No start hot

[jeffblack]

Hello folks, 1st post here and really excited to be part of this group. I bought an 88 XT600 in September and have enjoyed the few rides I have been able to go on. I've gotten good at starting it on the 1st kick cold. If not on the 1st kick, the second or third will always get it running. But if I ride it for 15 minutes and shut it off, there is no restarting until it cools off. What blows my mind is this: When it won't start, it has a nice strong blue spark, but even if I use the cold start valve, the spark plug will come out dry. This is while my fuel level is about a mm below the top of the bowl. I have had my YDIS carbs apart 2x now. The 2nd time I spent a few hours getting familiar with how they're different from conventional motorcycle carbs and I can't account for how it's not getting fuel to the plug. I have set my valves and the auto decomp lever free play. Here's one weird thing it's doing: When it's cold, I have to get the piston just past TDC compression to be able to kick it, but when it does the no-start thing, I can kick and kick and kick without paying attention to what stroke I'm on. This feels to me like gas has washed the oil out of the rings, but it seems like it would get on the spark plug too, right? I know I should have tested compression by now, but I have not. Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading, and any comment would be appreciated!