Gallina Supermono
Gallina Supermono
The shape of Singles to come?
THERE CAN BE FEW MORE SATISFYing moments in life for an ex-racer than to see his son win a major international race on a bike he built and developed himself. That’s why Roberto Gallina, former works rider for a handful of Italian factories and the team manager who guided Suzuki to 1981 and ’82 500cc world roadracing championships, should be especially pleased with the result of the International Sound of Singles race held at Monza last July. Because Gallina’s 19-year-old son, Michele, came off best in a last-corner barging match with Italian champion Luigi Dal Maso to take the victory.
The bike Michele, or “Miki,” rode is the latest version of Gallina’s 209pound Suzuki DR800-engined special, the end result of a project he acquired last winter from Italian Bimota race engineer Gaetano Bursi.
Bursi was the first European tuner to realize the potential of the air/oilcooled Suzuki DR Big motor-usually fitted to a gargantuan, for-Europeonly dual-purpose bike-as a powerplant for SoS racing. Fitted in an aluminum twin-spar chassis, the Bursi-developed Suzuki almost pulled off an upset win at Monza in 1990, finishing only a couple seconds behind Fabrizio Pirovano’s works OW94 Yamaha.
Had it not been for his time-consuming involvement with the Bimota factory, Bursi might have tried to commercialize his Suzuki racer himself. But rather than kill the project, he sold it to Gallina, whose own DR Big Supermono project had been on the drawing board for a while without getting very far. Taking over the Bursi prototype short-circuited Gallina’s development program, as well as enabled him to launch a street version of the bike-called the Gallina Suzuki TGA6-at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show this past March. Gallina has now put both road and race bikes into production, at a price ranging from about $22,000 for the streetbike with stock motor and five-speed transmission, up to almost double that for a fully tuned six-speed racer.
Having raced against the Gallina Suzuki in Japan, I was eager for a chance to ride it, and pinched the bike off Miki during a half-hour practice session at Monza.
One trip up pit lane was enough to put the Gallina Suzuki’s performance into perspective: Acceleration is impressive by any standards, and mind-boggling for a four-stroke Single. Out on the track, its straight-line performance allows you to outaccelerate most Twins. The Suzuki revved quickly from down low, came on strong at around 5000 rpm, and ran easily past its 7000-rpm stock redline to 7800, after which it started to feel a bit breathless. Jetting work by Miki and his dad in timed qualifying the next day let the bike rev to its true maximum of 8300 rpm, at which point there is a claimed 72 rear-wheel horsepower.
Gallina has retained the Suzuki’s standard 105 x 90mm bore-and-stroke dimensions, with a special two-ring piston and a single connecting rod, in contrast to the dual-conrod setup that Gaston Rahier’s works Suzuki was rumored (but never confirmed) to have employed in the Paris-Dakar Rally a couple of years ago. The cylinder head was skimmed to increase compression to 11:1 ; the original crank and conrod were lightened; and 2mmoversize valves, racing valve springs and a camshaft with vernier adjustment (permitting individual timing for each of the four valves) were fitted.
The engine is fed by twin 40mm Mikuni flat-side carburetors, which increase top-end power at the cost of low end. The stock twin-plug ignition is retained, though Gallina converted the system to total-loss operation, and varied the ignition curve to move the power farther up the revband. The exhaust system is the same as fitted to the street version, but with a slightly less effective silencer. On the streetbike, merely fitting the pipe and the bigger carbs increased the power of the stock DR Big engine from 46 bhp at the rear wheel to 56.
It would be nice to say that the chassis lived up to the exceptional performance of the engine, but this is not the case. Instead, it’s merely adequate. Its strong point is the way it puts the power down out of turns, thanks to the Öhlins rear shock and effective linkage that allow you to whack the throttle hard open exiting a turn. Unfortunately, the rider’s weight is too far rearward to permit him to load the front wheel going into a turn. Thus, the Supermono requires a lot of physical effort to steer, especially under braking, where there’s a definite tendency to push the front tire, in spite of a 20-degree head angle, just 3.1 inches of trail and a mere 53.6inch wheelbase.
On Monza’s relatively few bumps, the upside-down Kayaba fork worked well, but the twin 11.2-inch front Brembo brakes lack real bite; either an increase in rotor diameter or a change of pad specification is needed.
Bursi’s and the Gallinas’ feat in producing such a powerful and effective Single should not be underestimated:
A number of others have gone the Big Cubes route in SoS racing, without success or reliability. Yet the Gallina Suzuki has achieved both. Whether its sky-high price will be sufficient to deter a rush of buyers is something that only time and the ability of SoS to go big time with support races at World Superbike events-as is rumored-will tell.
In any event, the next stage in the Gallina development cycle may prove crucial, for back home at La Spezia, Gallina already has a 794cc DR Big engine running on his own electronicfuel-injection system, built using mainly Weber/Marelli parts. A fuelinjected 800cc Single with a fully mapped engine-management system will be very hard to beat. Already, the carburated Gallina Suzuki is arguably the most effective SoS racer in the world.
Alan Cathcart
