80 GS1100E mods

[Anonymous]

haha felt the same way Swanny, just look at your wiring diagram, and minimize it.
I had to redo mine 3 times before I got it down to minimal wiring.
I am still not satisfied and will be redoing it again one more time.

Looking through an electrical suppliers catalog today, trying to figure out which quick connects I want to order.

Started working in the garage, but came back in after I started feeling bad..
figured I would look through my books and check the board.

Keep it up!
Ron

That's what I'm doing now Ron. I'm also going to get some new connectors. Just a few, the rest will be hard wired in. There will be no bad connections! What a royal pain.

I purchased the battery and installed it today. Man, what a tight fit. I have to take out the battery box, slip the battery in as far as it will go, put the batery box back in, fit the battery into the box, then mount the box. The pods have to be removed first also as the battery sits behind the carbs now. Wow, I knew it was going to be tight. I sure hope the battery doesn't need to be changed soon.

The power side cable is also slightly too short, so that's another of the many gotchas.

Getting close to firing it up.

[scotty]

I hate to correct you Steve but if there are no bad connections then it won't be a GS

[Anonymous]

I hate to correct you Steve but if there are no bad connections then it won't be a GS

It's loosing it's identity quickly anyway Scotty. I've been toying with the idea of a GSXR head lately also. That should further confuse the issue. I jsut can't bring myself to that before I even fire it up though.

I may have an 1100 head up for sale in the future. It's clean, and just ahd a valve job - polished cover and powder coated end caps. I can't believe I'm even considering it. 8O

[Anonymous]

I've recieved several inquiries about how I fit the GSXR pipe. It's a Vance and Hines SS2R for a '95 GSXR1100. I had to fabricate new flanges (the GS bolts are spaced differently than the GSXR) and new inserts. Here is a photo of them side by side.

http://groups.msn.com/SuzukiGSGarage/yoshimurags1000article.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=5017

The GSXR units that came with the pipe are on the left. My handywork sits to the right. Notice that the adapter needed to be extended and reworked (can't see that) at the exhaust port to use the GS gasket. (The GS and GSXR gaskets are different.

I still have the design files for these. Maybe someday I'll put together a kit for this. 8O Well, probably not, unless I received a lot of requests and I doubt that.

I've gotten quite a bit of the wiring done lately. I've even gotten most of the GSXR guages wired in. It's going slow, I know, but I've got a day job and I'm still waiting on parts. The headlights are slow to get here and I have another set of GSXR forks on the way. I'm experimenting with various fork/triple combos. When I get it sorted out I'll post.

[Anonymous]

Looking like your getting there swanny.
Time is what these morfs take.
I might be done with mine next yr if I am lucky.

8)

[Anonymous]

Hey Swanny,

I'll try not to gush too much, but I have to say that envy OOzes out of my pores when I look at the pictures of your bike. As a machinist and someone who is just doing a fairly minor restoration of an 1100 I can really appretiate the work you do and the effort it must take. Keep up the nice work, I'm sure there are alot of people on the site that can't wait too see it finished. Ciao.

[Anonymous]

Hey Solo - thank you for the compliments.

It's getting closer. If I can make some progress on finishing the tank metal work, I can start painting. Matt, will get out next month and I'm going to put him to work on it.

The GSXR console has an oil temp guage and a fuel light. I've been playing with turning the oil temp guage into a fuel guage. The other option is putting in an oil temp sending unit into the block and using the guage as intended.

[Anonymous]

I fired it up for the first time tonight. It started right off. I noticed a gas leak and shut it down 10 seconds later. The gas line to the carbs was leaking so I cleaned everything up and decided to postpone the test. I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

[Mark Harrop]

Speaking of batteries and tight fits, I noticed some batteries in Home Depot that got me thinking....

yea, I know.... :roll:

I think they are designed as back up batteries for a 12v security system or something. They are only about an inch thick, and appx. 4"x 6". I can't remeber the numbers, but I seem to remeber that they had amp/hour ratings that led me to believe that 2 wired in series would do the trick.
One behind each side panel.

Just thinking out loud. I'm no electrical guru.

[Anonymous]

Speaking of batteries and tight fits, I noticed some batteries in Home Depot that got me thinking....

yea, I know.... :roll:

I think they are designed as back up batteries for a 12v security system or something. They are only about an inch thick, and appx. 4"x 6". I can't remeber the numbers, but I seem to remeber that they had amp/hour ratings that led me to believe that 2 wired in series would do the trick.
One behind each side panel.

Just thinking out loud. I'm no electrical guru.

They have to be rechargable. They may even need to be Lead-Acid type to work with our charging system. I'm not sure about that, but just a thought.

I fixed the gas leak - it was the fuel line. I started it again and ran for about 30 seconds or so. It runs like crap, backfires a bit at idle and more when it's reved up and #2 is starting to blue the pipe. The vacuum line to the petcock is plugged. All of the pipes are getting hot, so it looks as if I have fire to all of them.

I can't work too much on it right now.

[first timer]

hey guys i don't know if this will help you but was up agianst a similar thing and did some research and took a gamble and it paid off, read below,

hey guys just wanted to post a update, i got a YTZ10S Replacement Battery (YTZ10S, Factory Activated, Maintenance Free ? 12 Volt - Motorcycle - ATV Battery, L 6, W 3.4375, H 3.6875(in) - Weight 7 (lbs), Regular Charge Current 0.9 (amps), 190 CCA ) found one for 50 bucks i hooked it up and it spins the motor no problem, i'll see how it works while the bike runs, it should be ok as long as i am not just siting there with the lights on and the bike not running.

as a follow up this is a pretty std modern bike battery and should work perfect for you aplications, i have since posting this had the bike started and running, i even had to make the battery work hard and turn over lots before it fired and the battery had enough juice and kept going. so i don't think it's little bit less amp hours are a big problem.

here a link and they are cheap and good

http://www.illinoisbattery.com/

-ryan

[Anonymous]

Good to hear she fired up for ya Swanny!

Lean on #2, but I am sure you know that by the blueing.

Hows the guage situation playing out?
Get the tach to work right, etc?

I am hunting a set right now myself.

The front end situation your having.. did you try the top and bottom triples made for the forks?
Am I missing something your trying to acheive?

I used the complete rolling front off a 93-95 water cooled gixxer, and it works great.

Peace,
Ron

[Hoomgar]

Rock on Steve! Walk it in man
This has been a long time coming!
I am glad to hear of your progress

[Anonymous]

Status report. Last time I started her, she ran like crap. So the troubleshooting began. The first thing I did was check for spark. I pulled all of the plugs as saw a nice blue arc.

Ok, so I pull the carbs and check the float levels. They are off a little so I tweak them in as good as my bind ass can see. I even call over my neighbor and have him look them over. He's a Harley mechanic. Young guy with good eyes. They are ok.

I'm starting to worry a bit now, so it's time to pull the valve cover and check the valve lash. Again, a little tweeking, but nothing serious. I really take my time and get them all spot on.

Now, time to get serious. I break out the dial indicator and check my cam degreeing handywork. Again, pretty darn close. I used the TDC mark on the ignition instead of finding true TDC (too much trouble, this is troubleshooting after all).

Hmmm, just as I'm about to pull the carbs again, I start thinking coils. A few posts back I checked the continuity from plug to pug and found it open. Well it had spark, so I dismissed it as a problem. Well, guess what? Two of the plug caps had very high resistances. So high the meter read an open. There must have been some path for the current, however, as I did get a spark.

So, here is where my electrical engineering degree comes in handy. I'll try to explain this phenomina.

The secondary side of the coil produces a high energy voltage pulse. This voltage is applied across the cap and spark gap in a simple series circuit. Even a very high resistance in the cap is no match for impedance seen across the spark gap - it dominates. So, there is a current associated with this circuit witch you see as a spark. Now, why won't the engine run properly if you can see a spark. I believe the high resistance of the cap is dissipating enough energy so that the spark gets blown out part of the time and this results in an ugly running engine.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to get some new caps (automotive), slap them on, and let you all know if I'm an idiot or not.

[Anonymous]

good summation.

A weak spark can be blown out
Especially on a forced inducted motorcycle.

But, IMHO, I would think (again IMO) that it would not apply to a stock normally aspirated Motorcycle.

But check your GAP, close them just a bit if you feel your sparks too weak.
Helps prevent blowout on Turbo charged bikes.

IMO, idle mixture, or carb related ( I am not there to "hear" it run ).

But let's see where you get with the plug caps.

Good Luck,
Ron