Well, after watching the fantastic Bonneville programmes and having a 30 minute chat with PJ, of PJ and Dave GSX1100ET LSR bike fame( the guy with the furnace in his garage!), I am looking for a good condition/repairable, aircooled, pre 1990 engine and frame, preferably a GSX1100ET, but not essential. If anybody knows of a very cheap one or someone who will share costs and riding at Pendine, I will do the modding and fabbing .
Picked up a Passat full of stuff from my mate Tony's unit last night; Think I will go with the ET/ESD frame instead of the EFE frames. Threw a few parts on it for a laugh;
Made some progress this weekend. Got talking to some of the guys featured in the BBC2 documentary Speed Dreams and some guys on the Oldskoolsuzuki Facebook group, said I was gonna build a flying mile bike for Pendine sands and got some great offers from people I've never met. Drove up to Waltham Cross on Saturday to meet an OSS stalwart called Ian Foxon. Had a brew and drove to his workshop , where we unloaded some goodies from me to him. Main one being a very old, very small, lathe that needed some brackets making and the drive motor mounting to make it work. Once we'd unloaded the Passat and stopped admiring the Katana and EFE in his workshop, we drove to his lockup in Barnet. There, he presented me with a virtually complete GSX1100 engine. It turns out it wasn't just any GSX 1100 engine. It came with a standard EFE cylinder head( bigger valves and ports than the earlier engines). We then went to his mums garage, where he gave me a rusty Harris exhaust system, a Bandit 1200 swingarm and an undamaged ET headlamp unit. Well today I managed to unload the parts and got to work stripping the engine for cleaning and checking. The good surprises just kept coming!!! GSX1100ET headlamp and lockup clutch with crankcase extension!!! Standard GSX1100 clutch baskets are known for turning into tambourines and eventually exploding when used in tuned drag race engines. This is compounded by Suzuki fitting helical drive gears to the clutch and crankshaft. The solution is to replace the gears with straight cut gears and the clutch backplate with a billet steel one. All riveted together and the rivet heads welded to the backplate. This mod would normally cost at least £300 to £400 !!! Another drag race mod is to replace the standard GSX oil pump gears with GS750 items. These run faster, providing more oil for cooling!
Shaping up into a nice thread Alan. Is the GSX1100 mill particularly suited to this kind conversion. You seem very fond of them.
Raced one from 83 until 88 mate. Pendine is for old skool stuff, mainly aircooled. I know you get a lot of power from oil and liquid cooled, but this is a nostalgia trip!
Found a bit of time to split the engine today and have a look inside. Started by removing head and block, alternator and ignition covers. Then remove anything inside the engine that stopped the top and bottom halves being seperated. At the back of the clutch are a couple of retaining plates that need removing and another one that needs the oil ways blasting through with degreaser and compressed air. Then it was time to remove all the M6 and M8 bolts from first the top half . Then the bottom half. The engine is normally split with the top half upside down on the bench, retaining the crankshaft and gearbox in place.
Next job was remove the fabricated sump and undo the main bearing bolts hidden inside. Note; the sump fabricator has put his initials in there, a good sign. sump filter was nice and clean. Also housing modified for racing. Removed the last two M8 main bearing bolts and tried to seperate the two halves. No joy!!! Did anyone spot the deliberate mistake? Look at the right hand side of the gearbox? Yep, left an M6 allen bolt in there!!!! Removed it, flipped engine over, couple of taps with a mallet and voila! !
Found one slightly galling problem when I split the casings. A small piece of loose aluminium in the top half. It's the cam chain guide holder, but I can fix or replace it. Other than that, all looks pretty good. Later I started cleaning gasket goop off the sealing faces and cleaning up the M6 threads. More tomorrow or Thursday !!! Phew!!!
Wish I had the cojones to split an engine like that. The plan is still for me rebuild my 550 from the floor up when I retire but it gives me a shrinky winky looking at your thread.
Air cooled Suzukis are dead easy mate, no bloody shell bearings to faff with. As long as the crank bearings are OK, it's just a question of cleanliness!
Haven't made much progress this last week, too much DIY to do, to keep the peace. Today I decided to clean up and check the crankshaft, rods and bearings. First I cleaned all the rust off the rotor. Not sure I'll be using it as I ran my last race bike with total loss ignition. May not use the starter ring gear and motor either to save weight Then I blasted out every drop of chainlube that I had used to protect the crank from rust. Blasted brake cleaner at all the bearings and oilways, checked them for clicking and stiffness and then re-oiled the lot, wrapped in bubblewrap and stored safely outta the way. Then I started the boring , but essential task of removing the old gasket sealant, gasket and any high spots from the crankcases. Still not finished , but making slow progress. A lot more cleaning to do , but I am still waiting on the camchain tensioner support bracket from Robinsons, all the way from Japan.
Not had much time in the garage recently , but I managed an hour today. I was given 4 camshafts to clean up and use. They looked like this; Gave them a clean with some WD40 and a nylon/carborundum rotary brush and spotted a couple of interesting mods; Can you spot them/ and this;
Megs, here's an idea for a laugh. Pretend for just one moment (I know it's hard) that I'm a complete numpty as regards the intricate engineering of the internal combustion engine and give me a clue....
Well Ken, the position of the cam sprockets in relation to the cams is critical. Normally held in position with a fitted bolt!!!
No mate. The prescence of elongated slots in the cam wheels indicates that these camshafts have already been used in a race engine!!! Elongating the holes by 1/2 tooth either way allows fine adjustment of cam timing for max power at full throttle openings. Even with standard GSX1100EFE cams there is a possible power gain by increasing the valve overlap. Good eh?
Ahh, the bulb's come on. I take it then that they're in good enough condition for you to use in the Pendine bike.
Oh yes mate. Just a bit of surface rust, but higher lift cams than the ET ones and I can dial in lots of overlap for more top end. Don't need midrange on a dragbike.
Well not much progress recently, too much DIY to do! Anyway, I received a parcel this morning: Can you guess what it is yet??? Couldn't wait to get rid of the packaging . Here it is, made to fit a GSXR1100 Slabby dragbike. And next to a stock Bandit 1200 arm. 10" longer than a stock arm Had to widen the frame a bit to fit it in. Will be making correct size top hat spacers to fit the stock bearings. Fitted swingarm spindle and arm into modded frame and tried a spare 17" by 6" Triumph wheel, with 200mm tyre, that I happened to have lying around. Won't be using this combo though! Only managed to lower the front end about 3/4", should be about 4" lower eventually.
