Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~·~.l'" ". .Suzuki GSX1300R Hayabusa By Mark Hoyer Photos by Paul Carruthers and Hoyer T ,..: 18 I¥s was supposed to be a comparison test. Turns out there isn't one. In terms of brute power and speed, the GSX1300R rips the nuts off of every other production bike in the world. . One always likes to be a bit cautious about making journalistic pronouncements after a riding press introduction for a new motorcycle. But it was pretty easy after riding the GSX1300R in Spain to know that this was a great leap forward. Yes, there's no doubt this thing leaps forward, greatly. And now we know, in raw numbers, why this thing scared us so terribly. It's as stock as your dad's Buick (and probably has more torque!), runs on 87octane fuel, makes 158.9 hp and goes 190.3 mph. Yours for only ten-five. Yikes. Yep, docile as a Iamb until you whip its ass... When we first decided to head to the high desert with the radar gun, we had intended to include the Kawasaki ZX-ll and Honda CBRII00XX. Turns out Kawasaki didn't want to let one of its bikes out to play, no doubt preferring to play its top-speed mega-horsepower card with the upcoming ZX-12, and so forcing uS to rely on the published 176mph top speed recorded after the bike's introduction. Then, after a couple of pulls on the White Brothers R&D Model 200 Dynojet dyno, on which the new fuel-injected CBRllOOXX showed a 25hp deficit to the l300R, we had no choice but to leave the Blackbird in the roost. The Hayabusa has turned the CBR1100XX into a "nice bike." If you're looking for brute power, it's bye-bye Blackbird. (I formally apologize for that last phrase.) There is so much power that there is a certain insouciance about riding around on this bike in normal use. It's odd. Riding the 1300R isn't necessarily more "fun" than riding, say, a 600, or any other motorcycle for that matter, but it is rather more intense.. And though our time with the Hayabusa on American soil was brief (just eight days), that's definitely what it turned out to be: intense. But it was also easy. This easiness starts with starting. The fuel-injection system func'tions in a place that is ahead of the other systems Suzuki has brought to market, running nearly flawlessly from cold starting all the way to a smoking-hot 190 mph. The only flaw is in its off/on throttle response. The fractional delay in engine response is only a minor annoyance on the street, even during aggressive backroads riding, but it hurts the bike on the track, where precise response at small throttle openings is so important when you are trying to settle down a fullyleaned-over 540-pound bike midcorner. It is compounded by the fact that the 1300R has SO much power on tap, even at low revs. How much? The Hayabusa's 1298cc in-line four knocks out a remarkable' 70 ft.-lbs. at just 3000 rpm aJ\d 94 ft.-Ibs. at 6000 rpm (the 998cc Yamaha Rl, for instance has a peak torque figure of 75.8 ft.-lbs. at arouJ\d 8500 revs). The l3ooR's peak number is an earth-wrinkl.iJ:Ig 98.6 ft.-lbs. at 7000. With that much twist on tap, we sure would like it to come in a little smoother, because the overall character of the torque curve is excellent it's at least as broad as Bill Clinton's definition of not having sexual relations. Again, it wasn't a big dei'l on the (Top) There you have it: 190.2 mph. We had a beller run (190.3), but one of our crack testers bumped the trigger. Alrthe top-speed runs were within 1.1 mph of each other. (Above) Although iI's difficullto get over how incredibly the Hayabusa's engine performs, the chassis is fUlly up to the task of harnessing. all that power. street, either cutting through traffic or tearing up the side of a mountain. Once you waited your fraction of a second for the engine to acknowledge your request for acceleration, all was pure madness and bliss, in a blurry kinda way. The Hayabusa is total traffic superiority. So whether it's warping from comer to corner or blasting through holes ID ll:affic,

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