Damn, that's a lot of dough for what it is, if your able to change your plugs, oil, brakes, you can handle this yourself, just read the procedure, re-install the way you took stuff off.
Otherwise, install the needle the 4 th position from the top, second from the tip (needle metering end, carb side) I can take them apart in 30 minutes now while sipping a cup of coffee

 

Hi Andy !

I have a 2002 VTR Firestorm (I'm french, but it's the same engine !).

There is no difficulty to change the main jets (you just have to remove the fuel tank, the air box, the carbs). You should unscrew 3 screws on the carb bottom to access to the main jet (with a little training you can do it in 20 minutes !)

regarding the needles, it's a lit bit more complicated (due to the spring inside the carb) (excuse me, I don't know the name of the back part which maintains the needle... I'm not a fluent english writer/speaker)

If you want to do it by your self, I can give you some picts (I manage a mechanical section of a french VTR forum, we do some picts each time we open a motor.)

The last thing is the carb tuning... to do that, and to be efficient, you need a dyno. But you can do without it (but with a lot of tries/tune/tries...) One thing you need is <vacum meter> (a way to compare the two carbs vacums... one more tilme I don't know the english name )