Oil coolers

the oil coolers for this build I have chosen to use a gsxr1100 cooler from the 1st generation suzuki's rather than the gsf1200 cooler, the gsf uses a 2 bolt flange to attatch the lines to the cooler, the gsx-r uses an m16 banjo bolt. If i were to use the gsf cooler I would have to track down special adapters to use the AN- fittings, and so far these adapters i have only seen available in America. Earl's supply them if you've got money to burn. with this in mind, I can buy a male to male an-8 to m16x1.5 straight union adapter for a fraction of the price.

As well as the main Cooler I will be plumbing in a secondary Oil cooler that will cool the head. On the rear of the gsx-r/gsf engines is a Y shaped hose that picks oil up from the crank and delivers it to the rear of the rocker cover, Yoshimura adapted this to sipply cool air by taking the two rocker cover connections and joining them together with a Y-piece connection and having those go to one end of a secondary oil cooler, and taking the connection from the top of the crank to the other side of the cooler, supplying cooler oil to the top of the head.

the above picture shows the cooler and how it is supplying oil,taken from an old yoshimura parts catalogue.
below is the coolers and the engine together - still much work to do on the engine, but even the little steps forward are extra steps to finnishing :)

Below is the yoshimura Bonneville (the 1100 street bike, the 750 was given the name tornado) you can see infront of the main cooler the secondary head cooler and makeout the routing of the oil pipes.
im using a smaller cooler that will be mounted in the front of the nose cone - this particular cooler was from a gpz600.

Need to do a little jiggling about and spend some more time cutting but you get the idea, i will grind the weld down flush too and smooth it over
like so........

its getting there but its a job to make fit

Frame and Body

I came across this photo recently whilst trawling through the japanese sites of the big WWW.
it shows the bracing added to a slabside frame in the way i plan to do mine
below you can see the difference between my un-molested frame and the differences in the top frame

I also found this picture of satoshi's 86 tt bike wich shows another style of tank yoshimura were experimenting with - it has a small aircraft fuel cap welded toward the bottom and a large recess put in place at the top so the rider can get his chin down and  really tucked in to the bike.

I really like this tank 

yoshimura TT-f1 :-

So, The Yoshimura TT-f1 bike? there were a few different variations. I like the 1986 suzuka 8h bike most heres a few pictures of it dressed and undressed. Dry clutch was also given to the a Ltd edition of road going bikes. unfortunately they are very expensive and the parts are very hard to find - fitting requires the use of a new output shaft.

and without bodywork:

and below pictured during race are Kevin Schwantz (top) and satoshi Tsujimoto 

A couple of the sprint bikes. the bottom pictured is pictured with the yoshimura tornado - suzuki's production bike based on the yoshimura race bike.

and below the yoshimura tornado and below that the bonneville - the tornado was the 750 cc and the 100cc was named the bonneville. 

looking slightly like a bike now?

I have decided to use the tank from a WP model GSX-R - they are slimmer and more like the ones used on the TT-F1 it will require a little modification to work, I have done this efore on a preiouse project and it looked very good, the seat unit as far as I know again is another unit made by Harris performance and was offered by a member on one of the forums i frequent. it is very similar to some used on the yoshimura bikesand will match perfectly the fairing i will be getting.

Back In Business...

Now a few years later I have decided to rebuild this bike, bigger better stronger faster ..........................

so we're going to need some ingredients. I bought the frame and swinging arm from a friend and gave it all a really good clean to remove the 20+ years worth of dirt and grime stuck solid to it .
something to power it would be a good start, I wanted something bigger than a 750cc so began a search for a good 1100 or gsf1200 engine and pretty soon I had this sitting on my shed floor

This was swiftly taken appart to be checked over for any wear and damage that may be lurking, away from sight

a new lick of paint as it goes back together and it will be like new. there will be more updates on the engine as I go - new oil lines all round gaskets porting etc 

The Start of things to come...

A few years ago I was looking for a project to keep me busy. I've always tinkered with bikes, restoring and customising but never actually built one from the ground up. I always loved the GSX-R, especially the older models - the original race ready road bike, a true hooligan then and continues to turn heads today.

Schwantz and Tsujimoto's TT-f1 Suzuka 8hour yoshimura bike is IMO one of the best looking of its kind, the custom frame that incorporates features that can be seen on both the slabside 1st generation and the slingshot 2nd generation frames.

I sourced the parts i would need and started building.
I don't have many photo's in the way of the actual build but here are some photo's that I can find:

the seat unit and the F-1 fairing were from Harris performance originally, I found the two on ebay the fron wheel is a second gen gsxr 750 wheel, I had to change the bearings to suit the 1st gen spindle... the bearings are pretty hard to get hold of they are mitsubish alternator bearings and usually only available in bulk. I will find the correct size and post here for anybody wishing to know. Rear wheel is from a gsf1200 (bandit) and was a direct fit albeit a little modification to get it spaced correctly. but these made the transition from 18" wheels to 17" meaning that I had a better choice of tyre and a wider Rear. A guy in America had these original Yoshimura carb/frame covers, they were used as part of the cold air feed to stabilise the air around the carbs along with a heat shield and ducting directing the airflow directly to the carb's.

That was as far as I got with the project before some thieving scumbag left me with this, The heat from the fire was so intense that the magnesium covers caught light. Firefighters explained how because of the magnesium spitting and glowing furiously and the position of the bike been down in a ditch from the road that they simply couldn't get in close enough to act faster. I cant see that it would have made much difference if they did the whole of the bodywork was gone the engine was up in smoke the top of the head had melted away and the frame had started to melt.