Suzuki GSX-R 1100

On the A1 going down to London it was easy to sit at 90mph and wait for South Mimms to appear. The restricted motor gurgled at 6500rpm and was none too bothered about going any quicker. Going slower wasn't feasible as there was a tingle between five and six thou; best to keep your eyes off the speedo and trust the motor to gravitate to 90.

Coming back — four restrictors lighter - the story changed from Enid Blyton to Jackie Collins. The thing was so FAST. As a rule, GSX-R11s aren't slow, but the slightest shift of throttle launched the newest version up a freshly steepened power curve like never before. Fidget about to take the weight off your wrists and before you can say magistrate all the cars are in reverse.

Hit 9000rpm and your bum slides backwards, your arms tense with the effort of keeping up with a motorcycle hell bent on breaking the sound barrier. You check the speedo with wide eyes, can't read it because it's vibrating so much and get off the motorway at the first opportunity, your heart racing, your face distorted with a gargantuan grin.

At the proving ground the next day it went from zero to 138mph in 10.54 seconds. In the wet.

It all makes Suzuki's decision to put in restrictors look rather daft. Where's the sense in having a team of mad-keen engineers slaving away for months at one end of the R&D lab producing a stunning engine, when at the other end there's a bloke knocking out metal webs designed to bugger it up?

Since the dawn of time (1986) GSX-R1100s have been about cheek-wobbling power; for Suzuki to lop off the new bike's top-end and hope the fruity midrange will manage to haul the heaviest ever GSX-R11 around in a suitably impressive manner is foolish. It's slower than a ZZ-R600 for God's sake. And its baby brother the GSX-R750 outguns it everywhere above 6000rpm.

What makes it even more irritating is that Suzuki has joined the hype about astronomical power output figures (155bhp was rumoured) and then gone ahead and strangled the thing. "The all-new powerplant is designed to deliver extreme power," says the blurb, which is like Channel 4 warning you that the following programme contains scenes of offensive sexual deviation, knowing full well that all you'll see is a snog.

Anyone believing the hype (or even half-believing) will be sorely disappointed with the bike they ride out of British showrooms. Fortunately, getting rid of the restrictors from the carbs isn't a big job - just fiddly - and the gains are so massive that any GSX-R1100 owner who doesn't have it done has bought the bike for the wrong reasons. A huge codpiece would have been far cheaper.

For owners of older GSX-Rs I'll say that again. The new water-cooled one handled securely. After years of deciding rake and trail figures by pulling them from a hat, Suzuki has finally hit on a combination that works.

Wheelbase is up 20mm to 1485mm, trail is up 9mm to 100mm and rake is down over half a degree to 24.8 degrees.

On paper what we have is an 1100 with a steeper head angle than a VFR400 and only 4mm more trail, yet a wheelbase 25mm longer than an EXUP's; interesting rather than promising.

On tarmac what we have is bike that holds its line in fast sweepers as accurately as anything this side of a racetrack. Because of the GSX-R11's reputation for chronic handling foibles, trust takes time, but within 50 miles of fast A-road it wins you over: sit back, relax and savour the smell of melting knee-slider.

Powering out of bends was exhilarating and secure. The revised weight distribution (lower centre of gravity, more weight on the front wheel) keeps the front tyre down, and there was no tendency to understeer as weight shifted backwards through a bend. Even with the derestricted motor hurtling towards its 11,500 redline, the back tyre always felt more likely to give up the ghost than the front. It just tracked - no frantic shoves needed on the inside bar, no nerves (not from the bike at any rate).

With the geometry working, the usual high-standard GSX-R suspension was allowed to improve the situation rather than try and save it, as in past years. Dawdling, the Kayaba forks felt gooey and overdamped — push them down at a standstill and they came back so slowly it was almost impossible to see them moving — but at speed they were stiff, yet with enough initial suppleness to keep the front tyre in contact with ratty roads.

The heaviness of the damping blurred the feedback coming from the front, and even managed to dull the sensation of letting loose the new six-pot, never-fade, very-trendy calipers on unchanged 310mm discs. Stopping power was massive — two relaxed fingers were easily enough to have you clenching your entire body in an attempt to stay tank side of the bars - but it felt like the GSX-R's fork oil was absorbing more information than the rider's brain.

At the rear it was a similar story. Heavy damping held the bike steady yet never got too harsh for the rider's bot.

Long, last, wavy corners sometimes got the 11 swaying in the sort of fore-aft motion which makes small children car sick, but for childish GSX-R riders it was always exciting rather than scary.

It tipped in deceptively rapidly, the sharp head geometry balancing the bulk, responding smoothly to pressure through the inside peg but. as you might imagine of a bike weighing over 560lb wet, the GSX-R swooped rather than snapped into turns. You never thought you were riding a ZXR400, but at a pinch you could be on a GSX-R750 with a sack of spuds bungeed on the pillion.

What the geometry and suspension could not hide was that the new 11 is a fat bastard - just 41b lighter than the porky ZZ-R1100. The lowered centre of gravity and the awesome power of the derestricted engine manage to mask this most of the time, but get to a tight, nadgery section of bends and you'll start puffing and wheezing and worrying.

No matter how good the surface, country lanes are not enjoyable (study the photos carefully and you can see the rider's beads of cold sweat). In slow turns the GSX-R's balancing act between podge and sharp steering was harder for it to maintain and it felt like a 400bhp racing truck let loose on a go-cart circuit. The front-end plopped the bike down going into slow turns and although it was simplicity to pick it up on the throttle, the 11 felt uneasy about the process (especially with a full tank of fuel, when it plopped like a stone).

As for slamming it over from left knee to right as you hammer through the twisties, the best place to start is the multi-gym, because the weight that felt as though it was centred between your ankles going through fast sweepers, mysteriously moved into your lap whenever you needed to change direction fast. GSX-R riders who want to hustle must have derestricted biceps.

Combined with a sporty riding position which hasn't changed much from last year's (the clip-ons are now above the top yoke, but the seat's higher too), the 11 's high and medium speed handling leaves you in no doubt you are riding the mother of all sports bikes rather than the mother of all tourers that's taken handling lessons. In other words the GSX-R is no ZZ-R. It's sharper, harder and uncompromised by touring pretentions.

At first it seems the GSX-R has accidentally gained touring attributes: the goldfish bowl screen keeps all but head and shoulders dry; the saddle is wide and comfortable; above 80mph there's very little weight on your wrists; the mirrors are excellent, and there's the world's beefiest grabrail bolted to the back.

But after an hour in the saddle, things go downhill: the high pegs take their toll on your legs which now ache, and your brain hurts from trying to read a speedo that has miniscule numbers which blurr as you approach 100mph (at night the numbers glow blue and it's like trying to read a clock radio in an earthquake).

So when the new fuel warning light comes on at around 115 miles it is very tempting to forget about the 20 miles or so before reserve (and the other 30 after that) and make a cowardly dive for the nearest garage. You then find out from an aching pillion that the grabrail's great, the seat is comfy, but because they're perched so high up they feel like a dog with its head stuck out of a car window.

Not so many complaints round town though. With a steering lock that'll see off a few trailies and its new found low centre of gravity, the big 11 is a surprisingly handy city dweller.  The clutch is heavy and sometimes snatchy pulling away in first, and your wrists suffer after 15 minutes in traffic, but what the hell, this is nutter bike, not a scooter.

The GSX-R wasn't designed to tour or have pillions or pop down to the papershop, it was meant to blow your mind down straights and get your knee down round corners.  Derestricted, the new one does both of these miles better than any of it's predecessors, so it's a success and is going to sell thousands, right?  Er, well probably not.

It's not that there's anything that out - GSX-R11s the new GSX-11 - Yamaha's EXUP is too perfect and hasn't go the racy death or glory image, and Kawasaki's ZZ-R11 is a poofy tourer by comparison - it's just that there can't be many people whose need for awesome horsepower is matched by a willingness to donate vast sums of money to insurance companies when there's such an obvious alternative machine.

That bike has the same race-bred image as the GSX-R1100, equally fantastic suspension and even hotter handling, a prize motor (though without the 11's mega-power) and much cheaper insurance.  It is the GSX-R750.  The new 1100 is a superb motorcycle, but despite what's happened in Brussels, it could still be that in the line.

SUZUKI STUCK to its oil-and-air-cooled guns for seven years, but has finally succumbed to water-cooling. The new GSX-R1100WP still has oil jets cooling the underside of pistons, but apart from that, SACS (Suzuki Advanced Cooling System) is dead.

It wasn't just fashion that dictated the switch. Water absorbs heat 2.5 times better than oil, so engine temperatures are kept more stable at high rpm, compression can be raised (from 10:1 to 11.2:1 in the WP's case), combustion efficiency improved and power increased.

Stable running temperatures mean tolerances can be reduced, so, in theory, reliability should be improved too.

In place of the oil-cooler is a huge Nippon Denso curved, radial-flow radiator, which takes heat from the cylinder and head twice as efficiently as the old system. Summer traffic queues are dealt with by a fan behind the radiator. Below that is -wait for it - a water-cooled oil-cooler to cool the engine oil.

The new 1100 engine is barely any larger than the 750 motor. Capacity comes down from 1127cc to 1074, with the stroke being taken up 1mm to 60mm and the bore down 2.5mm to 75.5mm. Narrower bores help slim the engine, as does a 51.5mm shorter crank and 38mm shorter camshafts, but more space-saving gains come from shuffling bits about.

Prime mover is the starter clutch which goes behind the cylinders instead of sticking out the side, making the 1100 engine the same width as its 750cc baby brother. The '93 cylinder head is a breathtaking 61mm narrower than last year's. The engine's only 15mm taller than the 750 s too.

Power gains don't just come from the hike in compression. Valves are bigger (up 2.5mm on intake, 2mm on exhaust), and con-rods and pistons are lighter. Piston weight-saving is helped by the reduction in bore, but lighter con-rods have been achieved purely by design - guess who got a finite element analysis programme for their Megadrive this Christmas.

Sadly for home mechanics, valves are now worked by bucket and shims rather than the rockers of yesteryear. This means less reciprocating mass, but increased hassle adjusting the valve clearances, as the camshafts have to come out every 7500 miles to get at the shims.

As usual with a revamped bike, the path between airbox and combustion chamber is straighter and smoother than last year's.

CHASSIS

THE CHASSIS now seems to incorporate almost every type of metal fabrication method on the planet: double-cradle frame rails are extruded aluminium alloy, though now in a pentagon-shape rather the box-shape of last year; swing-arm pivot is forged; steering head is cast; swing-arm is pressed.

Or rather the right-hand swing-arm is pressed. It's a fancy banana-type arm which on the 750 (and the RGV250) was claimed to let the exhaust get further away from the ground to improve clearance. Fair enough, but the 1100 has another exhaust round the other side and that's got a normal box-section arm.

And looking at the level of both arms, the normal one seems no lower or more obstructive than the flashy one. Strange. Maybe there's a pile of pressed swing-arms that needs using up.

Because the engine has slimmed, Suzuki was able to lower it in the chassis by 20mm without compromising ground clearance. The GSX-R's centre of gravity has lowered correspondingly which amongst other things makes town dawdling a doddle.

To maintain GSX-R tradition, Suzuki engineers had to give you over three zillion ways to make the new 1100 handle very badly. This they seem to have done. At the front there are 15 clicks of rebound, 12 of compression and a hugely twiddleable rebound to play with. At the rear there are turns and turns of compression, rebound and preload.

But all is not as it seems. Because the basic geometry of the bike is so much nearer the mark than ever, pratting about with suspension settings can't land you in the mess (or hedge) it could with earlier models.

Stock settings do not need much - if any -fiddling.

Suzuki obviously wasn't confident it had got it completely right, as there's a non-adjustable steering damper hidden under the bottom yoke.