I was asked to pick this month’s Bike of the Month and write an article about it. As I am writing this, Halloween is approaching, so I thought about picking a scary monster of a bike, a turbo GSX-R 1100 or something similar, to stay true to the Halloween spirit, but being a kutbuitenlander* ,I do things differently.
*(Editors note– Dutch swearing is complex and I’m banned from using it or translating it – do your own research)
This month’s BOTM is a nice little bike which even the Japanese can ride legally, and if you know how restrictive their licensing system is, that says a lot.
Cunnerz77, apart from being a kutbuitenlander as well, is also quite handy with the spanners. He bought two GSX-R400’s in bits and made one good bike out of it.
Within a few hours of starting the build thread it appeared that many OSS’ers have (had) a GSX-R400, some even have more than one. It was as if they were ashamed of owning a little watercooled 400 but the coming out of one of them (by writing a project thread) made them all appear. Actually the very first GSX-R was not an oilcooled 750 in 1985, but one year earlier the watercooled 400 had that honour.
Cunnerz’ one is a later beam framed one though. It is also an SP model, with some extra modifications like Monster stickers (so it suits Halloween after all), carbon look tape and speedholes.
The intention was to build a stock SP out of all the bits and sell the leftovers. After sniffing a lot of brake cleaner, and many bongs, he ended up with one squeaky clean GSX-R400. Not only squeaky clean but also completely original, down to the exhaust and JDM only turn signals. Ready just in time for the first snow of the year.
The first ride out showed that it is not only clean as new, it rides superbly as well. It is meant to be riden by a hoon so Cunnerz rides it like a hoon. To the point of unvoluntarily adding more speedholes. Not yet having sold the leftovers pays off at moments like this.
Now the bike is converted to track use only, so he can ride it like it is supposed to be riden, flat out everywhere.
Congratulations Cunnerz77, your GSX-R400 is Bike of the Month November.
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