Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Sparks were flying on the race track, but the 546-pound Hayabusa aquitted itself well. (Above) Supple, controlled suspension, a comfortable riding position and more than 170 hp - what else do you want? (Right) Our route sheet on the street ride said, "Respect the speed limits." Those of the bike, or those of Spain? We wondered, momentarily, and chose the former. tion and catalytic converters, though bikes coming to the States won't have the converters, just the air pump. It seemed odd that Suzuki chose to introduce such a clearly street-oriented bike on the race track, and on the stock Bridgestones, no less. But the goal was to produce a machine not only capable of extremely high speed, but one that also had a "strong sportbike character." So it was hello, Catalunya. It was no mistake, however, that such a fast track was chosen, and one with a front straightaway that is a little over sixtenths of a mile long, with a pretty fa t right-hander that sets up your speed run nicely. The first thing you notice leaving the pit area is the clutch. Under normal loads it is quite nice, but lay on the juice for a hard launch and it becomes difficnit to manage. The 150mm, 1a-frictionplate clutch was designed with a backtorque limiter (often called a slipper clutch) that partially disengages itself on overrun to keep the rear wheel from hopping when downshifting and braking for a comer. But this one also works in the oppo ite direction, squeezing the plates tighter under heavy acceleration loads, allowing the use of lighter clutch springs, which in turn decreases effort at the lever' (25 percent less effort, according to Suzuki). Unfortunately, this made for unpredictable behavior on hard launches, as the clutch lays on a bit more squeeze than your left hand ordered, then revs drop as the clutch grabs, the wheel comes up, you act to compensate by pulling the lever in, the wheel goes down, the revs go up, you let the lever back out, .the clutch grabs... and so it goes. The slipper part of the equation, however, was very nice indeed as you banged your downshifts, hard on the brakes setting up for the forthcoming corner with no rear-wheel hop whatsoever to spoil your entrance. And the rear' wheel does get light, thanks to th se brakes. The six-piston calipers feature aluminum pistons that clamp on 320mm rotors. Lap after lap of hauling in a 546-pound (wet, full gas) motorcycle - with 205 pounds of rider in the saddle to boot - from a real 165 mph on the front straight pretty much left them unfazed. The lever was a little soft and inconsistent under this stress, but outright power never suffered. Chassis stability was also quite good under braking, though the 43mm, fully adjustable inverted fork had some trouble dealing with the ripples in the tarmac made by car races at the circuit, not tracking over the bumps as well as we would have liked. The problem was partially alleviated with the addition of spring preload and more rebound damping, changes we had originally made to help the bike hold its line better in bumpy corners. Other than this, there is little to complain about with regard to suspension, and we wouldn't expect anything less' from the makers of the GSX-R. You definitely feel the mass of the Hayabusa as you turn your first laps aboard it, though the impression of size diminishes with time. Still, this·is a bike you lay smoothly into corners, trying your best not to be abrupt. The chassis geometry is pretty aggressive - 24.2 degrees of rake and 98mm - making turn-in admirably quick. With all this power on tap, corner exits were best executed with judicious use of the throttle served up only with the bike riding on the fatter portion of the rear tire. The front end invariably got light - even with the longish 58.5-inch wheelbase - but thanks likely to the steering damper hidden beneath the fairing, headshake wasn't an issue. Ground clearance, however, was an issue at the track, with first the peg feelers touching down, then fairing lowers. For the really fast guys, even the left-side engine cover found the earth. But these were some extreme lean angles, and on the street ride the following day - a beautifully twisty and smooth ribbon of tarmac joining LJoret de Mar and Tossa de Mar on the Mediterranean Co ta Brava - a solid streetgoing pace saw nothing touch down. Indeed the handling was inspiring on the road ride. The torquey engine meant you could leave the shifter alone and concentrate on turning what is really a very big-feeling but nimble motorcycle. The front end dished up lots of confidence about its relationship with the road and encouraged you to pick up the pace. But the real rush came on the open road, where we could seek the edge of the envelope and explore what this piece of corporate egomania was capable of. It is capable of a lot. Disregarding the overopfimistic speedometer readings (one rider said he saw 325 kph, or 201.5 mph, on the clock), based on gearing, our bike went at least 183 mph, or redlined in fifth gear. And there is a gear to go, which the bike seems able to pull. All this on a public road with hills and big, arcing turns, breezes blowing, our big jackets flapping in tl1e wind, riding not quite fully tucked just so we could see a little better - all the things that aren't controlled two-way passes at a radar gun on straight, flat road with a rider in leathers and fully tucked in. We can't wait to get a test bike... Stability at these super speeds was impressive, even through the turns, which unless you are going that fast wouldn't seem like turns at all. There were a lot of questions asked about the shape of the Hayabusa GSX1300R when it was first shown to the public at last -years Intermot Show in Munich. Like, "What's that bike been eating?" and "That swelling is terrible, did somebody kick its ass?" But most often, it seemed, people just wanted to know, "What was Suzuki thinking?" Suzuki was thinking about going fast. Very, very fast. . For at the very beginning there were certain hard points established in the wind tunnel that set the course for the shape that you see here on these pages, the shape you will see on the road albeit briefly, if you don't happen to be riding one also. And while aerodynamics are slightly less interesting than tireshredding, scenery-warping horsepower, the story of slicing through the atmosphere with the least resistance and disturbance is actually more significant to the Hayabusa's top speed than its ability to smash your eyeballs with acceleration. First, it is useful to point out, as Suzuki did, that the motorcycle is less than ideal in terms of trying to establish a clean aerodynamic profile - there are too many voids, not the least of which are the ones between the rider and machine. To minimize these voids, the shape of the GSXl300R was manipulat- ed "in millimeter increments," says Suzuki, to the point at which maxin1um efficiency could be practically maintained in balance with rider comfort. The sloping, humplike tailsection we first saw on the GSX-R750 is therefore exaggerated to try to finish off the arcing line started with the fairing and windscreen and continued by the rider's helmet and back. The handlebars and footpegs, too, were placed in such a way as to keep the protru ion of the rider's body parts into the slipstream to a minimum, but with the same eye toward his comfort. The unusual shape of the headlight cluster (projector high beam on the bottom, H7 low beam on top) is a result of the desire to place the SRAD ram-air intakes as close to th centerline as possible, and hence neare t the area of greatest pressure. While the sleekest shape would be obtained by mounting the turn signal flush with the fairing sides, they protrude, both to make them more visible and to act as air scoops for the ram-air intakes. Even the mirrors were shaped with peed in mind. The air outlets for the more efficient radiator and oil cooler were made as narrow as po sible and placed as close to the leading edge of the fa iring as practical, and the front fender slopes well down on the front wheel, as well as covering the fork tubes. Even under the protruding nose, a cover was placed to help reduce lift generated by the long, sloping nose. In practical terms, the speeds we attained were indeed very high and protection from the fairing both fully tucked on the race track and during some of the more normal speeds on our street ride was quite good. There is even a decent amount of storage under the rear cowling. The end of the trip was marked by simple disbelief. Disbelief that a street motorcycle running on pump gas is capable of uch performance, and disbelief that we actually sampled it in traffic, steel guardrails flying past at better than 180 mph, our helmet's chinbar smashed against our faces. Disbelief that for $10,499, you can walk into a Suzuki dealership sometime in March and buy this motorcycle. Amazing. eM 15

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