopefully the engine is okay.

It’ll be the first thing I check tomorrow morning.

What Nessisim said, you CANNOT tune / troubleshoot a new to you bike without first doing the basic maintenance which includes a valve clearance check / adjustment. By the way by the time too tight valves start showing symptoms the damage is already done. A lot of owners of these old bikes fail to do the valves because it's to costly or complicated for them. I've gotten numerous old KZ's with over 15,000 miles on them and been thru numerous owners that never checked the valves.

How often should the valves be checked.? If the manual says every other oil change. 6 k miles? When should the valve clearances be first checked on a new build / head assembly?

I checked at 500 miles and found two tight ones.
Steve

Alright I have some results from checking clearances.

#1 ) ex/in .08mm
#2 ) ex .07, in .05
#3) ex/in .09
#4) ex .08, in .10

New gas cap fixed the problem. Didn’t want to end the post without a solution.

Yay! Thanks for the update.

One other thing to check since it's related to fuel flow is an inline filter. If you have a see-through, inline filter with a paper element designed for cars, you will get a similar problem of fuel starvation. The solution is to use a scintered-brass filter or metal-screen filter. Both of those are commonly available through motorcycle sources, but not usually auto-parts stores.

That’s what I got. Had to amazon a large enough metal mesh clear filter. Works great! Unfortunately my new problem is that my rear caliper seized.. sooo onto another issue

Thanks for the update!

There's always something