+1 leave the engine alone. It may be an old 1000, but it's still a 1000, and will have way more power than you'll need to get into track days.
Boosten is right - invest in brakes and suspension. Trust us. IMO, you cannot invest too much in brakes and suspension. 5k should be plenty to find some top tier used bits and some new parts.
Although my 2004 750 came messed up (unlike your beautiful machine) the main complaints about my model were the brakes, followed by suspension. So I did what any aspiring rider would do, and dumped about 2k into front brakes, and had my suspension fully maintained at a shop. In my case now though, I think my epic front brake setup has now caused me to bottom out my forks a lot, so I have Racetech springs I am going to throw in here soon enough to remedy that.
But yeah I would keep the engine stock. My bike also came with a buncha miles, and so I run stock oil and air filters, and had my local dyno guy do an ECU flash and tune. If the engine made it the 45,000 miles already on stock filters and whatnot, I want to keep it that way. No need for a less filtering air filter to gain 2hp and potentially wear out the engine faster, or a cheapy aftermarket filter that wasn't engineered as well as the factory one. It's not worth it, we're not racing to win.
Go through every maintenance item in the book for the engine, suspension, pivot points, bearings, fluid changes, and replace any lost OEM hardware, and torque check everything. And if your engine makes a lot of top end/valvetrain noise, get a manual CCT.
Then ride it to your hearts content. Hope this helps! Old machines are awesome.
-Mike
Boosten is right - invest in brakes and suspension. Trust us. IMO, you cannot invest too much in brakes and suspension. 5k should be plenty to find some top tier used bits and some new parts.
Although my 2004 750 came messed up (unlike your beautiful machine) the main complaints about my model were the brakes, followed by suspension. So I did what any aspiring rider would do, and dumped about 2k into front brakes, and had my suspension fully maintained at a shop. In my case now though, I think my epic front brake setup has now caused me to bottom out my forks a lot, so I have Racetech springs I am going to throw in here soon enough to remedy that.
But yeah I would keep the engine stock. My bike also came with a buncha miles, and so I run stock oil and air filters, and had my local dyno guy do an ECU flash and tune. If the engine made it the 45,000 miles already on stock filters and whatnot, I want to keep it that way. No need for a less filtering air filter to gain 2hp and potentially wear out the engine faster, or a cheapy aftermarket filter that wasn't engineered as well as the factory one. It's not worth it, we're not racing to win.
Go through every maintenance item in the book for the engine, suspension, pivot points, bearings, fluid changes, and replace any lost OEM hardware, and torque check everything. And if your engine makes a lot of top end/valvetrain noise, get a manual CCT.
Then ride it to your hearts content. Hope this helps! Old machines are awesome.
-Mike
