Thank you 1971 for the informative reply. Mine has the standard Oil soaked filter. Right now I am running it not hooked to the filter, because it seemed like it ran a little bit better unrestricted. Just trying to eliminate variables.
 my main jet is a 220. That is what the shop manual calls for. I had a 240 laying around and I tried it a couple of hours ago. It did not seem to be any better.
 perhaps spring being loose was not the correct description. There is a little Slack in it we're detaches to the to posts. The spring just seems really strong and rigid. I know we are dealing with a lot of centrifugal force here, but it seems really stiff. I've taken the spring completely off before when going down this path a couple of months ago. I did not notice any difference in performance. As an experiment a couple of hours ago, I put a much weaker spring on in place of the one that was on there. Well I did not see any advance in timing with my timing light when I rev the engine, the bike ran the best it has so far by miles. I will play around with this some more when I get a chance.
 I guess for me The $64,000 Question is has anyone apply to timing light to their bike and rev the engine to see if their timing advances?

 what follows is just thinking out loud. I defer to you guys as knowing way more about this than I do. We try to set our timing to 2.9 mm before top dead center. That is a pretty precise number. Once we achieve this precise number, timing no longer matters. It works the same if it's 1500 RPMs or 8,000 RPMs. It may very well be true, but I just can't understand the logic in it.

 once again, thank you to everyone for their input.

The advance unit on those is just yamahas atempt at stopping kickback by retarding for kick speed. Once started it'll go to full advance at idle or just above depending on idle speed. It'll then hold untill the cows come home or untill you stop the motor. If you can't see it retarding on the strobe [& you'd hear it pull back in sound] then she aint idling slow enough for the spring to pull it back. But--it'll be back the moment the motor stops turning--or just before. I gather its a one year only setup & the year they came without a decomp fitted in the front of the cylinder [so someone on here that knows their stuff said]. Mine being a mix n match had the decomp & the advancer [call it a retarder] so was extra friendly to start. I'm woffling so i'll not confuse ya any more--today lol.

RT this makes good sense to me.  Thank you for giving me some understanding.  So, in the off state the timing is retarded to assist with starting.  Once the engine fires it goes to full advance which it 2.9 BTDC.  From that point on, it is as Mark said, a fixed timing engine. So it would follow that removing the spring would have no effect on running performance, as I found.  Hard to understand the much improved performance today with the weaker spring....................... Thank you so much to everyone who shared their help in educating this idiot!!  lol

Ya doing well, & often i lay claim to the idiot tag. Can't comment on why the weaker spring helped things. Maybe it was just having a good day. Same with no spring & might move back to retard by luck when it stops or as the cam came in contact with the points heal & slid the cam back to the retard end--but that's splitting strawers.

Curious if you removed the flywheel to change the spring?  If so, did you re-time?  Sometimes timing can change a couple degrees by removing and installing flywheel... 

I find with modern fuel retarding the timing slightly from factory specs results in a better running big bore engine... 

It is hard to say RT. I had written it quite a bit before that trying various adjustments and so forth to no avail. So it wasn't having a good day before that. Who knows, I'm going to play around with that spring thing a little bit more. Thank you for your help.

Hey Mark, no I did not remove the flywheel to change the spring. I just worked with in the slot on the flywheel. Yeah I hear what you're saying, it might be worth experimenting with the timing slightly to see if it helps. Thank you for all your help.

Just to clarify 2 things.

When setting the ignition timing the mechanism must be "wedged" in the advanced position. It should move freely even though the spring will be somewhat strong.

The exhaust pipe must be cleared of soot. It can be difficult to thoroughly burn the crud out. Do you have another exhaust pipe you could try?

Thank you, 1971.  Yes, when setting the timing I do it with the lever advanced.

As far as the exhaust, I built a fire and laid it on there for several hours.  During maybe an hour of this time, blew compressed air through it.  Also, for maybe 15 minutes, I blew into it with a heat gun.  At first application of the compressed air, there was some flames that came out of the other end.  After a few minutes they stopped.  Is there a better way?  I am all ears!!  Thanks.

Sounds good. Can you view the spark arrestor way down in the end & if so--not still looking like carbon in it. It's an angled vane looking thing. In saying that maybe RT1 had one on the end of the baffle that came out with the baffle so different setup. Someone will know.