One of the nice things about Suzuki Katanas is that they are kind of like old Volkswagons. They've been in production a long time and their parts are plentiful. And just as you can bolt a few Porsche parts on to your old Beetle, you can take older GSXR components and use them to enhance your Katana. So I did.
I was fortunate enough to find a down-on-its-luck Katana 750 advertised in the Seattle Times one weekend. I didn't even get around to calling about it until Monday, but it was still available. It was nowhere near rideable, as somebody had started to pull the engine and there were numerous pieces scattered about. This was a pretty motley looking machine, but it was intriguing for one reason - somebody had Gixxered it with a GSXR-750 motor, wheels and forks. Later research would reveal that these parts came from an'89 GSXR. I offered what the collection was worth to me - about $250.
That was sometime in 2000. I stowed away my new aquisition while I waited for inspiration. I did take the turn signals off and use them on my 600, replacing the troublesome "mini marker lights" that kept blowing bulbs.
Fast forward to 2001. I sold the plastic from the new bike over the Internet, but the rest of it is still laying around. The 600 Kat is still running like a clock. Then one day while changing the oil - Ooops! This drain plug isn't getting tight. Uh-oh, stripped it! So now I needed to pull the pan on the bottom of the motor and either replace or repair it. Suddenly it seemed like a good time to see about putting in the other engine.
Now you may ask, since we're dealing with a family of engines ranging from the nice little 600 that I started out with up to the rip snorting 1100, why go through the bother and headache of an egine swap that gains me only 150cc's? Why not just leapfrog right on up the the 1100? I wondered that, too, so I started casting about to see if anybody had one of these top dog engines laying around like I had found my 750. What I found was that 1100 motors are snapped up as soon as they become available. Whereas my 600 motor might bring $50 or $100 if you find somebody who may for some reason want it, 1100 motors start at upwards of $1,000. You almost might as well buy a whole bike. The reason is that demand for these motors is driven by their popularity among builders of dwarf race cars. The guys who like to race these little demon cars around dirt tracks have driven up the price of the largest GSXR motors to such an extent that you'd be ahead buying a 750 motor and building it to liter-class performance.
Of course, beyond the previous owner's assurances that it ran, I had no idea what shape the GSXR-750 motor was in. It did look a little rough from the outside, with a few fins dinged, possibly in one of the smash-ups the bike had apparently experienced. But it was a significant step up from my 600 motor and, doing things on the cheap as is my practice, I elected to close my eyes, bolt it in and hope for the best.
So for the moment of truth. No, it didn't fire up on the first half turn of the starter motor. It took a little cranking, but sure enough, it started and soon settled into a reassuring idle. This looked like it was going to work out fine. I noticed a little white smoke from the exhaust, but after running for a little while, this cleared up and the motor seemed to be a good runner. The next thing to check was the transmission. Running it around in the parking garage, it seemed fine, but when I hit the streets, I noticed a whine in 6th gear. This concerned me, especially since the remnants of a 750 Katana motor I got with the bike featured an exploded transmission. My immediate response was to not drive in 6th. Actually, at highway speeds you can't hear the whine, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. Fifth gear wasn't so bad, but to make things even better I went two teeth up on the front sprocket, to 16. This presented a small problem in that when you put the larger sprocket on, the wheel wouldn't turn. Actually the wheel would turn until you put the sprocket cover back on, then the sprocket would hit the cover. I discovered that this could be solved by a little file work, and soon I had a 600 Kat with a 750 GSXR motor that was geared to do about 180 mph. But I would also get great gas milage.
After a few months I decided that I really wasn't that worried about my transmission self-destructing. What the heck - the whole parts bike only cost me the price of a nice pair of tires, and I could still stick the 600 motor back in if I was desperate. So I started using 6th gear and so far total mechanical calamity has not descended upon me. Thus emboldened, in 2002 my thoughts turned to the old-school bias ply rim protectors the Kat still prowled the streets with. The rear skin was beginning to get uncomfortably thin, and while I could just swap the rear tire out for the other rim with the radial, mixing radials and bias ply tires has always been said to be bad medicine. Since stability is a rather critical consideration, I wasn't prepared to challenge the conventional wisdom. Simply installing the GSXR front wheel at the same time was not possible because the brakes were bigger and the tire was too wide for the Kat forks. So the GSXR forks would have to come, too.
But, typically, I couldn't resist making a fairly straightforward job lengthier and much more labor intensive. The esthetics of this bike weren't really anything to write home about, and putting the parts bikes wheels on wasn't going to help any in the looks department. The rear was painted silver, and the front was a dirty white. Rather than try to figure out what color would work, I decided that polished wheels would look best. But I didn't figure the amount of work that would be involved. Let's just say that for the next couple of months if I had any spare time I'd have a little session with the sanding disks and emory cloth.
Eventually the wheels were finished, and although they didn't have quite the look I had envisioned, after the hours I had spent I was willing to settle for something less than perfection. The actual mounting of the GSXR forks and wheel was fairly uneventful. Some of the mounting of the old BMW fairing had to be re-engineered, but no major problems emerged. I was somewhat concerned when I noticed that the forks were shorter than the Katana item, which combined with the lower profile front tire would change the steering geometry. Having more brittle bones than in my youth, I am loathe to experiment too much in the area of rake and trail, so I attempted to compensate by lowering the forks a half inch in the triple trees. This had the effect of also lowering the tops of the forks into the handlebar clamps, which looks a little weird but seems perfectly safe. The initial trips around the parking garage with the new front end revealed alarmingly lighter steering, but then I realized that what I was probably noticing was the effect of not having the fairing, headlight and instruments mounted yet.
In the final analysis the GSXR transplant was a total success. I didn't expect the radial tires to make such a big difference, but rolling on those tires I feel like a completely different rider, which in my case can only be good. I'm still no Randy Mamola, but I do feel much more confident now and can at least negotiate my way through the essess without completely embarrassing myself. Perhaps the GSXR forks are part of the improvement, but I would guess at least 80% is due to the radials. These tires help me understand a little how it feels to ride a modern sportbike. They're great. If you're still on bias ply tires and there is any possibility you can mount radials, by all means give it a try. At least if you enjoy good handling.
The other big advantage of this new setup is the front brake. Welcome to the world of stoppies! Not that they weren't possible with the stock Kat brakes, but it's trivial with the GSXR hardware. Once again, I was in no danger of overtaxing the Kat brakes the way I typically ride, but the extra capability in this area is very reassuring.
The only negative side effect to the swap was curious noises that I noticed about six months later. When I was polishing the wheels, I didn't remove the bearings but instead masked them off with tape. Apparently I didn't do such a hot job, since the noises seem to be coming from the rear wheel. Oh well, bearings are cheap and easy to replace. Just don't do like I did and get in a hurry and drive in the new bearings before replacing the spacer. Doh!
I was feeling pretty good about the old Kat now that it had both power and handling. The flame paint job from 1997 was beginning to look a little tired, and the Kat fender wouldn't fit the GSXR forks. So in the fall of 2002 I stripped off the side panels and replaced the tank with the dented item from the parts bike. Now it REALLY looked like a rat bike, but this would be only temporary.
I wanted something a little different, so I decided that another foray into metalflake would be interesting, this time using gold flakes over a yellow base. You can't see the effect in the photos, but it looks pretty good, I think. You'd never guess it was shot out of one of those cheap aerosol sprayers from the hardware store. I bobbed the side panels and the fender, the latter being already damaged and repaired once. Please note: Initially trimming the fender caused vibration and/or road shock to crack it in front of the mount. I had to reinforce it with fiberglass.
So there you have it. After six years the original compromise budget bike is now something that works pretty well, at least as a geezer ride. It's not really a bike to make your pulse quicken, but I do look forward to riding it. I think about replacing it, but is the difference between this bike and, say, a Honda RC51, worth paying $8,000? Not this year.
Copyright 2003 by Patrick Inniss. All rights
reserved.
