Yeah, those boots are all snug tight, as you put it. What I tried to do was spray a little starting fluid at each boot to see if the RPMs changed. They did not. Not sure if that's a fool proof way of checking, but I remember someone showing me that trick once.

To be honest, I do not own a vaccuum gauge kit. I'm gonna have to go buy or borrow one to check the pressures. That ought to indicate a leak, or a big disparity between carbs. I'm sure it could use a carb sync because I don't think it's had one in several years, if ever. The bike idles and rides very smoothly right now though.

There were 2 previous owners of this bike, so I'm sure the carbs have been dicked up a few times. I'll just have to solve the puzzle piece by piece. The soonest I'll be able to hook up the vacuum gauges is next week, unfortunately. Thanks for the info, e1.