Poldark

I hadn't thought much about it, so I went to the VIR website. Prices are reasonable, military veterans get 50% off admission, kids get in free with paying adult. Just have to convince the wife to buy herself a full price ticket and we'll have a family weekend activity. Do any of our OSS friends across the Atlantic want to attend? Have a quaint vacation experience lodging with an American OSS family. https://tickets.motoamerica.com/event/motoamerica-superbikes-at-virginia---may-1-3-2020

I'm in Virginia about an hour's drive south of Richmond. We have a few OSS members scattered up and down the US east coast. What type of events are you looking for?

The term "double flow" is term taken from industrial heat exchangers. When our cooling medium is the air surrounding us, single flow or dual flow doesn't make much difference. Now imagine piped in water as our cooling medium. The oil enters the cooler inlet and makes a first pass across the perpendicular flow of cooling water, then it makes a 180 degree turn and makes a second pass across the flow of cooling water. On a "single pass", the inlet and outlet are on opposite ends of the cooler; the oil only makes a single pass through the cooling fluid. Air flow is related to vehicle speed, unless you add a fan. The oil pump is a positive displacement pump, so oil flow is proportional to engine speed. Your oil temp will be high due to turbo charging. We could do a bunch of thermodynamic calculations to find the optimum cooler, but there are a lot of variables. On a large turbo-charge engine, you should probably run the largest cooler that will fit. If you are still running too hot, look for ways to reduce heat generation or increase heat dissipation.

It's where you can mount highway pegs.

Brian: welcome to OSS. I see this is your first post. You may have a hard time getting an answer to your problem without first introducing yourself. Members here don't like taking the time to solve your problem, and then never here from you again. Go over to the "general chat" section and start an introduction thread; tell everyone a little about yourself as it relates to Suzuki motorcycles. It doesn't matter if you have been riding and wrenching for fifty years or if this is your first bike. You will find OSS to be a treasure of information and members glad to help.

So is it a similar system to what many lawn mower engines use? That sounds like how my B&S engine ignition works.

Sometimes compression can improve if you start riding it. After an engine has sat a long time, there could be deposits or rust spots on the valves or cylinder walls. Rings could be stuck. Sometimes riding around at operating temperature can get things to re-seat. When you said you primed the cylinders with fuel; did you spray starter fluid into the cylinders, or did you just pour gasoline into the cylinders? I ask because a puddle of gasoline in cold cylinders, especially Canadian winter cold, will have difficulty firing.

When I was signing up on OSS, I couldn't think of a user name. "Poldark" was what my wife and I were watching on TV at that moment. Does it make for a cool or lame user name? The opening episode grabbed my interest when it opened on "the battlefields of Virginia". So it starts in my back yard. I have long been interested in the people and events surrounding the American Revolution, but there must have been stories about brave honorable men on the other side. This story was fictional but fascinating, and became one of my favorite TV series. If the character of Ross Poldark was with us today, he'd be riding an Old Skool Suzuki custom like the ones we see here. (Had to make the post OSS related) The 850 and larger shaft drive engines may be swappable but the 650 is on a shorter frame.

That could work, but a full length pivot shaft would be stronger than the dog-point set screws used on the shaft drive swingarm. You will most likely have to make your own pivot shaft, if you want to go full length. The 22mm threads in the frame can be drilled out. You will need to make bushings. Your swingarm looks like aluminum? Welding on aluminum takes more skill and better equipment than welding on the mild steel frame; mono-shock may be the better option for you. Look through the project builds to see examples of modifying GS frames for mono shock, or modifying swingarm for dual shocks.

I'd keep that rear wheel and swingarm combo. The stance in the first two photos (seat raised high) will look better for the type of bike you are building. Whatever front end you end up with will probably be shorter, stiffer, and designed for less rake than your GS frame. Rear raised up and shorter front end will cause the frame to roll slightly forward and give the proper geometry for a "sport" feel and look. In your last two photos, the rear wheel is tucked up into the frame; a good cruiser/chopper look. Combine that with slightly longer front end, you would have good straight line cruising geometry. Scroll back up this page and notice the custom bikes by Wraith and R1 Guy, does it make sense now?

Rattle can in the back yard. In a couple years you may want to change things on your bike, or just change colors. Your cheap paint job will start looking bad by then, so you will feel good about tearing everything back down and re-painting.

Crank end should be the same on both. Years ago, I was in a bind when the electronic ignition module on my GS550/650 burned out. I was far from home but able to get to a small motorcycle salvage. Swapped out electronic for breaker point ignition. At the time, I didn't know the difference in resistance ratings on the coils. It ran great until the lower resistance coils burned up. I should have taken the coils from the donor bike. I remember the donor bike being a cb550; Suzuki and H**da used a common supplier for ignition components. Or maybe I was punished for installing parts from a H**da in my Suzuki?

Or if an earlier model with points ignition, it will be an eccentric cam lobe instead of the tag.

Now that I look closer, you are missing a piece. Pic with your hand: shiny cylindrical shape is a bearing surface. There is a piece that slides over it with the locator notches. Closely compare your two photos.

Mine looks similar to the one in your first photo including the "ND" stamp; so it's Nippon Denso. Within a particular year/model, ignition components were sometimes sourced from different suppliers. They all worked the same, but looked slightly different.

That doesn't look right. O-rings are normally used to seal fluids; nothing to seal there. I looked at a spare one from my box of parts; no evidence of O-rings. Is your "bag" a rebuild kit or just a bag holding the small bits from when it was disassembled? If the latter, maybe the O-rings are for something else and they inadvertently ended up in the bag. Try assembly without them, then test it. Should have free, smooth motion, no binding.

But we can greatly improve on something when we go backyard bodging: we make our bikes uniquely ours. If one of us really wanted the best engineered bike, go out and buy a late model GSXR. The engineers at Suzuki, with feedback from the race team and modern manufacturing facilities, can produce a superior motorcycle compared to anything I could put together. Still, I'd rather build something myself, and have it be uniquely mine. "What kind of bike is that?" "It's a 19XX GSxxx frame, with engine and running gear from a 20XX....; with all the performance improvements, I had to reinforce the frame...." "You did all that yourself?" "Yeah, it's a hobby." The home-spun skill and creativity is what attracted me to OSS. Sometimes I read the forums at other places such as TheGSResources, they are knowledgeable but boring.

Hang on... I never disparaged the work done on John's frame. I'm sure Lucky7 work is much better than my own backyard bodge jobs. If it the intent was to be featured in a magazine, the primary goal of the work would mostly be cosmetic because beautiful bikes in full page color photos sells magazines. Did Lucky7 do frames for professional race teams? Those examples may tell us more about effective frame reinforcement; in racing, winning, not looks, is the most important. When it comes to motorcycles, I'm not a professional anything. I'm a backyard bodger who is into motorcycles as a hobby. My formal training is in mechanical engineering, so I find this discussion interesting, but I'm not the expert. There is 3D modeling software (Inventor, SolidWorks, etc) that can do stress analysis, but loading in all the data points would take more time than it's worth. If we were going to mass produce something, the analysis is well worth the effort.

If it was done for a magazine, it was probably done more for looks than structural engineering purposes. It is a nice looking frame and it just sits in your shed; please build something on it.

On behalf of my fellow American Motorcyclists: I would like to thank you for making sure the then new water cooled engine was up to standard before spending our hard earned dollars on it.

I hope I didn't come off too negative, but I was under the impression that you planned to slap stuff together and have it running in a few weeks. You have a workable vision, pursue it, there is lots of help here on OSS. Do you have the B12 rear wheel? Using the complete rear wheel and swingarm from the B12 would be the surest way to achieve proper alignment; just get engine and swingarm centered in the frame. If using mono shock, fabricate upper mounting point on frame. If twin shocks, lower mounting points on swingarm. Front end: Suzuki mostly used same size steering neck bearings between different models and years. All-Balls Racing's website has a function that allows you to enter what frame you are using, it tells you what front ends you can use with what size bearings. Just find something that mates well with the rear.

Slight build of the workers? No, they employ former sumo wrestlers who can manhandle the engines into place and provide them with loads of beer. Or not. Any modern manufacturer, including Suzuki, will use methods like the ones you just described.

Fine example R1Guy. How long did it take to build? I doubt that was your first custom build. Wraith: Thanks for being more concise and to the point than my long winded ramblings. There are multiple ways the swingarm could be mounted, the method you describe should be the most simple and the way I plan to do it on an upcoming project (Gs650G frame with GSXF engine and suspension). I think there was a false impression that the 650G and 650E were essentially the same machine simply offered in chain or shaft drive. (different frame, different engine cases, different swingarm and rear wheel)

The part of the frame near the air filters. There is less material there, but at least most of the forces acting there are compressive and not bending. Some bending may be induced in the curved portion of those two tubes. Some the example photos show reinforcement in that area. The "further back" had me thinking of a reference to the rider being the problem.

Do you have the entire B12 donor bike, including the wrecked front end? If so what is the extent of the damage on the front end? If just the fork tubes are bent, they may be easily repairable. I assume they are 41mm Showa forks. Lots of H-D models were made with 41mm Showa forks; so lots of inexpensive aftermarket forks in different lengths. If you want to go full custom, you could keep the GS650G frame, tank, and seat, but mount everything else from the B12 on it. That route would be no more effort than "just ridable" and " keep the same (ish) look and feel" with the B12 engine. You say you really like your GS650G and you want to be riding it by May. You seem to have goals that are working against each other. Only the most experienced OSS members could comfortably pull it off by this May. Most of us here would be more realistic to be looking at May of next year. If you can find another shaft drive 650 engine, you can be back up and riding in short time. Meanwhile, you'll be under less pressure and you can plan things out better for you B12 powered project.