Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128079
new Yama ha. Yet bv t h e en d of th e season o n th e ultrafas t H o ck enh e im , Cham bon was a ble to more tha n hold his own in the lead ing pack, several times sweepi ng into the lead ahead of the Yama ha briga de and s ingleton Kaw asaki, en ro u te to third place. That more than anything underlined the efforts tha t Als ta re had pu t in to getting the Suzuki back on te r m s by mi d season effo rts that became a p pa rent at Laguna Seca in [uly.. w he n Chambon sco re d a dominan t maiden '99 victorv th at he repea ted in the 'I n ext rou nd a t Bra n ds Hat ch . I The fir st th ing r had to do was figure out a way to fold my body aro u nd a bike built for s o meo ne like Cham b o n , who 's a fu ll 8 i nc hes s horter th an ra m . Fortunately, I've ha d years of practice doing so aboard his fellow pocket roc ket Piro van o's hard ware, so pausin g only to not e that he u ses a stree t- pattern one-down gea rshi ft , I snuggled down behind the very broadseeming fairing , aboard the d e ep ly pad d ed sea t w ith a th ick back pad . Thumb the electric sta rt and you d iscover th e Arrow exhaust fitted to the Corona Suzuki (w ith 1/4 and 2 / 3 ba lance pipes b etw een th e head er pipes ) not on Iv has a sh rill shriek remin iscen t of a I960s four-cvli nder GP racer, bu t it's also one of th e areas the team has worked hardes t o n, according to ch ief mech anic Did ier Migeotte. "We ra n literall y h un d red s of tests on ou r 0"" dy no as well as Arrow's," says Mi geotte . "Not o nl y lo o king fo r m ore po we r an d a clea ner delivery, bu t also to test various combina tio ns of eng ine and carburetor sett ings, such as diffe re nt carb ureto r springs, to cure vibra tion in the throt tl e t h at affe cts the o pe n ing a'ction, and so the picku p . Before Lagurta Seca we mad e a breakthrough which combined more top-end speed w ith better accelera tion and m idrange - before we had o ne o r th e o ther, ne ve r b oth. Th a t was achi ev ed th ro u g h our own design of cam profile, revised ca m tim ing, a new ignition map, altered carburetion and a new Arrow exha u st design. It was really sa tisfyi ng when Cha m bo n won the next two races as a result of all this ha rd wor k, and r beli eve it was this that set us up for the cham pions hip victory. C'etait super." It ' s a m ark of how closelv Su zuki w orks with their Bel gi an a ffi1ia te tha t th e new Alstare cams were d eveloped using unfinished blanks sup plied by the factory . Those were then machinefini shed in Liege to o ffer more d w e ll than the kit camshafts used before (bu t the sa me li ft as s tock, as requir ed by Su pers por t rules ), wi th different ca m timing vi a the adjusta b le kit w heels. You ca n feel th e resu lt a t o nce when you ri d e th e Suzu k i, es p eci a lly co mpared to the '98 m achin e . Th is yea r's bike pulls o kay from very low d own ou t of any of Zo lder's trio of ch ica nes , bu t ther e's a flat spot aro u nd 8500 rpm tha t en courages yo u to use first gea r in th e tw o slo west turns. But fro m 9000 rpm upward, the engine picks up spee d very fa st, acco m p a n ie d b y a muted ho wl from th e Arrow pipe. Th at pipe was origi na lly mad e fro m O.5mm-wall titanium, but by H ockenheim it wa s repla ced b y a new e xh au st sys t em made from a spa ce- a ge alloy ca ll ed L Econel : Appa re n tly in 0 .6 m m 'w a ll materia l, th is is even ligh te r th an titan ium, all owing the team to gai n the fina l kilo th at brings th e Corona GSX-R600 d ow n to th e 167-kg . (367.4-lb) class we igh t limit. Very trick . So too is the Suzu ki's pow er curve. After that initia l kick of revs stops buil d ing at 11,000 rpm and hold s a constant plat ea u of po w er till 13,000 revs, there's a final small d ose of extra po ke to th e 13,700 rpm peak. Th at's wh ere the 118 hp is d elivered to the back wheelan a static dvno withou t be ne fit of ram air . At tha t poin t the huge red light mo unted o n th e d a s h sta rts flashin g at yo u to remind yo u to shi ft. Su rvivi ng my own fit of in competence (I s hi fted it t he wro ng way once), I t he n took o n b oar d th e fac t that Alstare has filled in the on ly real g a p in th e Su zuk i engine's a r mo ry fr om last se ason - the fact that it had good top-end po w er bu t needed filling out in m idrange. Well, now that's happened, and the resu lt is a bike that will lift th e fro nt w heel in third gear when you get hard on the gas, with a very meaty mi d range thanks to that flat spread of power. Th is m a ke s the Su z uki very mu ch a t hom e o n a twisty track li ke Zolder, w he re you can even short-shi ft a t 12,000 revs to keep the fron t w heel fro m go ing into o rbit cresti ng the hill after the firs t chica ne - or to get a better d ri ve through a fast sweeper like the turn fo ur righ t-h a nd er. It ' s there th at u sing a gea r hi gher and d ri vin g hard through the turn delivers ext ra stability to the sho rt-w he el base 0 385mm) bike. The team always tak es pains to run the whee lbase as lon g as possibl e, changing gearing and chain lengths to ga in a precious 5/ 6mm so as to av oid the Su zuki becoming too twit chy. Although it feels v ery s ho r t a n d flic ka ble . it cha nges direction quite easily, yet wi tho u t being undul y unstable, even over the ca r- 'o thers in the paddock, so he let me use it th is time. And, we ll, every team sh ould ha ve one. In extracting all that extra power, compared to a 94-hp street GSX- R600, Alstare engineers ported and flowed the cy li n d e r head , ra ise d compression to 13 .8 :1 by skimmi ng the head, fitted their own camshafts and kit valve springs (tw o per valve, with a ra ng e of different weights available in the kit) , and w aisted the stoc k va lves to im p rove fl ow fro m th e 36.5mm Miku ni carbs. The di gital -ki t ign ition is repro grammab le , a n d th e tea m consta n tly ex pe riments wi th this, as well as w ith the len gth of th e carb u re to r tru mpets. The re's th e choice of lo nge r, for mor e midran g e torqu e , o r s ho r te r, for more top r"i h~:;; ks to Wor ld Supe rs port rules and developme nt T;; a nks end, d ependi ng on the work by the Alsta re team, the GSX-R600 was not on ly track. There ' s a lso a com petit ive ยท it w on the World Champio ns hip. wid e ch oice of ratios for the kit g earbox , someti mes even o n race day be tw een induced ripples in th e tu rn-one Zo lder warm-up an d the race. Thanks to Suzutarmac, w hich the Paletti-modi fied carki's u nique three-way crankcase spli t, tridge forks eat up q uite capably. If yo u this ca n be done in two hours - one to d o ge t a shake on when the w heel lifts take th e engine out, on e to change th e w hile cra nke d over exiting a turn, th e gear ratios and refit it. There's also a Suzuki shru gs it off wi th a qu ick flick of choice of three d iffer en t ratios for each the head, before res uming no rma l serof the bo ttom four gears, plus two each vice . It does feel Wide (and d oesn't stee r for the to p tw o, and the tea m always into a turn as easily as the R6, or the 748 uses a low bottom gear which is critica l Du ca ti), but th e sens e o f bu lk isn't tran sfor the start, then the top three ra tios all m itted much to the bike's road manner s: hig her th an stock, with a long six th for more of an op tica l illusion, I'd say. top-speed. But this is arguably the only T he A u s t ralian-mad e team in th e Super sport paddock th a t' s M oT ec infocenter m oniye t adopted the sa me a p proach to gear .to r s e ng ine rpm as ratio se lection as any Gra nd Pri x tea m , w ell as gea r selectand th is att enti on to d et ail is just o ne ed, oil /wat er m ore reason why th e Alstare team a re temp, has all the winners. u su a l d a ta , Th e ex tra pow er d eli ver ed by these in cl u di ng a m od s , tran sm itted v ia a be efed -up facilit y for cl u tc h with h ea vier kit sprin g s a nd lap . tim e s, kevl ar clutch pl ates, results in considerand is ver y ab ly ex tra hea t - hen ce the ve ry la rge c ompa ct , Italian -mad e rad iat ors w hich do a g rea t yet legible. job in keep ing water tem p d own to the Th e on opti mum 68- to 70 _ 0 . b o a r d HAT-Paioli has provided an u pda ted teleme trv s hock, and Marco Paletti reworked the incorporated 45mm fo rk internal s to meet th e new in it tell s the rul e requ iring retentio n of the st ock pisteam that I ton s. Even with a lighter sp ring th an I'd s a v e d expect to run for my in crea sed w eight, 30/100t hs of a the result felt pretty capable, provided I - rod e the Suzuki eng ine's torque-curve Although electronic speed sh ifters are Illegal a nd didn't com p ress the suspension in Supersport rac ing, Alstare 's seco nd ary kill u n d u ly in tu rns by usin g a lower switch that momentarily kills the mot or to all ow l or gear. At that po int I'd run ou t of suswide-open sh ifting got the okay Irom th e FIM. pension and start cha tte ring the rea r tire. It' s not fair to jud ge a setup concocted for someone of such different we ight, second each time I changed gear - simbut one thing that did impress me was p ly by doing so w ide open, like on a the way the Suzuki stopped. It's still fits u p e r b ike. But p o w er s h ifte rs aren't ted with stock 320mm Tokico discs and allowed in Supersport racing - but fou r-pot calipers, ra th er tha n th e th in Als rare h a s n ' t fitted o ne . Instead , ner , lighter, EBC di scs the team has been they've tak en a leaf ou t of U.S. dirt track ex pe r imen ti ng with , but a re n' t ye t racing a nd mounted a second ary ignihappy with. I w as initially surprised at tion swi tch on the left han dl ebar, in the ho w m u ch engine braking th ere wa s form of a cutout button you press with fro m the bike, as well as how sta ble it your thu mb w hile lifting yo ur left toe to was und er har d , effective braking , even chang e up, all wi tho u t ba cking off th e w it hout a slip pe r-clutch fitted . Mentionth rott le. Since th is is ma nu all y ra ther ing it to Did ier the firs t time r stoppe d at than electro nically opera ted, and perth e pits , he re ac he d o ut a nd thumbed forms th e sa me function as a n ign ition th e s tarter b u tto n a nd s ai d, "T ha t's s w it ch, FlM inspecto r Steve Whit lo ck w hy!" Oh - I get it - the idl e has been set o kayed it - way ba ck in mid -' 98. Bu t a t a high 2500 rpm, w hich takes ca re of Batta wa nted to keep his littl e secret a bu sines s o n the overrun and prev entsw hile longer, which is wh y it wa sn' t fita n y iner tia fro m cha ttering th e b ack ted to Piro van o's bike w he n [ rode it a wheel. Clever . . CIII year ag o. But now it's been spo tted by ~ ll> .0 E ll> ~ Z 25