[Justinh722]

Thanks for the help. I’m just at my wits end and about to tear it all down and see what’s going on with it. The piston is installed correctly. Compression is good. No noise in reverse. Noise in forward not sure if it could be a main bearing issue.
The subframe that the engine sits on…is it supposed to move completely up and down? I’m able to grab the engine and lift it up and down a good few inches or so.

The carb I ended up getting was a Chinese pos and I compared the main jets and the jet in the aftermarket carb was slightly bigger. So moving back to the stock carb and using couple pieces off the Chinese one I was able to get it to run decent. It will top out and gain speed after it gets going. In forward I can get it to move from a stop a little easier than reverse. But in reverse the engine just won’t rev at a stop like it’s a low speed jet issue. If I hold wide open it will build up and finally take off. I noticed both the oem carb and the aftermarket had the float adjusted under 1mm when it should be between 1-3. I have it at about 1.5mm now. Wondering if I should lean it out a bit to 2. Even with the rear wheels in the air, it won’t pick up speed down low right away.

The Drive belt is dragging causing the secondary clutch to move but that shouldn’t be the issue as the primary should still hit harder with throttle. Even with belt removed it just picks up slow then goes to wide open throttle just fine. I’m convinced the issue is tuning or timing but the noise in forward has me concerned. Adjusting timing on these would require removal of the flywheel to adjust the pulsar and then assemble and check again and repeat…correct?

The drive belt is worn but still a tad over an inch wide. Measured at 45 1/2” long using string around the outside diameter. I would have gotten stock carb but the woman paid 2700 for the 1986 cart and literally no maintenance was done to this thing. She said she can’t afford to put too much into it. I hate using any Chinese parts. Starter belt is at its tightest adjustment point. So it seems she needs to get a new mikuni carb, new belts, and ultimately a rebuild. Fuel is mixed 128-1 non ethanol. It’s clearly running too rich at low speed but opening the air jet doesn’t help much.