1st Gen GSXR upgrade for GS1100ED

[jwhelan65]

Crap Joe, thanks. That is a hell of a complement . Maybe now I will submit to BOM

Err road trip.... ???Yea were going on a road trip but north

Believe it or not I just got my first ticket coming home on the ride. My buddy and I pulled to a stop light. He has a KLR 650, I took off and with the 1/4 throttle mod I accidently got the front wheel off the ground, came down a little crooked but no worries, Anyway that was not the issue. Tehre was a closed to local traffic sign I went past it; my buddy followed. Then there was a road closed sign, I went; he followed. There was two cops there giving tickets for people driving through a closed road sign. CRAP. I told the cop it coulda been worse. The ticket for wheeling at 60 mph down a 35 mph wouda been worse.

yeaaah....if I got a ticket for wheelies, I'd hang that one on my garage wall!


Hooligans rule!

[chef1366]

You can ride the lazy boy while I carve the canyons.

[salty_monk]

Looking good Jim... hope the 750 comes out so well.

Dan

[posplayr]

Looking good Jim... hope the 750 comes out so well.

Dan

Thanks Dan,
I did do a quickie alignment measurement between front and rear wheel. I was off about 1/16" which is about as good as a 6' straight edge is against a rear tire.

After going through the various measurements with Katman, I felt pretty confident it was close enough based on all the spaces he cut for me. I came down Hwy 154 for a ways and it certainly rides more stable.

[posplayr]

You can ride the lazy boy while I carve the canyons.

I gotta work on the left foot peg; it doesnt have quite enough friction. When they are back then the guard hits first as intended. I road about 5 miles with the right leg and it was really great

[jwhelan65]

Thanks Dan,
I did do a quickie alignment measurement between front and rear wheel. I was off about 1/16" which is about as good as a 6' straight edge is against a rear tire.

After going through the various measurements with Katman, I felt pretty confident it was close enough based on all the spaces he cut for me. I came down Hwy 154 for a ways and it certainly rides more stable.

Jim is there safe variance to stay within between the front and rear? I know mine is off about 3mm on the 1100.

[posplayr]

Joe,
Realize that the front to rear wheel alignment basically comes by setting the chain adjuster stop on the swing arm. The 3mm can be dialed out easy enough by changing the real wheel assuming you have at least some chain clearance. It is a hard thing to answer as you could probably be as far as 10 mm and still ride it without noticing any issues. I think Rob was going to align a 200 rear at about 10mm offset. Some wide tired busas run huge offsets (1-2 inches).
I would say, to get as close as you can measure. If you use a straight edge against the side of the tires, you will probably be lucky to get within (+/-) 3-4 mm, and you really wont know where you are in that range. If you can bolt something to the rims and use that as a straight edge reference, you might be able to align to within about (+/-) 1-2mm .
In order to figure is the front is aligned with the rear, you measure the width of the front and the width of the back. Take the difference and divide by two. This is how much further the rear sticks out from the front. If you use the tire widths then that is harder to determine accurately. If you can index off the base rims then that is more accurate.
If you use the string method, then just live with what ever that accuracy is.
When I say I was off by 1/16", I had simply aligned my rear wheel of the swing arm marks, and used the straight endge forward t see how far off that appeared to be. I did this pretty quickly for a quick check but got to within 1/16" so I called it go.
Jim

P.S you obviusly can adjust out anything using the method as teh chain will be out of alignment at some point, but it has about 1/3 the basline so it is much less sensitive and can probably tolerate much more offset.

[80GS1000]

Nice work Jim!

[tone]

Re- wheel alignment

As some of you know i worked on a straightening jig in an accident repair shop for a while & can tell you the accepable misalignment can be up to 4mm on some models as stock we "straightened" quite a few brand new frames for racers to bring them within 1mm of alignment or less & this is what i always aim for on my own bikes

Although this is the ideal, on a bike made up from a number of different parts that were never supposed to fit together the ideal is sometimes not acheivable due to the many variables involved

As posplar says a small misalignment can be tuned out by ajusting the wheel slightly more on one side than the other, the chain will allow you to do this by around 1mm without adverse effects on chain or sprocket life, although it is always better to avoid this if possible

When checking the wheel alignment do not use the ajusters at all ! leave them completely slack & push the wheel all the way forward within the slots & nip it up, the reason for this is that the marks on the ajusters are notoriously poor & the wheel will not be straight if you use them & the front edge of the ajuster slots is usually a fairly accurate place to start your measurements from while with the rear it is not always the case

summary .... 4mm of misalignment is just about acceptable but personally i wouldnt be happy with that
1mm or less is the ideal but not always acheivable
2mm to 2.5mm is the most misalignment you should be aiming for in my opinion & if that is not acheivable you did something wrong somewhere along the line

Hope it helps tone

[isleoman]

Jim, Really like the close to finished product. A well engineered piece of art. Now ride.

[posplayr]

Re- wheel alignment

As some of you know i worked on a straightening jig in an accident repair shop for a while & can tell you the accepable misalignment can be up to 4mm on some models as stock we "straightened" quite a few brand new frames for racers to bring them within 1mm of alignment or less & this is what i always aim for on my own bikes

Although this is the ideal, on a bike made up from a number of different parts that were never supposed to fit together the ideal is sometimes not acheivable due to the many variables involved

As posplar says a small misalignment can be tuned out by ajusting the wheel slightly more on one side than the other, the chain will allow you to do this by around 1mm without adverse effects on chain or sprocket life, although it is always better to avoid this if possible

When checking the wheel alignment do not use the ajusters at all ! leave them completely slack & push the wheel all the way forward within the slots & nip it up, the reason for this is that the marks on the ajusters are notoriously poor & the wheel will not be straight if you use them & the front edge of the ajuster slots is usually a fairly accurate place to start your measurements from while with the rear it is not always the case

summary .... 4mm of misalignment is just about acceptable but personally i wouldnt be happy with that
1mm or less is the ideal but not always acheivable
2mm to 2.5mm is the most misalignment you should be aiming for in my opinion & if that is not acheivable you did something wrong somewhere along the line

Hope it helps tone

Tone,
Thanks for your response. I'm glad my "late night off the top of the head numbers" were not too far off from your experience. On the issue of adjusting out offset using the rear wheel, Yes you are correct, but I should probably clarify what I meant when I suggested Joe adjust out his 3mm with the rear wheel.
First, I know that Katman setup all the spacers and bushings for Joe, and Katman is as precise as he can be in trying to achieve sub 1mm accuracy. Rob and I had a series of discussion over a couple of weeks trying to find the source of a 1 mm alignment difference between stock and Bandit swingers. After these discussion and having went through the process with my upside down frame and the best straight edge I could find it became clear that measurement inaccuracies were going to be a big source of errors in trying to achieve precise alignments. Simply put it is hard to figure out when the two wheels are aligned in a typical persons garage. But I digress and I will try and avoid making too many general comments on the subject. as my comments were really directed at Joe and the current status of his bike.
And yes the alignment marks for the swing arm are "approximate" and probably good enough for stock settings, but when doing suspension modification should not be used as a "point of reference". If you work at an alignment shop, and have test fixtures and other equipment, this is most decidedly correct. However without special equipment it is pretty hard to get a good measurement accuracy level of +/- 1mm .
So in Joe's case assuming the best that could be done with swing arm bushing and wheel spacers had already been achieved (by Katman) and Joe had good chain spacing and chain alignment as he had previously reported, then Joe's residual 3mm is a combination of small misalignments due to final rear wheel adjustment and measurement inaccuracies. My ED has a 60" wheel base and 10" spacing at the swing arm. So if he were to move one side of his rear axle by 0.5 mm he would have moved his front wheel by 3mm (that is the ratio of 60" to 10"). Alternatively if he was clever about it he could have moved the rear axle marks by only 1/2 of that (.25mm) and achieved the same result.
So for Joe and all the work that Katman had already done in sizing of spacers, these minor swing arm chain adjustments would have been all that was required to get rid of him 3mm. If joe did a standard string wheel alignment he would be good to go with no further fuss on spacers required.

Jim

Edit: I started a new thread on this alignment subject here.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=147705

[posplayr]

Jim, Really like the close to finished product. A well engineered piece of art. Now ride.

Tom,
Thanks. I will post some more close ups of all the details (like the stock fender mounts and my ED Highway pegs ) a little later. On Tues I take off with Bill on the Mt Shasta trip 2500 miles approximate round trip to Oregen from So CA .
Gotta dig out the fairing mounts, chase down a couple of electrical blinker issues, figure out the settings on those "fully adjustable Ohlins" and balance the carbs finally before packing up to go.

And thanks for the "well engineered" comment. It is now clear to me that depending on skill level and ultimate desires, these GSXR conversions can vary significaantly in terms of what is a "bolt on".

JIm

[posplayr]

Nice work Jim!

Thanks PJ; I think it worked out well for my "Road Warrior" needs. After riding my 86 GSXR 1100, that already has the USD and 17" wheel conversion (and weighs 100 lbs less with close to the same hp as the ED ) I went the RSU and 18" route

Jim

[jwhelan65]

Actually I just re-aligned mine, I am closer to 1mm by my measurements, which is what Rob told me I would be at if I recall.

[posplayr]

Well did my first road test yesterday with the new GSXR conversions on my ED and the ride is a big step up, but can't say I am impressed with the way the front forks act. My stock ED forks were converted with Ractech emulators and Progressive springs and they act better than the 41 mm forks with racetech emulator and those squat racetech springs (the lower ones).

I did a ride on Camino Cielo above Santa Barbara and it is a nice twisty road for about 20 miles. The fork travel under normal suspension movement is moderate to about only 1/3 total travel. However under hard braking I nearly bottom out using up the remaining 2/3 of total travel. Also I seem to loose front wheel contact on uneven ground as the front wheel seems to chirp quite a bit even under hard braking, agressive cornering on uneven ground. Looking at the difference in coils for the progressive It seems like the racetech is fashioned after a modified garage door spring

Anybody got any comments on pros cons for ractech straight spring v.s. progressive wound Progressives. Yea I'm guessing it is gonna take some force to get those puppies in.

I'm swapping the progressives in today.