|
Dave Shultz is a Professor of Chemistry and 2017 Distinguished Professor at our local university here in Raleigh, North Carolina State. He's ordered a couple things from us, and his latest order involved a 1998 Suzuki Bandit that he was having painted by our friend Johan Snellenburg; we made some stencils that Johan used to paint the logos on the bike.
Little did we know exactly what Dave was doing, so we'll let Dave tell the story:
I bought this '98 Suzuki Bandit 1200S late in 2017:
Despite being well-used, the engine ran well and had only 18k miles on it.
My plan was to make a sportier "factory special," comprised of approximately the same era Suzuki parts, and some performance upgrades.
For the tail section I used Air-tech Streamlining's fiberglass Suzuki RGV250 tail (which I shortened and modified), and their '88 Suzuki GSX-R750 head light cowl (also modified).
I fashioned my own undertray from fiberglass and modified the tail to suit.
After strip down, I cleaned and painted the engine casings, had the head ported by Gary Dye, and I installed 81mm JE pistons to bring the displacement to 1216cc. I added slotted cam sprockets, and a Web 236 intake cam, and set the cam timing to 106° in/106° ex. The titanium exhaust system is Ohnishi Heat Magic sourced from Japan. The carburetors are OEM Mikuni 36mm with Holeshot stage 2 jetting and K&N pod filters (a set of 38mm flat slides are on my Christmas list). I swapped in an '05 GSX-R750 clutch inner hub and pressure plate as well.
I constructed a custom wiring harness that uses Motogadget m.Unit, m.Button, and m.Switches powered by a Shorai battery.
Triangle Coatings powder-coated the valve cover, oil pan, frame, fairing stay, Brembo calipers, shock spring, and swingarm. The swingarm is from a '94 Suzuki RF900R with a '99 Yamaha R1 brace welded onto it (aluminum welding by Late Night Fabrication who also filled in the front tank recesses). The subframe needed modification to fit the tail section, and Rassie van Aswegen did the welding.
Various bolt-on goodies were purchased from Webike Japan (K-factory clutch slave, GSG-Mototechnik starter and timing covers, bellypan, etc.) or domestic sources (Woodcraft riser clip-ons, Rizoma reservoirs, etc.). A Koso RXF gauge is mounted to the fairing stay by a bracket I designed and was laser cut from stainless steel by Stainless Steel Specialties. I also designed a two-piece clutch cover that allows access to the clutch pack without removing the entire cover. Fastec-Racing in the UK machined this as well as the triple clamps, rear caliper bracket, and shift link. Almost entirely titanium fasteners used and those were sources from Mettec; aluminum and stainless steel fasteners from Pro-Bolt.
Motodynamic Ducati tail light, KIWAV mirrors with running lights/turn signals, and OEM headlights light the way. Paint was done by Johan Snellenburg, and wheel tape by Tapeworks and applied with Strip-It-All.
There are just a few touches left and this is where it stands as of November 2019:
Tapeworks Graphics/Stripe-It-All
1-800-232-8273
|
