1983 KZ550 - Bogs down in low gears

My take is if it's a jetting problem is would persist and not be intermittent. "Overall it has been running pretty good", expect for this small problem.

Agreed, the intermittent nature of the fault and the jumpy electronic tacho triggered from the ignition -ve...

Op, try to make this run consistently bad. Find the conditions you need to make it bog down, hot / cold, gear, throttle opening...if you can't consistently do this and it is still intermittent then it points again to ignition. Out of tune carbs will run crap all the time at a certain throttle opening.

Had a little time this weekend to get deeper into this....and a new problem popped up!

Now, the bike just wont idle. It starts with choke and is ok down to 2k rpm or so. I can ride it, but when i come to a stop and drops down to 1k rpm, it just dies. It is also leaking a fair amount of oil from engine block. Ugh! Pic attached.

Full history of my recent attempts at maintenance. Bike had been running with Bel-Ray - EXL 4T 10W40 oil. It was well overdue for a change, and i decided to go with Rotella T 15w-40, because it's cheap and I can get it anywhere. Given it was my first oil change, I overfilled it (by abouta pint). Drove it about 25mi and then drained it to the proper level.

Now my questions are:
- Could the overfill have damaged the engine? Maybe just working the leftover excess oil out of it?
- Could the Rotella be causing the stalls? Does it need something like Bel-Ray?

Thanks so much for the advice here! Sorry I'm a bit of a slow learner.

Tyrell Corp wrote:
Op, try to make this run consistently bad. Find the conditions you need to make it bog down, hot / cold, gear, throttle opening...if you can't consistently do this and it is still intermittent then it points again to ignition. Out of tune carbs will run crap all the time at a certain throttle opening.

I was able to isolate the bogging down. It happens when:
- Low speed low throttle, especially uphill
- Accelerating when slightly overgeared, For ex: from a rolling stop in 2nd gear

Backing off throttle and then giving a sudden accel usually corrects it.

Not oil related.
Dodgy ignition, clogged low speed jets, or both.