Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RACER TEST 00 0\ 0\ . ....... 00 C'l l-< (l) , .g ...... U o 10 Showa in World Superbike, aft er starting out wi th Kayaba in 1996. "Ch a ng in g to Dunlop tires wa s a really positive step in bringin g the bike on ," said Harris, "and they've helped us u nstintingly, so tha t we have a rea lly good choice of rub ber tha t always seems to suit both our rid ers, who have differen t tas tes and styles . But Showa has also don e a real good job for us this season, coming up with a lot of revis ions on the rear s hock and new int ernal s fo r th e fork tha t have made it more compliant, and facilitated setup for diffe rent tracks. We in tum hav e wo rked hard on different suspens ion lin ks and swi nga rm an gles , and the resu lt is th at this year the whole package finally came toge ther. In '97, there were a couple of tim es wh en it d id s o, but not consis ten tly, wher eas now, th is ye a r, w e' ve go t a much more bal anced mot orcycle, with good front and rear sus pension, good attitude in the turns, bette r stability on the brakes and a better front contac t feel, as well as tires that frankly suit the bike a whole lot better." Okay - so take so me thin g like, say, the real imp roveme nt in stability un de r brakin g : H o w d id the H arris te a m resolve that part icular problem? "We worked on altering the attitude of th e b ik e in fron t a n d rear ride heights," says Harris, "so therefore, by d efi nition , th e w eight d is trib u tion as well as w eight tran sfer u nd er braking, and also va ry ing th e su spens ion /li nk, plus the swing arm an gle via adjustment of the swingarm-pivot locati on . This all made a drama tic di fference in reducing the amount of pitching back and forth on the brakes, which is what was unsettling the bike. Of course, this all take s a lot of tim e and pa tience, as well as constant testin g, but that' s wh ere our wint er test progr am paid a rea l di vidend, so th at Peter was able to be fastest in practice for th e fir st race of th e seaso n at Phillip Island ; under the old pre-Superpole system , he'd have had pole position, which wou ld have been a first for Suzuki. But w hil e we had a littl e dip after th at mainly because of weather, because Dunlop knew they still had work to do on their wets, so Albacete and Nurburgring were a problem for us - we came back at Misano and ha ve been right up front ever since, thanks to a lot of hard work by both team and riders." Improvin g a bike' s bala nc e und er braking so that it's mor e stab le on turnin is especially critical on a mot orcycle on which maintaining corner spee d is as crucia l as it is on the Suzuki. Why so? Well, as imp rove d as the setu p and-handlin g of th e GSX-R d efi nitely ar e thi s season compa red to last season, there 's still a missin g link in ge tting the bike on equal terms' with the best of the rest, and thats t h e z a p o u t of turns th at I rema rked wa s missing wh en I rod e the bike last year. The power delivery is still too nice, too progressive and too u sable, whereas what th e Suzuki needs is th e kind of ex p los iv e mid range power that i ts Honda (and to a lesser ex tent Ducati) rivals al ready had in 1997, a nd have built on for th is season. Rid ing Akira Yanagawa's wo rks Kawasaki later that sa m e d a y a t Assen und erlin ed what rem a in s a probl em area fo r Suz uki , because th e green meanie has becom e jus t tha t in 1998, with a fierce punch ou t of turns that, it is tru e, has bro ught hand lin g p roblems in-its wa ke, but w hich ne vertheless ha s prev en ted th e so rt of handicap fro m wh ich th e Suzu ki was still suffering, a fac t th at w a s clearl y ex p osed a t th e second race in Aus tria jus t a week befor eh and . Ther e, Whitham (Left ) While t he p owerplant has a smooth and progressive build t o it s power, it still lacks th e explosive mi d ran ge necessary t o be a contender. (Above) James Whitham 's office: Wh itham has his shift light set at 14 ,200, just 300 rpm before the re v limiter ki cks in. had mad e a br illian t star t, only to find himself pegged b a ck by Yanaga wa 's Kawa sak i, Slight's Hon da and the trio of works Dukes. The two firs t-gear corners that s tart the At-Ring lap , one at either end of the lon g uphill str aight, said it all: Each lap , you could see the Honda jumping away out of bo th turns, the Ducatis following su it, the Ka wasak i nea rly on the pa ce (bu t spinni ng the back wheel as it di d so; more w ork needed th er e) - bu t th e Suzuki losing the vita l 10 ya rds or mo re aga inst the others that left it struggling to keep .up over a full lap, even thoug h in faster turns (suc h a s th e d ownhill swe epers that follow ed ) and on ou trigh t top speed , the GSX- R pro ved it wa s completely on the pa ce. . My ride at Assen confirmed this: Ge t on th e power e xiti n g th e ch ica ne or National Curve, and the engine picks up sp eed fast, but not explos ively. Ther e is lot s of grip from those grea t Dunlops, nice d rive on the angle fromthe wellset-up sus pension - bu t no ad ded za p. Hmmrn. Can I have m y money back? I mean , her e I wa s expecti ng to ge t frightene d - and it' s all too nice and controllable. No wo nd er Whith am so obvious ly ha s to rid e the wh eels off the thing to keep up with the rest exiting corn ers, in turn making the. suspen sion se tu p and tire choice critical. It' s .just as we ll tha t Dun lop a p p a re n tly h as a ben chm ark front tire that th e team uses for every race on both bikes to max out momentu m. I must get one for my Supermono... What thi s means is that the Suzuki, just as i t was last year, is still too mu ch like a tuned-up street bike to be a winn er a t World Superbike . Oka y, very tuned-up, as an output of 158 bhp a t 13,800 rp m on the notoriously s tingy Harris d yn o confirms . But s till , th e power d elivery is too progressive and li near to be trul y competitive at this level. It drives cleanly out of the Asse n chicane from 8000 rpm upward - carbu ret ion is ou ts tan d ing - building 'pow er smooth ly and strongly to peak power, and beyond. Alone among top -level World Su per bike ride rs, Whitham uses a street shifting pattern, with a change-u p light on the dash that flash es at 14,200 rp m, giving him a nan osecond to pull on the lever wi th his toe before the 14,500-rpm limiter. I ha ve to ad mit that flat- shifting wide open on a road -pattern racer takes a little getting used to - it's not like just stamping on the peda l with your size lOs. But eventually I go t th e hang of it , and I was impressed with the crispness of the shift.ing, as well as the choice of ratios. Un like other current superbikes,' the Suz uki a llows intern a l ratio s to be altere d .w it hou t s p li tt ing th e en gine thou gh yo u d o hav e to rem ove it fro m th e chassis to access th e clu ster. Still , . this makes getting the gear rati os right' for eac h cir cuit much easier, which is another ind ication of how single-minded ly Su zuki concocted thi s mo torcycle for su perbike suc cess. But the fact is tha t, until the miss ing midran ge za p is found , tru e su ccess at th e World Su perbike level will be elu sive . Suz uki's eng ine R&D for this seaso n inclu ded new cams ha fts, pi ston s and a differen t spec of titanium exhaus t system, but no great leap forward , for an eng ine th at seemed ver y m uch th e same as the 1997 bike. There may have b ee n some refi nem ent in thrott le resp onse, as well as a slight bit of extra kick aro und 11,000 rpm, when eng ine speed picks up a little more quickly. But this pres u mably means the rid ers h ave to keep th e bike revving high all th e time (beca use the power is so progre ssive), if th ey wa n t competitive horse'power - agai n making it a stress ful ride, which the now-forgiving handling goes some way to redressing. Still , yo u have to ask yourse lf why Su zuki isn't running th e fuel- in jec ted engine, which presumab ly can be mapped in such a way as to deliver tha t punch (if no t too much of it, as Duca ti found las t year). Co u ld it be that in deciding to devel op their own EFI sys te m from scratch rather than plugging in to an established se tu p like Nippondenso's - or Weber /Marelli's - Suzuki may have initially bitten off more than it can chew , and had to wo rk extra hard on maki ng th e system work better than carbs in every set of circumstances? But Ducati wen t through all that a decad e ago and came out World Champions . 1 reckon Suzuki can do so, too, if the EFI will only deliver the missing link they need to move from being contenders to cham pions. But that ' s all in the fu ture, and it is now the res po nsi bility of ano ther team in 1999, when Belgium's Team Alstare takes over the superbike reig ns. By turning th e GSX-R600 into a Su persport World Ch ampion , Francis Batta's team has some po tent credentials to try to do the same wi th the big ger bike - especialIy if they can u se their Co ro na Beer pesos to sign up a sup erstar rider such as Foga rty or Corser . Ho pefu lly, the Ha rr is team can find a way to remain involved in Wor ld Superbike with Suzuki, because it has refin ed the GSX-R750 into a reall y nice, ba lanced package that wa s fra nkl y en joyable and forgiving to r id e a t Ass en - much more so that I expected it to be. F.or while there ar e those w ho decry the efforts of Whitham and Goddard this season, and insist the Suzuki wou ld have fulfilled its promise on p aper b y now with a prov en top r ider in th e hot s ea t, I' m n o t one of them. These tw o rid ers - an d especially Whitham, w ho is now one of the most experie nced of World Su p erbike con tenders - did a prett y good job this seaso n on a bike th at , for all the d efinite improvement in handling and pois e that the Harris team managed to effect on it this se ason , still has a n Achilles' heel that'Su zuki must attend to in order for it to be a race winner. So near - and yet so far. Maybe 1999 will b e th e yea r tha t the bike we a ll think can do better - will. l '~ Suzuki GSX-R750 Superbike Specifications Engine Liquid-cooled DO HC 16·valve tran sverse in-line fo ur-cylinder four-stroke with offs et chain camshaft drive B ore x stroke 72 x 46mm Displacement 749cc Output 158 bhp @ 13,800 rpm (at rear wheeD Compression ratio 13.0 :1 Carburetion . ,(4) 42mm Mikuni R at-slides Ignition '. .Suzuki Racing CDI / • 12·volt batt ery Gearbox .. _. ...6-speed close-ratio extractable Clutch Multi piete dry siipper-type Chassis _ .Aluminum twi n-spar Suspension Front .. . : ..... 47mm Showa inve rted telescopic forks Rear , . . . , . .. .Alumi num swingarm wI .rising-rate linkage and Showa shock Rake/trail 24 Q /102mm Wheelbase 54 .9 in. Weigh t _.. _ 356.4 Ibs.. no fuel W ei gh t distrib ut io n, f r ont/r ear _. .52/ 48% Brakes _D ual 320mm Brembo Front cast-stainless discs w/ four-pisto n Brembo calipers Rear Single 220 mm Tokico steel disc w/ two-piston Tokico caiiper Wheels/tires Front ..... 120/7 5R 17 Du nlop KR 106 radial siick on 3.50-in.-wide M archesini w heel Rear . . .. .195/55R420 Du nlop KR 133 radial siick on 6.00-in.-wide M archesini wheel Top speed _ 189 mph Y ear of construction _ 1998 Owner _ Suzuki M otor Co . Hamamatsu. Japan

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