This page is intended to give advice to owners of gsxr's, in particular the one above, fairing removed so ya can see what makes it tick,most of the tips can be used on other bikes as well.

It is also very advisable to get a workshop manual, not one of the official pay through the nose & still not know how to change a spark plug type manual that the manufacturers try to pawn off to us. While there great at telling you all the exact specs. Of all parts of the bike they don't tell you how to fix it & they assume you have a workshop full of special tool part #blah,blah,blah when most of us probley don't have workshops never mind all there special tools.Get a Haynes or Clymer manual, check the manual suits the bike, particularly if the bike is an import as the bike specs' differ around the world (greatly I discovered).

I live in Ireland & bought a Japanese import gsxr750H, see pic above, it's a 1988 model, I bought it in 1993 I have it five years now & it always been my only source of transport, I use it for work 'bout 200KM a week and 'bout another 100-150KM in leisure time & the odd rally, very odd these days since I got married with kids syndrome, there was 18,000KM on the clock when I got it there's 78,000KM on it now(July '98) and its never left me stranded(yet) 'sept for once when I lost my keys, I only had it about 1 month & hadn't got a spare set cut yet, visions of new ignition,fuel tank cap,saddle lock & steering lock plus all the hassles that went with it scared me & I'm a hardy lad & don't scare easily.

Shocks are prone to going ka-put the original lasted till 38,000km when I replaced it with a secondhand one of a 1987 model so needless to say it only lasted 1,500km then it went AWOL, it was then replaced with a new Quadrant rebuildable shock both shocks which I brought in from England, mailing them was very slow aswell, both times I had to wait about 2-3 weeks to be sent about 300 miles as the crow flies with a bit of water too, what gives mister postie???. The Quadrant lasted till 62,000km when it blew, no problem I thought to myself, I was smart this time & bought a rebuildable one, I'll just whip it off and get someone to service it for me, yeah right, fuck that idea after a few dozen phone calls no one wanted to know me, there was one crowd that dealt only motocrosser & they offered to look at it if there tools fitted & even then then weren't sure if they could do anything so I said fuck it get another new one so after a bit of investigating I decided upon a Hagon, I handed over my deposit & waited the required 5 weeks for a package to be sent from England at last it arrived I bounced in(due to no damping,again) to collect the shinny new bouncy spring & raced home, that's a figure of speech for the benefit of any cops reading this, & fitted it with haste,MUCHO SMILO MEO.

THE ENGINE

The engine's as bullet proof as you'll get so long as you regularly service it, even then, I've abused & thrashed mine to within an inch of its life and it comes back for more. The only major engine work I've had to do was at 51,500KM due to my own carelessness when I tightened the drive chain to much on a stretched part & fucked up the gearbox drive shaft bearing, luckily that was all it could have been a lot worse. Not an expensive job but the engine has to come out of the frame to allow a bottom end strip & the parts need to ordered so allow yourself the standard 1-2 months wait for them.Personally myself, I don't need the hassle but what can ya do, out with the tool box & pray for a few nice dry days, things could be worse you could have a water-cooled V-4 squeezed into a frame without the room too change the plugs without taking the tank, the fairing, the tailpiece, the front wheel & half the engine off first 'cause everything is bolted to everything else. That's one thing I can say for the GSXR it's shit handy to work on 'cause there's lots of room. If the choice presented itself to me I would seriously consider getting another one, even the same model, it's been completely reliable over the last five years the only problems have been the usual consumable stuff like dead battery, rear shock, suspension & headstock bearings, chains and sprockets, tires & the usual 3k-4k service intervals.

The engine is blessed with an oil/air cooling system, the cons of this system being it's noisy not having a water jacket to absorb all the engine noises but it does mean you can hear any problems that bit sooner than if they were muffled other advantages include direct cooling to parts of the engine that water would never get near like the inside of the piston etc..

Another tip, while I think of it, dump the original h/t coils, there crap, and replace them with dynacoils or something similar, you can do pretty much the same for the carbs, there a pain in the ass for slow driving around town and the likes, lots of slipping the clutch if the tacho drops below 3,000rpm plus, more importantly, ya get more power. I fitted a laser exhaust pipe which greatly improved performance below 3000rpm and also gave it a bit more kick from 7000rpm up and it sounded pretty good as well!

Replace them with ones off a recent model, while on the subject of the carbs, when your servicing them or have them off for any reason the throttle cable is easier removed and replaced with the carbs disconnected from the airbox and inlet stubs also remove the rubber ducts between the carb and the airbox first. Remove the wiring loom from behind the back left-hand side where the airbox goes out the side of the frame and you can push the airbox back about another inch, a very valuable inch you'll find. When replacing the carbs put the rubbers from the airbox in boiling water to soften them up this will speed things up no end and don't forget to replace the throttle cables before you replace the carbs. Also fit the engine side of the carbs. First, then the hot inlet rubbers you've just been cooking from the airbox side, they should go through the holes in the airbox and around the carbs. Without to much trouble if there hot enough.

A quick word on tires.... SPLASH OUT! it's well worth it for the confidence they install in you. I personally at first used Metzelers:Rear ME1 comp K 150/70 Front ME33 laser 110/80, a great set of tires but a bit expensive and they don't last very long front:5,500 miles, rear:3,000 miles.

Avon AM23 rear and an AM22 front a great equivalent for a little less spondolics, 'bout the same mileage.

Avon super venom also works well on the back with an AM22 on the front still saving you even more money and better mileage but never compromise on the front tire just think of the pressures on the gripping surface of the front tire under heavy braking in the wet, your gonna need all the grip you can get and living in Ireland I'm we'll aquatinted to wet slippy surfaces.

A Scott oiler for lubricating the chain was also fitted fairly early on, a well worth while investment, the amount of money it saved me on chains & sprockets was quite substantial getting somewhere between 2-3 times the chain life, always use heavy duty O-ring chains.

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