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Looking for ideas...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clumzi
  • Start date Start date
C

Clumzi

Guest
I might be coming into some money in the near future and I'm looking for ideas. My first bike was a GS550L that was a heap of annoyance and trouble. I vowed not to own another four cylinder bike unless it was 1000cc +. I now own a CX500 which I love to death, but, despite being profoundly dependable and lots of fun on the cheap, I'm thinking that a GS1100 cafe build would be tons of fun.

I'm looking for ideas in terms of aesthetics. I've been poking around online and haven't really found much in the way of GS cafes, let alone cafes built out of the bigguns in the GS family. I'm not sure if this is because the GS ran from '77 to '86 (give or take, yes?) which was after the cafe era (well, sort of, still lots of people building them...) or if the GS didn't appeal to people as a cafe platform or what. Can folks point me in the direction of some good GS cafe pics? The gallery here is tough to poke through.

Also, this might not be the place to ask, but I though I recalled something about boring the GS1100 to 1366. Is this correct or am I dreaming? -nick
 
I don't know about photos, you might try the custom GS thread

Check with Rapid Ray for a 1400cc motor

Be ready to spend cubic money
 
I could be way off on this but from what I've seen around my area cafe bikes are usually smaller displacement engines in lighter frames. Probably because the bike will handle better. But if you want one then build one. That's the whole point of getting it in the first place. Make it what you want. I've seen 1300 cc streetfighters. So it can be done
 
Clumzi said:
My first bike was a GS550L that was a heap of annoyance and trouble. I vowed not to own another four cylinder bike unless it was 1000cc +.
Click to expand...

This is true, anything over 1000ccs will never cause annoyance and trouble.
 
The lines aren't QUITE right, that's why the Honda CB750 is the bike of choice for bigger displacement cafe bikes. The lines just look right. Cafes need to have the front wheel fairly close to the engine (the reason L models or any "cruiser" type bike are out). Also, people tend to build them on smaller bikes because the idea to sling that thing all over the track and it's just easier to with a smaller bike.

That being said, it's your bike, build it however you want, and just because a cafe purist may say it's too big, or the rake isn't right in the front, who cares, it may still look cool as hell.
 
I forgot about the hostility one gets around here at times :).

My point with that comment was to say that unless the bike has enough beef to warrant four cylinders, I don't want to bother again. Pulling four carbs apart again for a 50hp bike doesn't thrill me to say the least. However, fighting with four carbs/cylinders on a beast machine... that I'm willing to do. And the big ones have two two barrel carbs, yes? So much the better.

Anywho, I suppose the bike would be a somewhat silly thing considering the size and weight of the big GS, but it'd still be fun :). To make it even sillier, I'd love to build it off of a 1100G because I'm a big fan of shafties. Would it transfer less power to the rear wheel? I suppose so, shafties are less efficient, but I'm a big fan of reliability (which is why I'm rethinking the big bore idea... we'll see).

I love these bikes and even though it might be a silly thing to do, I still think it'd be fun. Maybe I'll end up going the CB750 route, or maybe a GS750 (does anybody make a poke kit for those?), but at this point in time I just like the idea of a gs1100 cafe... even if it doesn't make a whole heap of sense. -nick
 
If people only bought or did things that made sense there would be no hennesy vipers. No busa. And nothing else that has the power to do 3 times the speed limit. But what fun would that be? Maybe your best bet would be to find a 750 with a bad engine and throw an 1150 in it.
 
I'm not so sure an 1150 would fit in a 750 frame, but I'm all for doing things that are bad ideas :). How else do we learn?

Perhaps I'm not looking for GS1100s done up as cafes. Perhaps I should really just be looking for any GS 550 or bigger done up as a cafe to get ideas. Plenty of those around. I'll go poke around again. And I forgot that the search function actually works here. The forum I frequent most these days doesn't have a search function anymore even though the button is still there. -nick

BTW - I'll share what I'm finding...

http://mycaferacer.com/images/gs1000b.jpg

this is smaller, but very much like what I'm imagining...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Uk_SrRK_t1Y/SZVg0S9KQfI/AAAAAAAAAF4/h2rL22r7eqY/s1600-h/gs750+012.jpg

http://www.thegsresources.com/images/hall_of_fame/750CafeRacera.jpg
 
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1100/1150s dont have two two barrel carbs...they still have four carbs. the 1100 used BS34SS and the 1150 the BS36SS... rack of four. The only two barrel carbs i know of on a four cylinder were on the 550E/ES/EF/L models of 83 on..
 
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