what year was it when they reduced the rake?

i went from a 98 to an '04 or slow to faster steering and found it was a lot less effort to get thru turns quickly. noticed that the 04 when laying over and hitting something slick tends to slide out a lot quicker than the old one. with the old one, you had to keep your weight over the bars to get around corners well and it still works with the newer one but is not as critical. biggest thing is the newer one just feels a lot more responsive to changes in steering. try it, you'll never go back.
first thing i would do about the jetting is pull the carb apart, and look critically at the condition of your needle and needle jet. they are common wear items. write down the sizes of all jets, number of turns of screws, and needle clip position, then start experimenting based on the info about carb tuning in the doc. even the fcr info covers the basics (less the pump and idle fuel adj)

i've ridden with the two frames as my '02 now runs an '04 chassis. BTW '04 WAS the first year and you really need to look in the doc under chapter one which is called 'year recognition'.

i can't recall whether i left a link to the thread i ran on it specifically. but go into suspension and handling and look up threads started by me about it/.

regards

Taffy

Comparison of rake between a 01 and 05.

The 01 is more stable at high speed but the 05 does everything else better.

Taff,
A few years back someone has listed the dimensions from the motor mount to the front axle to determine the raked out front vs the newer pulled in front end. Curiousity led me to the shop to measure the front of my 03, and it had the pulled in measurements. My 03 was one of the last ones. 03's may be a transitional bike to the 04???
dan

i think eric came up with 1.5" somewhere along the line...

thanks for that - so where does that leave us?

regards

Taffy