Need help to diagnose engine trouble...

[95jersey]

So if you followed any of my other threads (Top end rebuild, spark plug reading), I have been going through some growing pains with my 2014 EX300.

Let me start at the beginning.

About 3 weeks ago I noticed a pin hole leak in my left radiator. I went and bought a set of ebay Chinese radiators (winner racing) as both were cheaper than just one OEM radiator.

So I installed the radiators (perfect fit) and unfortunately when removing the rubber caps from the openings, I forgot one when installing the radiators on the bike. I took the bike out for a test ride and it of course ran very hot and eventually was detonating left and right, pinging like a diesel. At the time I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I made some jetting adjustments and went back out for another test ride...same thing.

I know I overheated the bike pretty bad as I could smell the oil burning. Finally, I took the radiator apart and found the plug, removed it. By now, the bike was not running right even with the cooling system functioning properly. It made popping sounds on deceleration and would idle either too low or too high and was hard to start. If you let off the gas the bike would backfire and lurch forward on deceleration. The advice was to check for air leaks. I tightened everything down from the intake to the cylinder head. I found a bad choke plunger and replaced that, thinking air was coming in through the choke tube. I also noticed the throttle cable out of adjustment, so I fixed that. Another advice was to replace the exhaust header pipe gaskets/rings...did that still nothing.

Bike still ran very poor, like it was jetted badly (I knew this wasn't the case as before I had the overheat issue, it ran perfect with the current jetting). At this point I figured I may have fried the rings or top end, so I bought a Wossner forged piston kit with all new gaskets all around. I did the complete top end, fired her up and she ran good. Power was up and the deceleration popping was reduced quite a bit (but still present).

I took the bike out for the first long ride and it still ran like the jetting was still off (but much better than before) and toward the end of the ride, the bike started to ping again. I pulled over and found it was low on water by about 12 ounces I let it cool down, added water and headed home and it was OK. I rechecked the coolant level after the short ride home and it was down about 8 ounces again. Not sure if I had air pockets or if I am burning coolant.

For argument, lets say jetting is good, intake is all tightened down, new spark plug, new top end, new gaskets, new larger radiators. What the heck can be going on here? Could I have cracked/warped the head/cylinder? Would that cause it running like it was jetted poorly and overheating?

I am just at a loss of what to check next and I getting wary on just buying new random parts to try and solve the problem.