I made a considerable amount of progress over the weekend. I got the basic wiring done. Cranked the engine. Got spark! Connected up the carb and poured some gas in the tank. Turned the engine over and vrrrrrm!!!
I still have quite a few things left: clutch, brakes, shift lever, lights, but getting the engine running was a major milestone!
Gotta admit I didn't like the motor at the first of the thread. After seeing the bike now,completely changed my mind. Stunning bike! Love it and can't say enough! Sooooo cool!
I think they're good carbs. Very adjustable. I guess there are "real" mikunis and copy mikunis. The real ones have a larger float bowl and slightly different body shape. Seems like most people use the copies, they seem to be fine. The jets are different for the copies.
I found that you do need to experiment with the main jet size and pilot jet size to get smooth performance through the entire rpm range. Once you get the right jets, you're golden. I run a vm22 on a 5hp briggs and Honda 190cc. With your engine maybe larger, like a 24mm would work well.
Affordable Gokarts's website has a mikuni tuning tutorial, very helpful.
Well the dual pull kit I had ordered for the brakes fell through. The manufacturer was out of parts. Probably just as well as I would have had to modify it to work with larger cables, but I had to ditch the brass lever. I found a dual pull lever sized for heavier motorcycle cables. The scooter style cables were a pretty good fit too.