A little background:
I bought the bike (a '91) 3 1/2 years ago. Had a cracked stator cover & I was too cheap (poor?) to pay through the nose for a new one. So it sat. After almost 2 years, I finally got one cheap from a member here. Due to the usual constraints, I was unable to devote much attention to it until recently.
In the last 2 months, I've done a lot of stuff to it: Carb clean & sync, new plugs, coated tank interior, replaced petcock w/ brand new OE. I even replaced front fender & fork seals.
Got the bike running for the first time since I rode it home when I bought it. Took it out for its rechristening voyage and it ran for a while (poorly) and finally quit on me. Long story short - a bad connections from the R/R to the battery were creating a low output situation and the battery discharged. Cleaned up the connections, replaced the battery, fired right up, checked output (good) let it idle for a good while, and then rode it around the neighborhood for about 1/2 hour. Charging problem solved.
But the thing runs like shit. It idles nice (BTW, what is spec. idle RPM?). But I have to rev the shit out of it from a stop to not make it fall flat on its face. It's dead down low (under 3K) and the power comes on like a light switch. This is not a simple powerband characteristic, mind you. Runs strong from about 3K to 6K and then it starts cutting out. Won't pull past 6K under load. It will also die when returning to idle sometimes.
Personally, I'm suspecting a float issue or a vacuum issue. But there are people here a lot more intimate with the bike than me. So I'm hoping somebody will have experienced the same symptoms and have an idea of what my problem is.