off to the doctor...
 

Made an appointment to have the old girl picked up by my trusted tech on Friday. On the menu for this year:
- strip engine, inspect bores ; hopefully all is good in which case a hone and re-ring is in order (otherwise, a bore job is in order and in will go the new 99mm slugs)
- inspect valves guides, replace if needed
- replace all valve seals
- refresh valve seats
- replace intake cam (currently Mori Stg 1 EX cam) with Yosh Stage 1 (additional 1 degree duration and 0.6mm lift)
- replace intake valve springs
- machining upper case for better venting
- replace flywheel (new unit is 2.6 lbs lighter than stock, courtesy of EMarquez)
- replace seals for drive shaft and shift shaft
- replace wiring harness (was getting short in the rain so hopefully this will cure that)
- lube shock linkage
- install Quickshifter (seeing as how it will be apart anyhow...)
- replace rear cowling (seeing as how it will be apart anyhow; existing one is cracked were mount screws are so picked up a pristine one from Beau and had it colour-matched - will fix old one and have it as a backup)

Hopefully this will cure the oil burning problem and net me a bit more zip along the way...

I performed another (relatively minor) mod to the airbox lid (filter-in-lid mod), raising the lid by 10mm and replacing the prior K&N VTR1000 filter element with an unmolested one... all to help it breathe better (especially with the more aggressive cams)...

should be ready just in time for riding weather to arrive....