85 maxim X BOGGGGGGY

Hey all,
New to the forum so I’ll give some back story.
Pick up 2 85 700 W/C maxim x’s earlier this year
Bike#1) 42,xxx miles on odm. All original looking except for a set of open pipes. Barn find guy brought home to use for bike #2 parts. He never pulled anything off the bike. It was a package deal and price was good for bike #2 so I didn’t need to have #1 be a runner (nor did I expect it). I put some intake boots on that were missing, changed oil, plugs, battery, tank flush and BAM! 2 runners. She smoked and ran rough for a bit but standard “found her in a barn” type of thing. After a few short rides (10-15min) around the neighborhood she cleared her throat and was a mean screamer.
Bike#2) 12,042 on odm. 2 previous owners, Beautiful all factory original bike. Still 35 degrees when I picked them up so short test ride but everything checked out. The bike was dropped by original owner but only a few small dings. All around bike was clean. Have only been out on 2 40-50 min rides and parked it once bike#1 was running on the premise that #1 was used and abused so I felt safer enjoying the bike for what it was and also it could eat bike#2 for breakfast which brings me to my issue/question.
I’m by no means a bike guy, but I’m no stranger to an engine. These were identical bikes from Yamaha in 1985 and appeared to still be that way aside from the open pipes. The only other difference I could see visually was bike#1 had no air cleaner (never even thought about it when I was going through it) so I inspected the air box on bike#2 and found a gasoline soaked air cleaner. Other difference was new plugs. I pulled plugs and 1/4 were beautiful 2/3 were wet wet wet. I’ve read about the petcocks and know these bikes have a known issues of leaking into sump but my oil is clean and fuel free. Aside from the gasoline sented air freshener in the box it was dry (no fuel or oil)
Im going to pull the carb set out and rebuild them but im curious if bike #1 and bike #2 are not in fact equal…
I’m sure someone has more knowledge than what I could learn reading the other forums.
Questions
#1) what has been this 5 valves preferred jetting setups?
#2) Is the factory air cleaner/ box as restricting as it appears
#3) How do these engines respond to different exhaust setups?
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my book!
I post with open ears and welcome any knowledge of these awesome old 2wheels pieces of history.
Be safe and have fun!
-TC

Picture #1) the badest biker I know on bike #2
Picture #2) bike #1 moving into my garage.
spoiler alert, I snapped a rod and sent it through the crank case and trans case RIP
picture #3) death of bike #1

 

How did the rod snapping occur?

 

No apparent reason.. only answer I could come up with was poor maintenance in its past or possibly moisture in the cylinder while it was sitting for unknown years that resulted in a ridge on the cylinder wall. I will know more when I get around to stripping it down to parts for my shelf.

 

About the bikes being equal, if both tuned correctly with clean carbs, correct valve clearances and good compression, they should be fairly equal. Also, who knows what crap was sent through the carbs with no filter.