On the air filters, not sure, the more the air filter is blocked up, the more the mixture is richened. If there is a lower pressure in the intake/carb bore, more fuel will be drawn in, not less. However if there is a downstream air leak more air will also be sucked through it, effectivly worsening the air leak.
Now if someone with a plugged filter leans the carb to get it running as best possible or to full factory RPM it could be too lean in the cut or after setting the carb with a plugged carb someone then cleans the filter it would end up too lean.
Lots of filters tend to do a better job filtering out crap once they get plugged up a bit.
Makes sense when you consider you have double the detergents/dispersants goping through a engine run at 20:1 vs. one ran at 50:1.I have seen this also Ben, running lots of oil often leads to less build up of carbon than running less oil. Almost as if the excess oil keeps washing away deposits before they get a chance to get caked on. In that respect I had good results with Castrol 927 mixed nice and rich and the saw run fairly lean at the edge of 2 stroking a fair bit beyond factory max rpm.
Times have changed. In the present the only smoke you see at the kart track are at the starting line and during warm up. Their may be a few old cranks still using castor and smoking, but not the majority.Back in the 60's they ran those old racing go-karts on about 20 to one ratio,using alkie-nitro,caster oil.They would gooey up the tires,the backs of the seats,what a mess,however they never siezed although I've seen a few self destruct.The area around the track,after a 10 round heat race was just a thick blue fog.
Hmmm... If you start with a tank of straight gas, then add an bunch off oil a "short time" later, maybe you end up with 32:1?:hmm3grin2orange: