ya. the plug looked almost totally clean when just idling for a few minutes, and blackened after riding for 10 minutes or so. I made a foolish error when putting the carb on, choke slide was not affixed to the choke pull, so it wasnt staying up in idle. Now that I fixed that its starting up no problem, seems like there might be a slight leak. gonna see if I can't tame it today.
I looked through the plug hole in the head and the top of the piston looked slightly bronz-ish. I dont know enough to know if thats normal. Also a bit of smoke coming out after riding it and taking plug out, I assume that is normal.