Yeah, if your old boots were leaking, you may have to redo the sync. I'm a big fat newb too, and I really recommend trying the carb sync yourself. Theres a set of gauges on Amazon that I wish I bought for $60, but instead, I made my own for about $40 (you can go cheaper if you try, but I just don't recommend it). It includes adjustable restrictor valves that allow you to dampen out the pulsations at idle, and includes the vacuum adapters that you screw into the vacuum ports on the intake manifold.
It's super easy, and very gratifying learn to do it on your own. You can find directions and videos pretty easily, but here's a brief run-down:
1. Loosen the jam nuts on 3 of the cylinders' slide adjusters. You need one of the cylinders to be a "reference" that is not touched, otherwise you might end up chasing yourself around in circles. I picked cylinder #2 to keep as reference.
2. Place a big fan in front of the engine to keep it cool while you're doing this. If you don't have a maintenance auxiliary fuel tank (I don't), remove your tank, set it aside on a bench or something at a higher level than your carbs, and attach long fuel lines from the petcock to the carb feed lines.
3. With the gauge attached to the bike and the engine warmed up, set the idle at your preferred idle speed (mine's at 1,050rpm).
4. Identify the cylinder with the highest vacuum, and lower it slightly. The adjustment is very sensitive, and just putting screwdriver pressure on the adjuster tends to move things around a lot.
5. Give the throttle a blip to settle things, and let it go down back down to idle. If the idle has drifted from your target, readjust it before proceeding.
6. Identify the cylinder with the lowest vacuum, and raise it slightly. Again, the adjustment screw is very sensitive!
7. Blip the throttle, readjust it as necessary.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 until all cylinders are as close to the same as possible.
9. Carefully tighten the jam nuts, making sure not to allow the adjuster screw to twist with it.
