Brakes/suspension

[red1100]

I’m doing a minor cosmetic and mechanical rehab on my red 83 1100E. 45,000 miles.The stock wheels are getting the cast part painted gold, new chain,new tires,wondering about new brake pads. I’m a conservative street rider only and am on my second pair of pads which are still great shape.I would like something with a light touch but a lot of stopping power. I’m thinking about trying RFY piggyback shocks cause I got them in my stock of parts. My stock adjustable shocks are still in good shape. Also have a mint set of KONIs with appropriate weight springs I could try also. Any thoughts? Street ridden only. Rich

[salty_monk]

Use the Koni's and EBC HH rated pads are the best stopping power out there if you can find them for the GS.

[red1100]

I’ll check into them thanks.

[bwringer]

You didn't really mention it, but make sure the front end is updated as well; I use and can highly recommend Sonic straight-rate springs in all my bikes. Even if you're not a hard charger, fork springs in the correct rate make an amazing difference in braking.

http://sonicsprings.com/catalog/

EBC red "semi-sintered" pads are well worth a look; that's what's on my GS at the moment and thus far they're my favorite blend of braking power, wear, and wet traction. With stainless lines, I really don't miss modern brakes.

I'm not 100% sure whether sintered pads are still available in GS pads (probably still at least some NOS out there on fleaBay), but I've found that they cause an unacceptable amount of rotor wear, and some compounds are less than great in the rain.

[red1100]

I have a progressive set in the forks put in about 1984. Seem to do fine although the seals are allowing the air to leak out. I see you have 5 different spring weights for 83 1100s,what’s the stock spring rate?

[bwringer]

I have a progressive set in the forks put in about 1984. Seem to do fine although the seals are allowing the air to leak out. I see you have 5 different spring weights for 83 1100s,what’s the stock spring rate?

Progressive fork springs are heavily biased toward comfort and light-to-average weight riders. Still, they're a vast improvement over the super-squishy stock springs.

No idea what the stock fork spring rate was, and it doesn't matter now anyway. No one knows why they installed such horribly squishy stock suspension at the Suzuki factory; perhaps their test riders were all retired Japanese ballerinas and jockeys.

Anyway, there's a calculator on the Sonic Springs website that will lead you to the correct spring rate for your bike's weight, your weight, and your riding style.

http://sonicsprings.com/catalog/calculate_spring_rate.php

Wet weight for the '83 1100E is supposedly 560 pounds. No idea what you weigh or how you ride, but you'll likely end up around 1.0 or .95. You do not use added air pressure with the new springs.

Whatever your riding style, the thing you'll probably notice first with proper straight-rate springs is less brake dive; it's a nice everyday benefit that makes you safer.

[salty_monk]

I can't remember what the stock spring rate is for the 83-1100E but I do know that I had to cut them down to about 15" long to get them to a 43.5lb spring rate (which is fine for me).

As they are also progressive they have two spring rates.
One when the closely would coils are active & one once they become coil bound (when they become coil bound they merely act as a spacer & the rate of spring is what is left over)
the "progressiveness" comes from the fact that the other coils do compress a bit before they become fully bound in real life use).

Obviously I cut off the closely wound ones.

From memory (may be wrong) with those removed/coil bound but no more it was in the 36-37lb range.

Progressives are about 50lb once the closely wound springs become coil bound (or if you cut it off & replace with spacer).

It's fine to cut these springs to make them stiffer but you must replace the missing length with spacer (ABS pipe works) and make sure the spring still has enough travel to allow the suspension full movement. What I did on the 1100 springs is to the limit of what you can get away with on travel.

If this doesn't make sense you need to do some research on spring rates to understand what I did....