Bike of the Month June 2020

We are TALL. Whenever I shoot off anywhere, be it UK or somewhere else, at least once a day someone will comment on my height. At home, I’m average at best (heightwise..), abroad I seem to be seen as some sort of giant.

I can easily get my feet flat on the floor on the biggest of showroom enduro machines and a EFE doesn’t feel that big to me. However, “not that big” is something different than actually small..

Now, our friend Blubber, he IS an actual giant, he’s like 9ft something, give or take (not really), so he makes our beloved EFE look like a GS500E when he’s on it. To get his project to somewhat fit with his ample frame, he actually went and cut the frame to pieces, lengthened it, heightened it and widened it, conveniently making room for a GSX1400 motor.

B-King and ZX9 parts were hung into place at their respective ends of the bike, getting everything bang op to date to the modern day, with decent brakes and tyrechoice amongst other benefits, besided looking cool.

Paintscheme in mind, this took another turn when Blubber ended up with very tidy bodywork in the colours of the Dutch flag; choice was made to keep it as is. As it’s a proper longterm project, Blubber didn’t want to do thing by halves and went to work on the engine.

The GSX1400 engine is a good motor on its own, be it a bit boring; 100Bhp or something, not really something to write home about, especially taking the displacement into consideration. However, it’s been found over the years that these engines were built with Suzuki’s age-old Over-engineer Everything ethos, thus leaving a lot of room for improvement.

Some have been turbo’ed with very good results, or you can just go BIG, 1700cc-big. Readily available bits, some even on the used market, make it a viable, if often overlooked, option to go proper mad with this engine, instead of sinking your hard earned into something that’s at least 20 years older, with the added abuse during its life.

Now, as it stands, the bike is running and driving but far from properly finished, as is the same with any projectbike I ever laid my eyes on, I still feel as though this bike deserves the BOTM-medal for this month, because Blubber has taken it this far, with limited space and tools in his little shed (I checked) and still ended up with a bike that for most will look pretty much stock and untouched.

The bike itself is of a standard we rarely if ever see in our little country, all the more reason to celebrate this one. Those that know, will know.

Congratulations Blubber, your 1700-EFE is this month’s Bike of the Month

Read more here

Discuss here

Bike of the month August 2018

Having something like BOTM on Oldskool is a big deal. It carries a certain weight, which makes OSS stand out from all the other websites and facebookpages that scatter the internet and, to me anyway, just water things down. Good bikes are good bikes, but having to visit 10+ websites and filter through the bolt-on brigade to find a few bikes worth reading about, gets old really quick. We’re different, we know it, others know it, and it will only get better.

One could argue that choosing BOTM for the next month, should be for a newly finished project, largely built on the forum, with its own thread and many, MANY pictures. However, due to the sheer amount of bikes being built over the years, sometimes a bike more than worthy of being chosen as BOTM has to wait for a bit.


This bike is such an installment. Its owner/builder Arttu has been a OSS-household name for many years. While many of us modernise our bikes with newer suspension, wheels and brakes, Arttu takes it up a notch. You see, the bike you see here is basically a rolling test bed for all sorts of EFI-trickery, which really shouldn’t have any place on one of our air- or oilcooled motors. Now, he didn’t just get it to work properly on his turbo EFE-powered EZ, he now helps many others out to convert their bikes to fuel injection as well.


I personally have been up close with 2 projects Arttu has been involved with and I can tell you the quality is beyond what you’d expect from a factory, let alone someone working from a little shed in Finland. It’s all pretty impressive and with the build reaching a next stage, it will only get better.


Arttu, congratulations on BOTM for August 2018.

Read about the project here

Discuss here

Bike of the month November 2017

If you want to shed a few pounds, some say the best way to do it is to cut down on your carbs. Apparently, if you’re really serious about getting all lean and mean you need to cut carbs out of the equation completely.

Now personally, I use whacking great RS36s on both of my big inline four Suzukis, which might explain my shrinking leathers- or not…

Anyway, here at oldskoolsuzuki we are purveyors of the philosophy that 80’s and 90’s Suzuki muscle bikes can be improved, while preserving their adorable  “fuck you” characteristics, by doing clever things with parts from the future. This months podium goes to a bike that ticks all of the above boxes.

At the heart of this braced ,steel framed Katana ensemble is the full fat, mighty air-cooled, 16 valve, GSX engine which has been tweaked up to 1170cc. It sports a complete EXUP front and back end too. Sounds tasty, I hear you say. “but what about my abs katanamangler?” “I’ve got a beach holiday coming up!” Well, worry not my middle aged,weight watching friends, this one is completely carb free! Yeah, that’s right, you heard me!

Using a a set of GPZ1100 throttle bodies and a set of GSX1400 injectors, our man Skelly has taken all of the guilt ( and a fair bit of hassle) out of 80’s muscle bike addiction through the wonders of EFI.

The bike was test ridden by Jon at our Donington Park track day gathering in August and it ran well.

Congratulations Skelly, your guilt free Katana is our bike of the month. Read more about Jon’s build here. Members discuss this article here.