johnr

ok, ive a few on the laptop that i will post, this is hung up in the back of the shed now so if you need more detail i may need to dig it out.

ive a katana frame that was braced by lucky7 when he built the katana for one of the bike mags, he actually built 2 frames, one for the lucky 7 katana, and this second one which was extensively braced and also had the rear shock mounts moved to emulate the yoshi katanas. he sold it to a guy who never did anything with it, and then i got it from him (and its not looking good so far, lol) i can post pics if you want?

ive had issues with batteries that wont chareg with a battery tender, but if i put them on my old fashioned low tech battery charger for an hour they will hold a charge and i can put them onto the optimate which will then put a charge into it. if its totally dead, the likes of an optimate wont charge it at all, just giving an error signal.

gs750?

but remember that the over engineered gsx cams werebuilt for an engine running considerably lower oil pressure than the gsxr engine delivers, perhaps the wider cam caps were designed with lubrication in mind rather than strength to hold the cams down. gsxr pumps deliver vast quantities of oil at high pressure, the gsx pump delivers low volume and low pressure, due to the roller crank. reducing the bearing surface area in the head might be a problem in use. it may all be ok, but im just pointing out that the wider bearing areas on the aircooled motors may be to provide adequate lubrication.

or fit efe cams.

gsxr flatslide carbs are worth a couple of hundred quid on their own. (assuming the bike in the pic is yours)

makes no difference what engine you have in there. the vehicles identity is all about the chassis, so the frame is its id, fit a gsxr engine, fit a gs1000, fit a rev and go it matters not a jot, it keeps its reg number from the frame. ok, as for your picture, i think you are labouring under a misaprehension. thats not a gs550 enigne. its a gsx750. suzuki did build a 16 valve gsx550 but it was a totally different engine in looks to the original or to this. that motor appears to be a 16 valve gsx750 engine fitted into a gs550 frame, and done rather well id say. if it were me, the only mod i would do is to fit a second front disk to help make stopping a less fraught procedure. and if the performance of this engine isnt enough, then where a gsx750 engine fits, so does a gsx1100 engine, though your problem then will be finding one.

theres a 550 kat in the owners club fitted with a 600 bandit engine, with no issues, so i suppose the 750 engine will probably fit in there too.

top end off gs650 katana will drop onto thee 550 bottom end, and give a healthy boost. btw, the 650 kat, whilst being called a 650 was actually iirc 673cc so thats even more of a boost! plenty of 650 kat bits kicking round. i know there are plenty of engines knocking round in the owners club. ive given at least 2 of them away in the last couple of years.

thats a helical gear from where im standing! what size little ends has it got, efe has20mm gsx/gs has 18mm

ignition box?

yeah, its a bit more than id pay, but then im a tightwad and i suppose that these are getting more scarce by the year. i think that if you dont buy it, you will be kicking yourself later for the sake of 200 quid, and as nicky says, folks have recently on eblag paid not much less for bikes needing a lot more work. 17k km's is very low, just over 10 thousand miles, so it should be mechanically spot on, no rattles smoke or leaks, dont worry if it has a slight rattle/clatter at tickover that goes when you pull in the clutch, but perhaps more importantly, check that its charging ok, and if you buy it, get into the loom and alter the charging circuit so that all 3 generator phases go directly to the 3 input pases on the reg rec, as stock two go to the reg rec, one goes to the headlight switch and then back to the reg rec. this was never a good idea and in long term use can give problems, so change it whilst it works.

not a stock colour, not by a mile. lol. but the silver bit on the back of the mudguard and the headlight surround looks similar to suzuki 13L silver. although that bit of the mudguard was usually black. having said that, the 'snowflake' pattern wheels, the rubber footpegs (as opposed to ally with rubber tops) and the front engine mounting bolt heads visible on the outside of the frame, (later kats had these bolts in blind holes secured from the inner side without the heads shown on the outside) denote this as an 1100sz rather than the later sd. as for the paint, i can see it being a bit marmite. personally, i kinda like it, though id be getting the seat recovered to match it, or else (if its stock fabric, try and find a duff used one to recover, stock seats if covered with the original suede type material are fetching silly money at the moment). but thats a tidy bike. the paintwork would probably lend itself to something with more modern running gear, so you are faced with a dilema if you buy, keep the bike stock and respray in the original colours, or else keep the paint and fit some modern forks wheels and brakes. thats your call, but in my opinion, and im no expert, thats worth £3k to £3.5k all day long.

post pictures. if it is stock then the colours will help identify its orignal market of sale. but pricing is tricky, there are a lot of folk in the process of gettin g their fingers burned by paying big bucks for katanas because they are believing the hype that theyre all worth 10k. the reality is, a tidy 1100 of as yet unknown spec, if its tidy, then 2.5 to 3k, as a starting point, but price is affected by whether it is uk registered, and the presence of certain original and hard to replace components. so it could be worth a little more, its all relative mind. bikes are worth what someone is willing to pay.

ive got a set of bored out slaby flatslides, i was going to wait till i had them on a bike before trying to figure out a baseline for the jetting cos theyre still jetted for a slabby so will be a million miles out.

im finding this all very interesting as a casual observer.

i suppose it depends what head you have on your gs, the slide carb head has considerably smaller inlets than the cv carb head.

drill a small hole, say 2mm wide through the centre of the plug you put in behind the filter cover, or, get an efe cover. if the pipes are kinked or flattened in any way you will have zero oil flow and will fook your top end in pdq, a small bypass allows some flow of oil to bypass the cooler. the efe covers have a casting inside to restrict the oil flow that does the same job as your blanking plug, but even that has a small gap in it to allow circulation of oil if the cooler ever gets clogged.

i cant see the cooler on that pic. just a question, where are you taking the feeds from for the oil cooler?

iirc lucky7 who built the practical sportsbikes katana racer the other year also sell frame bracing kits for gpz900's, not sure which gpz you have though.

i can highly reccomend getting cased chemical dipped rather than blasted. the dipping is a totally non abrasive procedure and the cases come back as spotless bare metal exactly as they left the factory. its a bit cheaper than blasting too. speaking to some of thee acs guys at stafford and there are a few of their csx motors done with silver smoothrite, and it really does look like the suzuki factory finish. very long lasting too, and it doesnt yellow like some of the other high temp silvers do on aircooled motors.

leave it as it is and perfect your technique first. reality is that a lot of folks post better times than others who have more bhp just because they are better at getting down the power they have. unless that is, youre already scorchingly quick and are being held back by a shortage of power... in which case might i suggest,,,,, turbos.....

ive fitted an 850 loom onto a 1000, straight swap, no surprise really.