Charlie’s GSX-R1100 Slabbie

An engineer by profession, Charlie entertains himself on his days off by building engines for road and race bikes – mainly Suzuki oil-cooled ones. This is his own bike, which he’s fettled to produce 150bhp.

Seeing it triggered a huge wave of nostalgia for me. As a cub road tester on Performance Bikes I remember the shock of riding it for the first time in 1986, and speed testing it with my colleague John Robinson. John was an incredible rider and, because the MIRA timing straight we used back then was only a mile long, he had to brake the Suzuki really hard from flat out (150mph). During this exciting manoeuvre, the rear wheel hovered about two inches off the floor the entire time.

Charlie is very sensibly going for an original vibe, but with upgraded suspension and brakes. Forks are later Suzuki, and the later swing arm is modified by Steelheart – a high quality piece of work. He’s also using stick coils. We discussed the twin headlights: together they take something like 12 amps, which is pushing it for a normal handlebar light switch – especially one that’s 40 years old. The original bike had relays to minimize the switch current, but another solution is to fit LED bulbs. Their current draw is about 3 amps each, which is OK. Charlie wants it as simple as poss, so he went down the LED route.

The Ignitech is programmable, and needed a little tick box checking in the software to get it working (there is also another way: adding an extra earth wire to ‘unblock’ the unit).  Charlie did the box checking, but it really is time I learned to drive a PC and root around Ignitech’s software myself. My apprentice Adam has promised to give me a lesson.

The bike looks ace and has flown through its MOT. Charlie sent me the pic of the bike by the fence to show me how it looks in finished form. It’s a beauty.