You really keep me thinking. I appreciate all your input.
What's that out of and what's the specs on the topend? Kinda looks like some swelling may have occured in between the holes. Nice hot spot on the crown there. What happened to the ring ends that fit around the pin? Looks like the blowby got worse once they turned up missing. Inquiring minds wanna know.
Thanks for posting Oxford.
One thing curious I got to thinking about is timing. Now most of these bikes are set at 23 degrees but not all 2 strokes bikes dont use the same timing. I was curious whether the noise I heard was the ignition too advanced for the motor setup since it has a lot shorter flame front to reach the piston. I may have to run slightly retarded timing than the stock bikes now that the engine is changed around considerably. The carberation is close enough you can drive it, may not be perfect, but can test engine reliability with it. I doubt it'll have a lean condition at this stage if anything were to happen (knock on wood).
I took the top end apart again today. I have about 3hrs of runtime on the motor, about 60 miles on the bike, minus what ripping I did around the neighborhood. Sunday I had it out for an hour riding it around town, stop and go, pulls away nice but still a little rich off idle, may have to change the slide to correct. Bikes been revved to 7.5k on several occasions, 6k regularly, has a very nice power band come on at 6-6.5k. It's still all good from what I've seen. No flashing, hotspots, sides of the pistons arent flashing around the ring gaps or crown, head looks just like it did when I bolted it on, everything has a nice sheen of oil on it, heads clean, domes clean, wipe the piston dome off and it still looks new, piston deck right where I left it.
I've thought about what you're saying, mulling it over about bringing the ratio down to 150 just to be safe, dont think your advice is falling on deaf ears.

I'm gonna roll the dice for one more week, put another 100 miles on it before the gap, and wreck it apart a time or two before bringing it down just to be sure it's reliable. When I got the cylinders off, I may go ahead and knock half a mill off it if anything obvious stands out. I doubt it will change the power characteristics much.

There's a benefit bike ride on saturday I planned to attend. after that workout, I'll break it down and have a look.