Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.RIDING·IMPRESSION . 1996 SuzukiGSXR750·T By Paul Carruthers Photos by Tom Riles aster, lighter, sma ller. Easy in theory, difficult in execution. N o t so , a p pare n tly , fo r th e f. Su zuki engineers w ho develope d the 1996 Su zuki GSXR750-T. Somehow they pu lle d it off, giving sportbi ke en th usiasts th e ligh test, smallest a nd pe rha ps fas te st 75 0cc cclass m ot o rcycle available. And, believe it or n ot, at $8999 it ' s not eve n th e most expensive 750cc s po rtbike on th e market. But it m a y ve ry we ll en d up being th e best. While the real test ma y hav e taken pla ce a week or so ea rlier when Team . Suzuki rid ers Pascal Picotte and Aaron Yates took the new GSXR750 through a shake d ow n run a t lap-record speeds around Daytona International Speedway, a handful of U.S., Canadian and A u stralian jou rna lists w ere gi ven a crack at the " all new" bike at Homestead, 30 minutes or so south of Miami, Florida. Fittingly, Hom estead was also U new." all 14 Ah , " all ne w " - it' s a p hrase that often tim es rings u n true. Mo to rcycles co ns truc te d from leftover p a rts in a manufacturer s' wa rehouse ofte n brin g ou t s ho u ts of "all new" fro m we llreh ear sed publ ic rela tions person nel. Ditto for a revamped model with a few minor changes. But for the 1996 Suzuki GSXR750, "all new " works perfectly well. Wit h developmen t o n the la test GSXR750 starting way back in 1993, Suzuki engineers lo ok ed at their m ost successfu l racing machine and d ecided to copy it. Th at bik e was Kevin Schwantz 's RGV500 - a two-stroke 500cc Grand Prix ra cer , purebred to win a 500cc World Championship. Suzuki wa nted to build .. "a four- stroke RGV." To d o so th ey h ad to pull off the impossible. They had to go smaller, with less weight - whil e adding power. Simple,huh? Th e fir st o f the GS XR750s wa s . released in 1985 and it weigh ed in at close to 394 p ound s . Sin ce then th e GSXR has und e rgon e m o re weight changes than Op rah . By 1988, the GSXR h ad ball oon ed to nearly 430 pounds, and it got wor se. In 1992 th e 750 had gorge d itself to nearly 460 pounds. The weigh t ca m e dow n in 199 4 to 438 pound s and now the p rocess is complete - the 1996 model we ighs in at just 394 pounds. A com ple te 360-degree turnarou nd to wh ere it all began. Oh, but tha t 1985 m o d e l isn' t close when it comes to the power-to-weigh t ratio of the new model. Indeed , Suzuki appears to have not o nly go ne s ma ller a nd lighter, bu t faster too. Suzuki pulls no punches in reiterating that it was the RGV which inspired the new GSXR. And it' s easy to see. If you compar e ph otos of the two models, one is alm o st a d ead ringer for th e other. POWER SURGE Although it's the new chassis, fairing, et al, that grab your attention when you first focus in on the new GSXR750, don 't th ink for a m inute that what's underneath is the same old GSXR powerplant. Wh en Su zuki says their GSXR is all new, th ey mean it. Still an inline fou r-cylinder powerpl ant, th e Su zuki 750 was made w ith wh at Suzu ki calls the four requirements of a race engi ne: ligh tw eight, compa ct, ce n t r a lized m ass; hi gh p ower a n d . torque with high rev ca pability; hi gh reliability an d d ur ability; and the ability to blend all of tha t w ith a chassis to op tim ize whee lbase, center of grav ity, and frame rigidity. To make the new 750's engine more com pac t an d ligh ter, Suzuki set ou t to reduce the size of the new engine, most notably in the area of the cylinder head . Thi s was also a must because the new GSXRmotor would now hav e to fit into a twin-spar frame, taking the place of the old sty le, ov er-the-top cradle d esign. Thus, the cam chain has been moved from its old center position to its new po sition on th e right sid e of th e head, reducing the number of crankshaft journals from six to five, and in the process reducing crankshaft width. The distance between bore centers was also reduced from the 85-120-85mm of the '95 mod el to 8D-8D-8Omm, and the overall width of the cylinder head was reduced by 3Omm.

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