Suzuki Gs100 Preview

SUZUKI GS100 PREVIEW

Tony Swan

Will This be '78's Top Superbike?

It's 10 p.m. We've been in Japan for a little over two hours, and we've waited long enough. Besides, the Bullet Train seems like an ideal place to start talking about new Superbikes. Thus, as the miles click smoothly past—at 120 per, this slick electric streamliner makes short work of the 200-mile Tokyo-to-Hamamatsu run— Tadaomi Shigenoya, of the Suzuki Motor Company's Overseas Operations Division, finds himself the objective of a friendly but persistent inquisition.

Shigenoya-san, what is horsepower of GS!000? What does GS1000 weigh? How wide is new bike?

(As the interrogation begins, a couple of the older Japan hands in the small group of American writers lapse into what seems to be a kind of pidgin English. omitting definite articles, which are absent from the Japanese language.)

How fast is GSI000? What is cost? How does GS1000 differ from GS750?

Mr. Shigenoya, who has been down this road before, gives some vague answers to a few of the queries, but makes it plain that we'll have to hang on until morning to get the whole story at Suzuki's research. de velopment and test center in Hamamatsu. And after some 17 hours of continuous travel from Los Angeles. hanging on is easy enough to accomplish by merely clos ing one's eyes.

Like everything else in Japan. the Suzuki plant is spotless. showing little of the natural fallout that normally attends moving-in operations. which are in prog ress around us as we're closeted with the new bikes and a select group of guys from Suzuki's engineering and product planfling corps. The group includes, among others. Mr. Y. Nakano, director of the company (who announces the gleaming new Thousands as "possibly the fastest production motorcycles in the world"); and the heads of the motorcycle design, product planning, chassis design. and en gine design divisions. Now we're gonna get some answers.

The first impression of the GSI000 is of a very slightly larger GS750. and this turns out to be a very accurate impression. In stead of making the Thousand a much larger package propelled by a much larger engine, a la Yamaha’s jump from the XS750 to the XS11, Suzuki offers a somewhat larger engine (997cc) propelling a very slightly larger package—6 lh. larger, according to the gentlemen of Suzuki. In fact, the engine package is almost 10 lb. lighter than the 750. thanks largely to the removal of the kick starter, and is exactly the same width. The bike weighs in under 500 lb. dry, which is in sharp contrast to the Yamaha’s close-to-600 lb. The Suzuki’s 83 hp Four is likely to be the mildest powerplant among this year’s crop of Superduperbikes, but it’ll be hauling the lightest load.

As we probe into the GSlOOO’s particulars, it also begins to seem likely that this machine will be the best handling rocketship going. The general frame configuration is very similar to the sweet-handling GS750. with a few new touches to the suspension that look very promising. For example: Besides having the standard dual rate springs, the front fork is air pressurized. And at the rear, one finds adjustable rebound damping to accompany the adjustable shock spring preload. Dynamite. It begins to seem important to get the bike to the Suzuki test track.

A gentle rain washed Hamamatsu throughout our day indoors with the various members of the Suzuki technical staff, but on riding day a big wind has scrubbed the sky clean. It's blowing about half a gale, directly into the faces of riders hooking down the long front straight of the Ryuyo test circuit. (The name sounds something like dyew-yo, but pronouncing it this way draws an immediate correction from our Japanese friends.)

Squadrons of dragonflies patrol the verges of the 4.2-mile layout as we begin to circulate: they seem to have about the same impact as small, juicy birds when one is encountered at high speed. How high? With a 25 mph headwind it’s hard to get a definite top speed reading. With a good drive out of the 180-deg. carousel that gives onto the main straight, one of the guys is able to touch 130. Your narrator, being somewhat less streamlined and somewhat more protective of life and limb, manages 127 on a couple of good runs. The Suzuki slide rule guys have the> GS 1000 pegged for a potential top end in the 137-138 vicinity, and while we won’t know about that until we’ve gone through our complete instrumented test procedure next month, we’re inclined to believe it.

Although the Ryuyo circuit isn’t equipped with any quarter-mile timing gear, the GS1000 also gives the impression of excellent off-the-line quickness. There aren’t any pronounced peaks in the powerband, which makes the quickness subtle; it doesn’t feel as fast as it is. Suzuki is projecting sub-12-sec. quarter-mile times for the GS1000, and there was talk of one 11.4-sec. test run with a prototype bike carrying a 120-lb. rider. While this last sounds a trifle apocryphal, we do look forward to getting this piece out to the drag strip.

However, quickness is less than half the story with the GS1000. Its handling is clearly the best of the three 1978 Superbikes I’ve seen so far (the Honda Six is yet

to come): nimble, stable and highly adjustable. Even though ground clearance has been increased slightly (.2 in.) from the 750, it’s even easier to get this bike’s pegs on the ground—and feel comfortable doing so. Pitch it down, flop it, twitch it, sw'oop it—the GS1000 does exactly what it’s told without any wobble or wallow. It’s not going to take much to get this rocket ready for Superbike Production racing. All this and a forgiving nature built in.

The setup that seemed most suitable for my needs was full rear spring preload with the rebound damping adjustment in its third position (of four). I’d advanced the fork pressurization to 14 psi. which seemed to make the front of the bike behave better on some slightly bumpy high speed curves, when time ran out. The engineers were a trifle edgy about going over their recommended 8 psi for the fork, pointing out that this figure was selected for maximum rider comfort in a variety of situations. But we can scrutinize this question more closely next month.

Brakes are disc, front and rear, with a dual setup on the luxo E version of the bike. (The GS1000E treatment also includes cast alloy wheels and a somewhat plushier seat.) However, dual discs seem to be gilding the lily a bit; the brakes on the basic bike are excellent.

Cosmetics speak for themselves. About the only obvious difference between the Thousand and the 750 is the tank stripe. The paint accentuates a stamped-in groove, which is also a distinction from the 750.

However, the distinction we’re anxiously waiting to explore on the track and in the canyons is this bike’s ability to get dowm a winding stretch of pavement faster than its smaller brother—or any of its big contemporaries, for that matter. Stay tuned.