1500 Turbo Nitrous Katana rebuild.
By Gary Stenner

Intro by Mr.7/11

It was at Santa Pod when I suddenly stood eye-to-eye with one of my favourite Katanas (the others being the Yoshimura 1135R and my own project). I had lost track of this bike that was once one of the fastest Katanas on the planet in the hands of Richard Stubbins, that was sold by BigCC after they moved on to the Hayabusas. It popped up at the .infoBoard and I was afraid it'd end up as a pile of bits being broken, so you can maybe imagine my happiness when it stood in front of me in one piece.

Back in 2004 at the NEC, Big Paul, a mate of mine, spotted the kat on the Big CC stand for sale.
After selling his Harley chop the cash was there, so a deal was done with Sean.
At the time I was racing straightliners with my GSX-R 1371cc comp bike and I was 'round Paul's all the time as we were making a new wider back wheel for the gixer.
Soon after Paul’s interests changed to a new project and the kat sat in the workshop under a sheet, every time I went around I would say how much of a shame it was and that he should be out ragging f**k out of it.
I mean this beast is probably the quickest kat outside america 8.2 sec quarters at 190 mph, well over 400bhp turbo only and 80bhp of gas it would be rude not to.
Eventually things started to disappear off it as Paul used the parts to fund his Hayabusa turbo project, 'till it was just the rolling chassis with the block and turbo removed to be sold separately.
By this time Paul was pissed off having to move it around all the time and I turned up at the right time as he offered it to me at a knockdown price.
I went home thinking about it 'till I rang him back to check if he was serious about selling it, so I talked my girlfriend Nat into selling her Buell (what she hadn’t yet ridden) to fund the Kat.
The deal was done and bike was taken back to my garage.

I had decided that after a shit year of racing the comp bike I would race the Kat in 2006. I’ll just strip it and check it and put it back together, I thought. Yeah right...

Firstly the motor was taken out and onto the bench.
Shit!.. stripped head stud,
Double Shit!... every exhaust seat was cracked to the spark plug,
Triple Shit!... bores scored.
A week later, a fresh hone and rings, a flowed big valve efe head in alumfil varnish, a new copper head gasket, a set of APE heavy-duty cylinder studs and nuts, scuffed knuckles and a lot of swearing the motor was dialled in and as fit as a butchers dog.

Now to the frame.
After browsing the pages of OSS I came across the article by Mr.7/11 on “how to make your katana frame stiffer than a porn star on viagra“, so I printed it off and went to the garage armed with an angle grinder and several lengths of various types of steel tubing.
2 days later, one reel of MIG wire and a nose full of black snot, the frame was sorted.
Now a good mate of mine pro7dave happened to be working at the same unit as a powder coating crew (profile7000) so with me viagra frame, all the engine covers, rear ZX7R wheel, 'busa front wheel and various brackets loaded in the van off I pops to see Dave.

The high gloss black they did was just mint so left it with them. Later that week Dave rings to tell me its all done, the frame looked amazing and he had fitted the tyres for me, bonus.

The rear end was just a case of giving the Spondon shotgun arm a quick buff up, new wheel bearings and together it went
T he small Brembo caliper and modified ZX7R disk looked the biz.
Now I had a rolling chassis that looked as hard as nails with all the right bits in it.
This was the start of the slippery “this bike is too nice to race” slope, it was turning into a show bike.

One evening pro7dave came over and we got the motor into the frame.
God I forgot how bloody heavy these gsx motors were. Nearly shat a kidney moving it a total of about 4ft.
Still it looked good and managed it without scratching any of the powder coating.

On with the turbo kit, everything was stripped and checked for ware and cleaned.
Rick Stubbins had spent a lot of time and effort into getting this kit to work well and it showed when it was all checked. Went on sweet as a nut.
Extra brackets were made for supporting the turbo off the frame, now I was itching to get it running.
Two aluminium plates were fabricated, one on top of the new box section frame stiffeners, for the facet red top fuel pump and regulator, the fuse box, the nitrous solenoids and the starter solenoid.
T he other was made to sit down below the seat rails (under your arse) for the MSBC1 boost controller and the Maximiser digital nitrous controller.
After doing this I was not happy with how close the electrics were to the hot side of the Garrett turbo, so a heat shield was fabbed just behind the cone frame stiffeners, this also would be used to mount the two air solenoids for the MSBC1, nice.

Then two side plates were shaped to cover all the electrics from the element and prying little fingers. Next the under tray, the original was a nasty fibreglass thing with gaffer tape patching the hole where the back tyre had made an appearance, straight in the bin.
A 3mm sheet of ali was scribed and bent to fit snug coming right down to behind the electrics, solid angle was used to attach it to the sub frame and to make a mounting for the massive 24Ah gel battery.
I stood back and there seemed to be a large area of unused space above the nitrous bottle holder in the swingarm, um nice place for a sneaky methanol tank, so more 3mm plate was scribed and bent.
Now it could hold 2 litres of methanol to be used with the nitrous injection ace for cooling the charge down.
Another mate and top ali fabricator was summoned for his services Daryl Beck, he took the under tray away welded it up and also made a secondary air tank for the boost controller to be mounted off the unused centre stand brackets on the frame.
Next day he rang to say they were done, he dropped them back after work and I was astounded by how good his welding was. He had made from scratch a air reservoir that made new the MRE one look sad, so the MRE tank went behind the brake light under the seat and Daryl’s went on show.
Another trip to the powder coaters for the under tray, heat shield, controller plates, a number plate bracket. It was always to be on the verges of road legal with working lights, horn, number plate, V5, etc.
During the holidays my lad Jake (Byron Longshanks) cos he’s over 6ft. and walks like a yardy, would come over to help, he’s doing an engineering course at colledge and loved to make things on my small lathe/mill.
He adapted the rear pegs and mountings, various mountings and make the tea.

With the parts back from powder the final assembly could start, under tray in, plates installed all the electronic hardware could be mounted. Now space on any bike is tight but you try fitting all the controllers off a drag bike into a confined area still allowing room for things to be adjusted easily.
A bit of head scratching later things started to look good, Dyna 4000 superpro ignition, 2 stage retard unit, Dyna shift minder, fuel pumps, fuses and air valves in a space no bigger than a fleas pocket.

With most of the hardware in place time for a bodywork check, to see if it all still fitted.

The bike had a few teething problems, one was the pingle dual outlet tap started to leak.
This was sorted by making a bigger one in aluminium on the mill with a larger gasket area, and the other was an oil leek from the side of the barrels this was sorted by removing the head and replacing the hollow spacers for solid gsxr1100 ones.
Now its done got good oil pressure which for a GSX is good.