GSX 1100 resto

[CBT]

ok, encouraged by seeing neat work of some of the crew on here, plus reading heaps of how to's, I have taken the plunge after a around 5 months of looking for the right project. Its a 1980 Suzki GSX 1100 ET. After 1 week of ownership I am already working out that I need to balance plans with budget and capabilities. Even though I've tinkered with heaps of bikes before, its always been peripheral stuff, rather than digging in for major surgery.

This bike came with chewed and disconnected wiring, the result of having the motor out then back in, and not run for around 4 years. Despite pics, the bike came with a box of useful other parts, left footpeg, gear shifter, side covers, and duck tail, making it almost complete.[

First task - check engine. Dust out spiders, rat shite and other pests. Remove plugs. Hook up drive chain. Put bike on rear stand, and in gear. Turn wheel by hand and Eureka !! motor is free and not seized.

This bike will be used as a cruiser mostly, but I will add some obvious custom touches.

Early plans - wheels and front end swap to suit more modern rubber. New shocks at rear. Maybe using wire wheels for the old superbike look, possibly motard rims - although many do not run a cush drive on the rear, or a twin disc set up at front - still trying to get my head around options and potential costs.

This weekend, strip out old wiring loom tag everything just in case I need a future reference point, and begin to strip tank back (paint cracked and minor signs of bog apparent). So far old repairs look pretty minor.

Once the above is sorted some quick cosmetics will follow with new headlight and indicators plus wiring loom to aim for rego. After that stage 2 will become much more interesting....

cheers

[potato]

thats a beast!

check out the gs resources forum for some tips and help.

[D.J]

looks like fun, would make a nice cafe racer

[shedman1300]

Nice starting bike for a project.
I just finished a 750 for my wife. I think i have a manual for a 1100 if you need any wiring diagrams or info.
I also have a parts catalogue if you want to order anything

[darkfibre]

Nice looking project and a wise decision doing it in stages too.
One recommendation after fully stripping a bike of similar age is at least inspect all bearings before putting much mileage on the bike. Wheel/headstem/swingarm etc.

[Rooboy]

looks like fun, would make a nice cafe racer

Screw the Cafe Racer, you got one hell of a Japanese Muscle Bike in your shed.
With so many of these bullet proof motors going into drag bikes you should be able to find chassis parts and the like quite easily.
A set a of mikuni RS38s flat slides would help produce more than the 124BHP Suzuki quoted at the time.

Enjoy your resto.

[buelllord]

CBT,

When I was a lot younger, I had 2x GSX1100EX which were the 1981 model. They were both silver with blue stripes and i put 110,000kms on one and 90,000kms on the other.

God they were fantastic in their day ........................................

[BikeRider]

Katana's had a smaller Alternator rotor & Stators for better throttle response, an 81 model should have the same Crank as the ET.
The later 1135cc EF motor should slide in quite easily too.

[GD Engineering (Gavin)]

GS/GSX Zooks are really mechanically friendly too. A couple of areas to look out for are the primary drive damper flogging out ( clutch basket ), the clutch hub nuts are notorious for coming loose ( APE do a good replacement ), the flywheels used to spin loose and damage the taper on the crank, camshafts and rockers experience considerable scuffing on street ridden engines due to extreme oil pressure loss idling at lights/poor maintainance and sometimes the nitriding on the transmission gears can suffer the same fate........ but this was due to inferior treatment at the factory as a lot of Suzuki's of this vintage were the same......... road and trail.Charging systems are notoriously weak and unreliable, certainly worth looking at. Old age happens with all engines though.......... put these motors on a good diet of aftermarket parts and yeehaa ! All things told, GSX's respond to tuning better than any motor I know ( pound for pound ). Put a decent set of pistons in it ( but keep it under 11:1 for a streeter and do a few other things to keep detonation at bay and there are a huge variety of manufacturers and displacements........ keep it to 1327cc or less on the street ), a decent ignition......... minimum Dyna S, preferably the 2000 model for more finite control although there are other manufacturers, a decent set of carbeurettors........ CR/FCR or RS, RS Mikuni carbs are hard on the wrist on street bikes but really light them up when you turn the right hand....... my faves are the FCR for throttle response and the induction noise is intoxicating........ getting them set up is fairly easy and there is heaps of tuning components around. The only down side with the RS or FCR is the throttle pumps will cause fuel dilution of the oil to some extent and will necessitate more frequent oil changes...... the RS's have an adjustable throttle pump which is a nice touch. A set of cams will let the old girl snort but keep the profile to under a .350" total valve lift as anything more aggressive will shorten cam and rocker life considerably. The cylinder heads respond very well to port work in the right areas and will wear oversize valves on both sides with great results........ either standard EFE valves which are both +1mm o.d or a number of manufacturers do stainless/titanium or steel alloy.Getting 150hp is not too hard.

[Evil Dwarf]

From memory there is a Mob in Japan that do an Engine Mount Kit so
you can slot a GSX-R 1100 engine in, (YeeHaa)

[CBT]

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, there'll be a few things I need to ask advice for, so much appreciated.
Shedman, I saw your 750 work over on this site and another (FlyingYellowBanana.com) and its one of the projects that helped me drill down to a short list of potential bikes including the GSX 1100's. Also might need to get some advice and maybe services from Gavin (GD) as things move along. All of this info is the sort that has got me into doing this.
Weekend was fairly quiet at home so it gave me heaps of time to start to get stuck in.
I also spent some time on Friday visiting wreckers and seeing what costs what. Some good ideas collected, but some dismissed too. Anyway, when I got the GSX I also scored a licenced FZ 750 (1985 model) for not much extra cash from the same bloke. I grabbed it on a whim, site unseen. It was delivered complete but with the top end of the motor out for a head gasket issue (I'm told). My thought was that it might donate some useful bits and pieces, plus some parts are potentially swappable into my other bike (clutch hydraulics, levers etc) which is FZR 1000 powered. So I've been mucking with the FZ and its been pretty useful, having so far donated a chain guard, rear inner mudguard, possibly indicators and also providing a clue to sorting out the rear end. I'll post that separately below. It also came with nice lightly sratched but pretty reasonable pipeline alloy mufflers on stock 4 -2 headers. One of them might also come across to the project. We'll see....

[CBT]

Ok, so one thing about the GSX I never liked was the big rear end, and big seat. So I did some swapping out of parts from the FZ and it is starting to set a theme for the bike. Over the weekend I stripped back the tank to further investigate the cracking paint, and discovered minor bogging up, plus at least one previous scheme (red) that was laid over the original blue paint. At least it served to keep rust away. I also stripped out and tagged the wiring harness just in case I need a reference for the future, plus removed the standard airbox as I'll be running pod filters.

Anyhow, back to the rear end. The FZ seat is in really good nick, and I noticed that it was pretty thin in height plus from past experience know that these are reasonably comfortable. So I mocked up a few parts as you'll see. The width also sits smack on the GSX frame rails, so it fits in well that way too.

The rise in the seat to the tank (especially the rear three quarter view) is a bit similar to a Guzzi LeMans 2 and going to the Yamaha guard would allow a low tail light and licence plate holder in the same style. The yamaha guard had a plastic outer and a steel inner guard. The inner guard hides a channel between the two, allowing concealed wiring down to the licence plate light. Handy, I reckon.

The FZ will also donate its ducktail to house the smaller rear light. This is starting to set the style and theme for the bike. There'll be some grinding and welding done to clean up the lines and fit mounts over the next little while.

One thing I'm keen on is making it look my own, like all projects on here I guess, and I reckon stuff like this will help get the job done.

Thanks also for offers of the manual and access to parts catalogue. I grabbed a brand new manual on Friday morning - but I will need leads on access to old parts. So I may call out as this moves along. I noticed that the inlet tracts on cyls 2 and 3 are cracked probably due to 30 years of heat behind the central cylinders (not counting the bike having the last 4 years off in a shed for good behaviour).

I'll also be wrecking out the remains of the FZ when I'm sure about what will or won't be needed, plus a few other bits too as time goes on, so will list these on here for first grabs and to help anyone out who runs one of these bikes. FYI these were an excellent real world bike back in the day. I was addicted to my GSXR slabbie at the time, but one of my mates had one and it ran really strong.

[CBT]

swapping a GSXR 11 motor in ?? Interesting, when I used to run a 750 GSXR, I sometimes swapped onto mates air cooled GSX's for fun. One day I had a fast run on a GSX 1100 EF (1135cc's) and I could not believe how fast this big girl wanted to boogie on (despite weighing around 60 kilos more than the GSXR... ) anyhow recently I read in a couple of places that the EF's were nearly as fast as the 86 GSXR 11's. Not much fun cranking it over though, but the motor was really strong.

Anyhow, main objective for this project will be to sort the motor out nearly as standard - I keep reminding myself that this is supposed to be the 2 seater that we don't have already. Once up and registered and painted etc I have other notional ideas that might include mechanical mods.

[EFFelant pilot]

The GSResources

is a great source of information and help on a wide variety of issues

Oldskool Performance .com - Index page

is developing a growing following for those inclined to a harder edge on things

and

OldSkool SUZUKI .info - Genetic Engineering of an Extinct Species

is a shrine for those of us unable to remove ourselves from the addictions of our youth

make the old girl anything you want, but remember to make it yours, if the end result stains your undies it doesn't matter what any other bastard thinks

[CBT]

thanks EFF Pilot, you're not the first person to offer me the advice to make it my own. Thanks also for the links. I'm discovering more as I go along.

Can anyone help me to work out if the motor is anywhere near original for this bike?
The chassis is GS110X-5113**, which makes it an ET model chassis.
The engine is GS110X-1144**, and I'm not sure if its original.

The reason for asking is to work out whether it has the mild factory improvements over the early motors (clutch basket etc). The motor has chromed end cam covers which I'm told were on Katanas, but I have also seen these on the early GSX's too.

Any advice appreciated
cheers

[Jamathi]

Old skool Suzies being rebuild all over the place!
Beats watching the boring soccer!!

[potato]

Old skool Suzies being rebuild all over the place!
Beats watching the boring soccer!!

how bout that buzz of the trumpets !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[EFFelant pilot]

The GSResources - GS Model Info

the X designation makes them both 1981 specification, the chrome cam end covers were spread right across the early 16 valvers, the later Katana's had black ones

[BikeRider]

Older GSX1100's also wear the nitride casing off the gears after high kilometres resulting in a annoying ticking sound.
I kept both style cam covers when I had a Katana, the GSX1400 doesn't have them at all.

[CBT]

thanks for the advice. It seems mine might have the original motor. Compared to Buellords comment above, this one has done approx 85000 according to the reasonably well preserved clocks.
Over the next few weeks I need to get it checked over and possibly get the frame braced. As the bike is going to bare bones anyway this seems like the best time to do it. I'll also be trying to finalise a not to complicated option for a front end swap and suitable rear.
Have looked at a few options so far but really I haven't settled on anything.