Get that old shed outa here ........ !

The 1100G was a brilliant bike when first introduced in 1985. I'm still riding my G most weekends and with a few mods it can challenge most bikes on the road as well as at the Ring.

Firstly a change of wheels to allow use of decent tyres. Initially I used 1100L wheels but upgraded to Dymags to save weight and get faster steering. They are an amazing improvement and I recommend fitting lightweight wheels before you do any engine tuning. They really help handling, cornering, acceleration and braking.

The original exhaust is very restrictive and rather heavy, and this has been replaced several times with different pipes - I currently use a Yoshimura. The carbs are fitted with the usual Dynojet kit and K&N air filters, the filters mounted directly on the carbs and so doing away with the airbox. It took some trial and error to get the fuelling right, and setting up the carbs can take a while. I have often resorted to shims a few thou thick under the needles to get the result I want.

The original 36mm carbs are excellent for torque. Many owners fit 40mm carbs or even flatslides, but I feel the 36s restrict the bhp only marginally and give phenomenal torque in the midrange - great for road use.You need to run the engine as lean as you can get away with without detonation to get a lovely crisp throttle response.

I tried an ignition advance unit which allows advancing of the ignition timing by around 5 degrees. However, I am not convinced these really help much and I junked it some years ago.

Next up in my never-ending quest for performance came cylinderhead work - gasflowing and skimming - and new barrels. Gasflowing has removed the roughness from the inlet and exhaust tracts. The engine has received the 1216cc bore mod with rods, barrels and pistons from an 1100M. With these changes some alteration is needed to the cam timing and I fitted slotted cam sprockets to give me around 10 degs. of adjustment. I initially ran the cams fairly well advanced to get top-end power, but recently I've retarded the settings to give more torque as the top-end is around 145 bhp which is as much as the frame can really handle!

The engine work has necessitated the fitting of an additional oil cooler in the belly pan of the fairing to keep some control on the oil temperature and pressure. The addition of an oil pressure gauge is a mixed blessing - with hard riding the needle can almost drop off the scale!!

Hand in hand with performance tuning must come some attention to the handling. Without complete replacement there is a limit what can be done to the forks. However, I have fitted Race Tech valve units from the US to give some control over compression damping, rebound being set first by the oil viscosity (yeah I know, sad old git hasn't even got rebound adjustment!). The only drawback is that the units sit at the bottom of the fork legs, so adjustment necessitates removing the springs so I can tweak out the units with my patent tweaking rod.

The rear shock is an EMC Racing unit, 10mm longer than standard to jack the back up a little and put more weight on the front whilst sharpening up the steering - I'm waiting for the shock to expire as I really want to try a unit 15mm longer than standard, but it keeps on surviving the abuse it gets.

Nissin calipers improve the braking and junking the awful old steering damper has helped sharpen the steering - these bikes really don't need a damper. Although it will never give me as much feedback as a modern sports bike, the GSXR is surprisingly effective and I've got the benefit of torque R1s can only dream of!