I'm building up a '00 Zaskar race frame for a general messing about bike. It originally had an 80mm travel SID XC but I've ordered a 445mm Exotic carbon fork for it, only to then see on Exotic's website they suggest the 425mm to replace 80mm travel forks.
Will the longer forks be fine? Or will it handle like a pram? I'm all out of touch with old geometry.
I [i]think[/i] 420 mm a2c is right for an 80 mm geometry frame. So by adding 2 cm to the length of the fork, you will slacken the head angle by about 1°.
IME (of having a similar era frame and running a variety of forks on it) it won't handle like a pram, but it will be a bit slower than with 420mm forks on. But even on 80mm corrected frames, 420mm forks tend to make the handling pretty quick, so it won't be too bad with 445 on it.