1983 GSX1100E

[Villeboi]

Hello from Finland

 

Got myself a 1983 GSX1100E, originally factory gold colour but previous owner repainted it blue. The frame is supposedly -83 but the engine has it's markings grinded off for some unknown reason and I was told it's not the original engine of this bike. I guess this should originally have the black painted engine but this has the bare aluminium colour and 20 bolt valve cover so assumabely older year engine?

Was about to check the valve clearances but got little surprise on cylinder no.1 exhaust cam lobe. It has pretty bad grooves on it, not so much on the tip of the cam lobe but elsewhere. What you guys think, should I look for replacement cam or can this be fixed some other way? The coating? on the rocker arm was also bit worn on the sides.

Carbs are also needing some cleaning and new mixture screws. Or I have spare set of mk1 GSF1200 36mm carbs, I assume those would work also and thos are in much better condition overall.

Other plans are GSF1200 front and rearend + wheels swap, keeping the twin rear shocks so need to fabricate mount to the GSF swingarm.

[Villeboi]

Hello

Yes I was thinking of finding used good condition camshaft, should all GSX1100 cams fit? It's shame that all the other cam lobes looked fine except that one. Had some ticking noise coming from the left side of the engine but guess that was just the valve clearances being too big.

I'll take photos of those followers next time I'm working on the bike to see how bad they are or are they usable.

[Blower1]

If the camshaft bearing surfaces are good, you can send them to Camshaft works in Hämeenkoski. They can regrind them. Then you need to get set of new or good used rockers, GSX 1100, GSX 1100/750F, GSXR 1100/750, Bandit 1200/750 all them from screw adjustable valve clearance engine will fit.

[Villeboi]

Thanks, I'll check the bearing surfaces. Is it usually the rockers that wear the camshaft down or otherway around? The timing chain sprocket bolts didn't look oem either so somebody has been messing with the engine in the past I quess. They looked normal hardwarestore bolts to me.

Is it advisable to change all the rockers at once or can I just change the ones that look bad? 

[stockcar]

always had a soft spot for the EZ style........with my last one I 'popped' a later 1135 EF motor in which made it a tad more interesting......

as for the motor, later motors were pretty much all Black so that would appear to be an earlier spec??

Edited May 15 by stockcar

[Villeboi]

10 hours ago, stockcar said:

always had a soft spot for the EZ style........with my last one I 'popped' a later 1135 EF motor in which made it a tad more interesting......

as for the motor, later motors were pretty much all Black so that would appear to be an earlier spec??

Previous owner said that it used to be black but that it was sand/soda? blasted to bare aluminium so hard to tell. Not that worried if it is early or late model alltho the welded crank would be nice even if it is only partially welded. I'll have to check the crank when I take a look at the clutch as it is also slipping occasionally. And also try to find those oem camshaft sprocket bolts somewhere.

[Villeboi]

Is 750€ ( about 850usd ) good price for a unused factory welded big taper crankshaft? 

If fitting big taper crank in place of small taper crank I guess I would need to change the stator flywheel and the stator itself also. What else needs to be changed? 

Haven't yet checked my crank but asking just in case I have the older style motor. If I pull the stator cover off can I measure the taper size or do I need to dig deeper than that?

[Gixer1460]

Depends if you are buying or selling! If the former i'd say 4 - 500USD is dear! But thats me! Also depends what you want to do with it? A BRAND NEW crank would be very desirable by drag racers who would likely spend as much again (or more) to get it prepped for racing! For a road bike - meh! I'd find a servicable older crank! Flywheels and stators are also getting rare!

[Villeboi]

Yes I was looking for used flywheels and stators but couldn't seem to find any for sale or maybe I wasn't looking from right places. But yeah the crank was from some guy selling his drag bike and it was for sale separately.

But maybe too much hassle trying to find all needed parts for the swap.

The crank is on the righ. Left one has some parts missing and seems to have quite beefy rods or do some models have those standard, don't thinks so?

[Gixer1460]

The desirable rods are known as 'katana' rods and are marked '493' - get used in things right up to Prostock and Funnybike's so they are strong but not un-breakable ! Its a nice looking piece and looks to have a big taper. The left one . . . . . . . .  the very rare 3 cylinder GSX from the 80's LOL!

[Villeboi]

Okay got some progress made with the bike today. Test fitted the b12 front end and wheel, in my eyes it looks way better than the stock. Tested it with fatbar and clipons. I think I like the clipons more. It's a b12 forks with rf900 top and bottom tripletrees, bolt on to the gsx. All I need to do is weld new lock stopper to the chassis.

I also stripped the cams off the motor. Cam bearing surfaces looks good to my untrained eyes, so maybe try to get them lobes resurfaced and grinded. It also has slotted cam sprockets, are these stock? I was in the impression that stock ones are not slotted? Here you can also see those nice not so oem camsprocket bolts.

Some of the rockers have some wear on the edges and one had some weird pitting on the surface. 

[gsx1100e]

On 5/15/2025 at 11:44 PM, Villeboi said:

Previous owner said that it used to be black but that it was sand/soda? blasted to bare aluminium so hard to tell. Not that worried if it is early or late model alltho the welded crank would be nice even if it is only partially welded. I'll have to check the crank when I take a look at the clutch as it is also slipping occasionally. And also try to find those oem camshaft sprocket bolts somewhere.

Check those small aluminium parts which are inside clutch spring around bolts, when they wore out clutch starts to slip. 

I had clutch slipping after 8000 rpm at full throttle when those parts were worn out. 

Edited May 24 by gsx1100e
added a picture

[Villeboi]

Thanks for the tip, I'll check those when I dig deeper to the engine.

[Villeboi]

Is there any good quality aftermarket engine gasket kits available or should I use only oem Suzuki gaskets? Those ask for some deep pockets but I guess you can't get good quality with little money. I think Athena does somekind of gasket kit but is that any good?

[Arttu]

I haven't noticed anything to complain about Athena gaskets. Although aftermarket valve stem seals seem to be always kind of hit or miss...

[Villeboi]

Got some more work done to the bike. Installed the B12 rear wheel to the original swingarm and looks like it fits quite nicely. I don't have correct size spacer yet to put between the sprocket and swingarm. Used original gsx cushdrive with the B12 wheel. 

Still waiting for brake caliper bolts to arrive so that I can fit the brakes. And need new brake lines for front brakes.

And need to figure out what kind of offset sprocket I need to get. 530 chain seems to be quite popular choice, 520 should be okay also I guess?

Thinking about the exhaust also, would like to have something drag pipe/sidewinder style but can't seem to find those anywhere. May have to do one myself.

[Villeboi]

Does these camshaft measurements sound right at all? 

( I don't have micrometer so just measured with an old manual caliper)

My repair manual says that intake should be 34,650-34,690mm and exhaust should be 34,360-34,400mm or 34,650-34,690mm depending on the model year ( I don't know what year the engine is). The cam lobes also looks to be not symmetrical but is that normal? 

I'm thinking might these be some reground cams already because these have these self made slotted cam sprockets also?

 

[Blower1]

Most probably you have reground cams. When you put them back you need to dial them in. Adjust the lobe centers 108/108 which is quite common for the reground cams.

[Villeboi]

Okay thanks, I have never degreed cams so have to watch some how to's about that. I still have to send those cams to be repaired so I guess I'll just ask them to grind them the same way as they are now. I think they should be able to give me some specs of the cams after that maybe.

[Gixer1460]

11 hours ago, Villeboi said:

Does these camshaft measurements sound right at all? 

My repair manual says that intake should be 34,650-34,690mm and exhaust should be 34,360-34,400mm or 34,650-34,690mm depending on the model year ( I don't know what year the engine is). The cam lobes also looks to be not symmetrical but is that normal? 

I'm thinking might these be some reground cams already because these have these self made slotted cam sprockets also?

If the 'stock' sizes are 34.xxx, a re-ground cam CANNOT be larger, its impossible! Regrinding takes metal away from the base circle to increase the overall effective lift but it can't be more than a stock ht. lobe unless you start with an unground blank forging - termed a billet cam. Dialling in cams using slotted sprockets can be done using stock cams, just to vary the characteristics of the engine, swinging timing around can move the power up or down the rev range - to a degree - so slotted sprockets don't necessarily denote 'special' cams!

Common sense says if you are having cams repaired (rather than replacing with s/hand items as a cheaper option) why return to stock ? A degree of lift increase would be expected as normal, the cost is likely to be cheaper as i'm sure most cam grinders are unlikely to have stock profiles on hand because no one asks for them so will have to create one at your cost!

[Villeboi]

I'm not an expert in these engine stuff so you might be right. Is it possible that they are welded and then crinded? So welded at the tip of the lobe to get more lift, but should there be some discolouring from the welding to be seen? Again, I don't have any experience of cam tuning stuff so don't know how the welding/grinding stuff is done to the cam, just guessing here.

[Toecutter]

Yes, you are correct. Material added then ground to desired spec. 

[Gixer1460]

I guess you 'could' do that, although the weld would be softer than the original cam - if it was steel !

Most cams will be / are chilled cast iron which precludes welding altogether hence why they get ground 'undersize' to increase lift and the grinder avoids the lobe tip to preserve the hardest point. Cams with worn lobes are usually scrap as uneconomic to recover.

[Villeboi]

Okay then I'm unsure. These look like stock cams and they have the tachometer drive gear. Both cams have letter "D" stamped in the end but don't know if that's how they should be. I'll measure the cam height with another caliper or something to see if my measurements are correct. Not sure tho that my caliper is that worn out that it would fool me by 0,5mm but you never know.

Is the "hard welded" cams then done somehow differently? I saw one site selling those but cant remember what it was.

I have used stock cams ordered so I can compare those when they arrive.

EDIT: It was Dynoman who was selling those hard welded cams. Reicuires customers core.

Edited June 12 by Villeboi

[Villeboi]

It's midsummer (juhannus) here in Finland and nice weather so got some work done on the bike. Test fitted Delkevic exhaust and seems to fit very nicely. It's meant fot older gsx <81?but seems to fit this also. 

Ground clearance was reduced a bit but I think it'll be fine. Lowest point of exhaust is 9cm from the ground without me sitting on the bike.

Exhaust has this very tiny removable baffle and it's basically a straight pipe without it installed. Must be quite loud.

Next I need to try to get GSF1200 speedo, tacho and warning lights working. Well the speedo is easy peasy and seems that I can take the tacho input straight from the ignition coil to get it working as the GSF1200 tacho doesn't use cable drive as originally used in GSX.