I understand the frustration, everything checked out with my old carb as well and still had the flooding problem. I had even tried putting a new rubber o-ring under the pilot/air screw.

you have said several times that the carb is completely clean inside with no sign of any crud, but did you blow out all of the assorted passageways in the carb body?  When rebuilding a stock carb I usually go through at least half if not a full can of carb cleaner in the process of making sure all of the passageways are completely clear and flowing well.  I blow the cleaner through both ends of each passage several times, back and forth, checking and rechecking unobstructed flow.  It is a pain, but when the carb goes back together I KNOW that I will not have any of those type of issues to deal with, and when I turn an adjustment screw the carb WILL respond properly to my adjustment.

Also, did you in fact run the engine with the petcock in the PRIME position in order to eliminate that as a possible problem ?  That is a common issue.

I am working on a stock carb now and found a clogged passage that runs through a very tiny brass tube that sticks down into the float bowl.  That passage runs up to the choke (enricher) but also is connected to the pilot system through a side passage within the carb body.  After several unsuccessful attempts with the pressureized carb cleaner I finally found some super fine stainless wire in my wifes craft supplies that would fit into the super small hole and used that to penetrate the hard pack in the tube...worked on that one passage for over an hour.   One less potential problem.

All the caps I had were over 3/8" so I'll head off to pick some up in the morning and get back to work on this thing. Thanks for all your input guys I'll be back tomorrow morning

Here's the update. Did the petcock mod last night. Capped off the ports today, picked up a new plug just for kicks (also so I have a spare), and I pulled out the carb...again. Every passage is clear and it definately is good to go. One thing that I had been overlooking cause I thought it was normal was the appearance of the slide. It didn't seem to drag when I'd move it up and down but it had black over most of it, as if it was painted and parts of it rubbed off. Don't know if I should have done this but I took some real fine synthetic wool and some 600 grit wet/dry paper. Polished that baby up and also the inside of where the slide goes. It is smooth as silk now and I can feel it is actually moving much better. I have 2 washers on the needle, the 150 main jet from Lancers, and a 45 pilot jet. The idle is where I think it should be without a tach, and the air screw is about 1 turn out. I don't want to jump the gun but I think "something" out of all those things may have helped cause I just took about a 50 min ride all around the city and it appears to be working great. I'm going to do some more test runs and some of the tests Lancer told me to do, to make sure the main jet is where it should be. I hooooope it's actually good to go now. One thing, with the petcock mod, the inline filter I installed isn't staying full of fuel the whole time I'm riding now. It didn't seem to affect anything, I just remember that before it always stayed full of fuel.

I guess you're right. Although, before I broke a valve, the fuel filter was always full too. I'm not going to question it, if it keeps running now and doesn't run out of fuel or flood, I'm happy! Hmm, I wonder if that 45 pilot is going to turn out to be too small now. No backfire on the ride I just went on, no backfires or pops or anything upon shutdown...and I already noticed it's running MUCH cooler. Must have been running so hot from being overly rich

Hey hey hey don't congratulate too soon! Might jinx me. Weather is calling for possibly a little bit of rain here this weekend so not sure how much more I'll get to mess with it. I'm hoping it's good to go but it kinda bothers me that now that it's finally running good, I can't get a difference in rpms messing with the air screw. I guess if it's running, and no backfiring, and running cool I should just leave it alone?? Air/fuel screw is feeling rough as though I'm messing it up playing with it so much. It only has about 2 turns of adjustment in it. Maybe I should pull it out, clean the threads and replace it? Or if it continues running well the next couple days I might just leave it alone