Suzuki GS 450E

There is a case to be made for simplicity. Consider, for example, the Suzuki GS450. It is a vertical Twin, dohc with two valves per cylinder and plain bearing crankshaft. Since the GS450 was introduced three model years ago, Suzuki has brought into production two other similiarly-sized machines, an eight-valve Twin and a 16-valve Four.

The newer Twin and Four are sold in countries where the demand for 400-450cc machines is intense—often because of displacement-related tax and licensing breaks—and the purchase of one brand or another hinges not so much on performance or price but rather on technological features. Eight valves are more fashionable than four; 16 valves are better than eight; four cylinders do more for the self-image than two.

There are limits to the more-is-better adage, especially in terms of function, and especially in regards to mid-sized street bikes. Few riders prefer narrow powerbands and the necessity of winding the engine beyond 10,500 rpm; most treasure mid-range torque and acceleration over sheer high-rpm-induced speed. And at any engine speed below a shriek, a streetable 400-450cc eight-valve Twin or 16-valve Four is apt to simply use more parts to achieve the same or less performance than a well-designed four-valve Twin of the same displacement.

That is exactly the case with the GS450. Suzuki's newer engines don't have a large performance advantage, and, because they're more complicated to make, they carry a hefty price disadvantage.

Which is why the GS450 is still with us in the U.S., carrying a suggested list price of $1999 and an actual retail price below $1500 in some parts of the country.

There's nothing unusual about the GS. Bore and stroke are 71 x 56.6mm for an actual displacement of 448cc. Crank throws are spaced 180° apart, so when one piston is at TDC (Top Dead Center), the other is at BDC (Bottom Dead Center). The camshafts run in the cylinder head casting and are driven by a roller chain off the center of the crankshaft, with an automatic, spring-loaded cam chain tensioner. Valves are opened by cam lobes acting directly on lash-adjustment shims carried on top of bucket-style tappets, which fit over each valve stem and spring. Intake valves open 39° BTDC and close 61° ABDC, with 8.5mm of lift. Exhaust valves open 65° BBDC and close 31° ATDC, with 8.0mm of lift. The conventional combustion chambers lack high-tech, swirl-inducing ridges or contours, and the cast pistons are slightly domed for a c.r. of 9:1.

The transistorized electronic ignition uses a centrifugal mechanical advance, with pickups and advance located on the right end of the crankshaft. A 196w alternator is positioned on the left crankshaft end, and the electric starter nestles into the crankcases on the left side, just behind the cylinders.

Primary drive is helical gear directly from crankshaft to clutch basket, and the transmission has six gearsets on two shafts. Final drive is O-ring sealed roller chain.

A single gear-driven balancer shaft is located just forward of the crankshaft.

As the crank turns and the pistons move up and down, weights on the balancer shaft counteract much of the high-pitched vibration common to 180° Twins. These days, balancer shafts aren't uncommon, being seen in certain Hondas, Kawasakis and Yamahas and even some Mitsubishi and Porsche car engines.

The GS has two 34mm Mikuni CV carburetors and a 2-into-2, black-chrome exhaust system with a balance tube underneath the engine.

Any discussion of the GS450's performance must start with the carburetors simply because carburetion was the Achilles heel of the first Suzuki 450s. Carburetor jetting changes have eliminated the massive flat spots and cold-start leanness that made the early GS450s impossible to ride smoothly under certain conditions.

The GS450 is still cold blooded, that is, it demands full choke for several minutes after starting on a cold morning. But while it is on choke, it runs without staggering or missing or dying. The carburetor-mounted choke has two click-indicated positions, full-on and about one-quarter-on. Full choke is required for a few blocks after starting, and one-quarter choke is required for a mile or two after that.

When the engine has warmed up and the choke has been turned off, the GS450 carburetes well in normal riding, without flat spots and with just a hint of surge at steady throttle at very low rpm. The GS wins the Most Improved Carburetion Award.

No 450 Twin makes as much power across as broad a range as an 1100, and the Suzuki is no exception. But the 450 is perfectly happy cruising around town and will accelerate away from traffic without ever topping 5500 rpm. There's a big jump in horsepower over 7000 rpm, however, and keeping the GS450 revved up is the key to quick starts and maximum acceleration. The GS turns 5300 rpm in sixth gear at 60 mph, and needs two downshifts to pass traffic quickly. At the dragstrip, our test GS turned the standing start quarter mile in 13.92 sec. with a terminal speed of 91.46 mph. While those are respectable times for a 450, we expected better results, especially since the 1980 GS450S was three-tenths quicker and several mph faster in the quarter, ridden at the same dragstrip by the same rider.

The problem lies in circumstances. The GS450E arrived between unsea-sonal rainStroms, and headed off to the dragstrip on the first dry day without the benefit of very many break-in miles. It's possible that the bike would have performed better at the strip later in the test. Unfortunately, things didn't work out and the GS didn't get a second shot at the clocks.

Maybe that's just as well. As delivered, the 450's clutch worked fine. Shifting was not bad exactly, but was not up to Suzuki's usual standards. After the drag strip sessions the clutch seemed harder to pull and dragged, especially on down shifts. Aggravating that, the shift lever became more stubborn, as in not wanting to go into gear unless jumped on. This was so unlike recent Suzukis we reckon it was an individual case, but still a problem.

Economy worked out about average; 60 mpg is good, but because our test requires speeds that work a 450 Twin harder than maybe a 650 Four, the 450's result can be matched by other bikes with larger engines, more cylinders and more speed.

The 450E benefits from new styling for 1983, styling influenced by both the GS1100 and the Katana, without going as far. The tank and side panels blend together just ahead of and below the slightly-stepped seat, and a tail section bridges the gap between the seat and the taillight. Our test bike came finished in black, including black fork sliders and black rear shock springs.

The frame has a built-up backbone consisting of three main tubes and several gussets and gusset plates, with dual downtubes looping underneath the engine. There are four rigid mounts on each side of the engine, one at the front of the cases, one underneath the crankshaft, one at the bottom rear of the cases, and one at the top rear of the cases.

The gas tank is steel, normal street bike practice, but the side panels, seat base, fenders, tail section, taillight assembly, instrument panel, turn signals, control pods, headlight shell and chain guard are plastic. An aluminum styling panel covers the steel frame tubes which support the rider and passenger footpegs, replacing a steel stamping used on earlier GS450 models.

The use of aluminum and plastic and the absence of a handlebar fairing makes the GS450E 23 lb. lighter than the 1980 GS450S, weighed with half a tank of gas, 399 lb. to 422 lb.

The wheels are cast aluminum, with black painted spokes, polished spoke edges and rim sides. The front wheel carries a single hydraulic disc brake and the rear has a single-leading-shoe drum brake.

The instruments include a hold-over 85 mph speedometer with odometer and tripmeter, a 12,000-rpm tach (redline is 9500 rpm), a digital gear readout, a fuel gauge, and warning lights for turn signals, neutral, oil pressure and high beam. The ignition switch is located on the upper triple clamp, in the instrument panel, and includes the fork lock. Control pods are simple, the right pod carrying a rocker-type engine kill switch and the electric starter button, the left pod carrying a large, well-positioned horn button and one four-way switch which operates the turn signals and selects headlight beam.

Beyond the obvious details, there are nice touches. The handlebar control levers, for example, are the easy-to-reach dogleg type formerly seen only on larger, more expensive street bikes. The mirrors are rectangular with black plastic cases and black-finished stalks. The headlight is quartz-halogen, throwing a bright beam.

The horn is lacking. It isn't loud enough. Any argument that louder horns or dual horns are too expensive for inexpensive motorcycles doesn't impress anybody who has been unable to ward off a wayward motorist. Equally unimpressive are the handlebar grips, being awful affairs with sharp ridges that wear holes in gloves and raise blisters on hands. The same grips have been standard on Suzukis for years. We would have thought that a whole wretched warehouse of the things would have been exhausted by now, but they keep showing up. Somebody at Suzuki must still be ordering these grips, and the man should be sentenced to a cross-continental GS450 ride while wearing thin gloves.

While the grips are unchanged, the suspension has been changed. There was a time when GS450 Suzukis handled vaguely in corners, with mushy feel to the front end and uncertain rear damping. New damping rates, compression and rebound, have changed that, making the Suzuki more stable and predictable.

There is still room for improvement, most notably under hard braking. Then, the forks collapse and every little ripple and bump tries to deflect the effectively-unsprung front tire. The forks do have provisions for adding air pressure, in the form of fittings sticking straight out from the spring-clip-secured lids located inside the top of the fork tubes, but it's impossible to use a hand fork pump to add air to the fittings—the handlebars are in the way. The combination of poorly-planned fitting angle and close proximity to the bars rules out in-the-field adjustments.

No fault can be found with the braking distances—the GS needed only 30 ft. to stop from 30 mph and 127 ft. to stop from 60 mph, both being outstanding figures. Those stops were made with stock front fork air pressure settings. Adding air to the forks—back at the shop where a 90° compressor chuck was available—improved feel under braking, but the test wasn't re-done.

Suspension compliance on streets and highways is better than average and seat padding and shape are good. The lack of vibration—the mirrors are dead clear at 60 mph—adds to the rider's comfort, and the GS450 is a motorcycle that can be ridden longer than an hour without the rider needing a rest stop.

Knowing all that, just what is the Suzuki GS450E's niche?

The question brings to mind one of this magazine's staff members. The year was 1970, and our man was 16 years old, in the market for his first new motorcycle, a bike to replace an aging BSA 441 Victor. Counting up his money—half saved from an after-school job and half borrowed at 3 percent from a benevolent grandmother—he set out to find the best motorcycle he could buy for $1100.

Rifling newstands for magazines carrying tests of bikes in his price range, he read that one particular 450 was a full-sized motorcycle, a machine capable of carrying its rider reliably from coast to coast or from home to school or from work to lunch. That bike, the magazines said, would do anything a motorcycle needs to do, and do it well.

That in mind, our man plunked down $1020 for a brand new 450 and proceeded to pile up 40,000 mi. on the bike, riding it to school and work and off to Illinois and Colorado and Yellowstone Park and points in between at the drop of a hat. He had a wonderful time, and loved every minute.

Now it's 1983, and the motorcycle before us is the Suzuki GS450E. It is quicker, faster, smoother than the machine our man bought in 1970, stops and handles better, gets more miles per gallon and weighs less. It's better looking and, considering inflation, the GS450's suggested retail price of $1995 is less than a CB450 sold for 13 years ago.

None of this will matter to the rider who can write a check for whatever strikes his fancy this week, nor to those who insist on a handmade Italian frame carrying the most powerful Four the Japanese can build.

Instead, Suzuki has remembered riders who don't know they are supposed to want more than they need, who first figure how much they can spend and then pick their bike.

They're going to have a wonderful time with the GS450E.