For those that have used those raked cups in the trees.

Did you keep the stock forks or did you have to get new fork tubes ???

 

If you rake your front end, it's a good idea to check your rake/trail measurements. Once you do this, you'll know the answer to your question.

 

Raked cups essentially are the same as cutting off your neck and welding it at the desired angle thus being better for preserving rake and trail (find one of the online rake/trail calculators). vs. raked trees. You can use your stock tubes however keep in mind that for example 3 deg. of rake pushes the front end fwd. at the end of the forks about 1.75" thus lowering it so it many cases its suggested to use 2" over stock tubes further keeping trail manageable (actaully 3 deg. keeps trail within acceptable parameters)

Just as a note, if I recall 2003 was the last year the sportster had removeable bearing cups in the neck, 04+ have welded cups in the neck so only a couple companies like Vulcan Engineering make raked cups for them (they look bad though as they mount on top of your stock cups thus pushing the trees farther apart when mounted)