Octane Magazine Featured Motorcycles

Culmination
story/photos: dan hankin

If you haven't been following along, Project GS500 has been a work in progress magazine project for the past two years.

To be honest, I've been stripping bolts and ham fisting repairs on this little Suzuki since 1997. When it comes to motorcycles, all of my wrenching abilities were developed working on this bike. Unfortunately, mistakes are a part of that learning process and the GS has taken its lumps. But that hands on education is priceless.

In its latest, and likely final form, our 1993 GS500E is an attractive, functional, well thought out machine. Our goal was to build a fun, sharp handling, 100% street legal track toy. This is by no means the fastest, slickest, most high tech machine on two wheels, nor is it the cleanest, but it faithfully and reliably performs the job it was designed for. We used off the shelf parts for every modification to both keep costs down and make parts location easy in the event of a part failure.

Our first step was to upgrade our suspension. Nothing tells on the GS500's bargain bike roots like the stock non-adjustable suspension. The stock rear shock was tossed in favor of a '93 GSX-R 750 shock with a remote reservoir and adjustments for preload, compression and rebound damping. The lower mount tab did need to be notched, but aside from that and mounting the reservoir, the gixxer shock is a bolt in.

Up front we swapped on a complete, fully adjustable '99 GSX-R 600 front end with billet Vortex triple clamps, dual disc brakes, and a 3.5" wheel to replace the 3" stocker. The GSX-R steering stem is significantly longer and thicker than the GS stem. To make the swap work we had the guys at Lowe's Precision Machining (www.lowpremac.com) in Hampton make us a steering stem with the lower press fit dimensions of the GSX-R and the small upper dimensions to fit the GS frame neck.

Next we tossed the stock 3.5" rear wheel in favor of a 4" rim from a Bandit 400. The Bandit shares its axle bearings, axles, and cush drive with the GS, so our stock sprocket carrier dropped right into the new wheel and we used the existing axle. The Bandit wheel does have an offset hub, where the GS does not, so we made a 15/32" steel axle spacer to fill the gap. We also replaced the stock sprocket studs with M10x1.25x50mm steel studs so we could set the sprocket out 15/32" to maintain proper chain alignment.

The wider wheels allowed us to shop for some sticky rubber not available for our smaller stock rims. After consulting numerous racers, experienced street riders, and bike techs for tire opinions we mounted a pair of Michelin Pilot Sport tires in sizes 120/70-17 front and 160/70-17 rear. The Pirelli Diablo, Bridgestone BT014, and Dunlop D208 also made the short list and will likely be tested in the future.

With suspension and tires out of the way we needed to alter the riding position. The clip-on handlebars that came with the new front end are a good step lower than the drag bar they replaced on the stocker. This left our feet in an awkward position, so we set out to move the footpegs back and up for a racier body position and better cornering clearance at the track.

With few aftermarket parts available for the GS500 and the two pairs of rearsets we found for the GS priced way out of our budget we did some searching and found that the mount holes on CBR900RR rearsets are only about 1/8" off of the GS holes. We drilled the holes out slightly to provide necessary clearance and bolted the brackets on. An added benefit of using the CBR pieces is that the rear brake master cylinder that bolts to the right bracket aligned perfectly and required no additional modification.

On the left side we removed the stock shift arm and converted the shifter to a link setup using a Yamaha R1 shift link with the CBR pedal and a heim bolted into a cutoff GS500 shift arm for gear actuation.
Moving to the mechanicals, we did the standard exhaust and intake mods with a full Vance & Hines Supersport exhaust system and an open element K&N air filter to let the motor breath. The GS500 tends to be jetted lean from the factory, so with more air flowing through the motor it was time to richen up the fuel mixture. A stage III Dynojet jet kit was installed to remedy the fuel situation. Since Vance & Hines no longer makes an ignition advance for the GS500, we had GS500 racer Bob Broussard out of Salinas, CA drill our stock ignition rotor 5 degrees advanced for a little more timing.

With the mechanicals done we headed to D&D Import Cycles in Norfolk (www.danddimportcycles.com) to dyno tune the bike (see the May '04 issue at octaneonline.com). Jerry at D&D fine tuned our fuel mixture and coaxed our little 487cc parallel twin to 45.1 hp, up from a stock output of about 39 hp.

After some road testing and a successful track day we were finally ready to tackle the cosmetics. The stock seat and tail plastics were replaced with a super light one piece carbon kevlar solo seat made by GS500 racer James Greeson out of Georgia. The stock headlight was replaced with a Blitz model headlight from Acerbis. Then it was all dropped off at Wicked Paint in Virginia Beach for paint.

With full confidence in the abilities of John at Wicked Paint, we delivered the pieces with no instructions other than color. John pulled a crease from the gas tank, smoothed out the kevlar tail, and laid the base coats while Joe got busy with the airbrush creating a textured metal look under blue flames. After wet sanding and a few coats of clear, the paint is stunning and smooth as glass.

This project has been the culmination of many small modifications done over an extended period of time as time, money, and skill allowed. This little Suzuki stands as a fine example of what being a gearhead is all about - tackling modifications beyond your perceived abilities, asking for help when you need it, brainstorming creative solutions, meeting new people, and turning wrenches with your friends. n

Special thanks to D&D Import Cycles, Lowe's Precision Machining, Wicked Paint, James Greeson, Bob Broussard, GSTwin.com, Steve Kent, Frank Smith, and Ben Parran for their advice and expertise during this build, and to my family and friends for their patience and support.