Suzuki GSX-R 750 K6 Project
As most customers know I like a little project in winter and with my K3 Gixer 1000 & Hayabusa now sold and my Fireblade still needing to be run in, I finally found light relief in the form of Paul Nightingales Gixer 750 K6.
This Gixer has had a hard life from the off. Bought new in 2006, it has been thrashed unmercifully ever since with seven to ten+ track days per year & with trips to the Nurburgring & IOM TT plus the odd european trackday thrown in, it's seen plenty of fast road & track action...
Now wearing almost 20,000 hard miles on it's speed stained bodywork & feeling a little worn in certain areas, it was time for a refresh...
I have serviced this bike for most of it's miles & engine wise it's been faultless.We carried out the major service @16,000miles with Valve clearance check & FI throttle body adjustment already done, here we are focusing on the chassis & ride quality.
With complaints from Paul about "snatchy throttle response" which has plagued the bike from new, to "fading front brakes" on trackdays to "squeeking rear suspension".I also informed Paul of the notched headbearings.
Having consulted with Paul on the suspension we went along the route of a K-Tech fork & shock revalve & respring, we've both had K-Tech reworked suspension on previous bikes & have been very impressed from start to finish.
With the suspension stripped out from the bike & sent over to K-tech I set about removing the worn out original equipment headbearings.
I replaced these with Koyo taper rollers as the taper roller has a longer contact patch than the roller ball type & therefore doesn't indent the outer ball race as easily.
With forks & shock now returned from their holiday @K-Tech I rebuilt the front end & knowing Paul wanted a solution to "fading front brakes" I settled on a set of '06 Yamaha R1 monoblock calipers.
I had 2.5mm spacers made up from a local engineering firm to accept them to the Gixer's forks.
I've fitted these R1 calipers to my K8 Hayabusa so I know they're a genuine upgrade from the spongy feeling OE Tokico's.
With front end now fully greased & retorqued up I turned my attention to the "squeeky rear end" & so I stripped out the rear suspension linkage & swingarm & apart from being cosmetically very dirty & the internal needle roller bearings & bush pins being dry the actual wear was minimal with hardly any visible wear marks they were well within Suzuki's service limit.
I would say everything has just been caught in time!
Now with everything cleaned & greased with a good quality bearing grease & the OE revalved rear shock now installed I had a nice feeling Paul was going to enjoy this...
Next on the list was the "snatchy throttle response" . We found Paul a decent used Dynojet powercommander 3 for £140 & booked the bike in @ daytuner dyno in Harrogate, where the dips & peaks in the delivery were smoothed out & delivered a suprising 141rwbhp.
Bearing in mind the bike has a stock exhaust system, although I had removed the noise control valve or set valve as Suzuki call it earlier in the year & fitted a K&N air filter the bike made excellent power showing that mileage doesn't always affect power as many think....
To be continued..................
