Welcome to the forum "sparetire"!

Good to hear your NSR is on form again - and yes, it's amazing how a set of good tyres will transform the bike!

It sounds like the seal on the underside of the oil pump had slipped, causing the 2T reservoir to drain into the transmission. This would indeed have cause a huge amount of drag on the transmission and made the performance seem very sluggish.

Andy.
NSR-WORLD.COM