Bloody aching yesterday and today as a result. Like you say, getting old (disgracefully). I will hopefully grab some more pics for your amusement and drop them in my recent thread about Sunday with Adam.
My first impressions of the GSXR1000R 600 miles in. 400 track miles and 200 road miles. Ego's: The bike feels fairly small for a 1000 but is reasonably spacious for someone of my frame 6ft4". It is very much on it's nose and a little bit vibey on long distances which can send your hands/feet to sleep on long runs. The seat is comfortable for a sportbike and the controls easy to operate. A quick note also on the windscreen which is a total waste of time, it does nothing. The mirrors however are really good for a sportsbike. Stock clip ons are single bolt therefor have a locating pin so you can't adjust them which is irritating (but again not uncommon). I will 100% be chucking on some renthal clips ons as the stock ones are far too narrow for me, widening them out a bit will give me much more leverage, stability under braking and space on the bike/anchorage. Suspension/chassis: The front Showa BFF (best friends forever) forks are super plush for stock items... genuinely think the gixxer has the best front end of any stock bike on the market and I can confirm that every adjustment myself and Colin (100% suspension) made to the bike was noticeable which is a rarity for stock suspenders. As mentioned above, the bike is very 'nosey', during my time at donington I attempted to get more control over the movement, we added 5 turns of preload in the rear as well as rebound which made a fair bit of difference and played around with rebound and compression on the front also to stop it bouncing around. Being so 'nosey' the bike turns tips in exceptionally quickly... too quickly for my liking so the next steps will likely be pulling the forks through a fair bit (there's loads of fork left). This will hopefully stabilise the bike better reducing wheelies, head shakes and also reduce rear end pick up which is causing the abs to have a melt down. The bike is very agile and you can adjust lines mid corner in confidence. The chassis is intuitive and gives you as much feedback as it can with its respected set up at any given time. This makes it fairly easy to make adjustments as I was never really left wondering what it needed. Brakes: The stock brakes are a real gsxr weakness, they really aren't great. From cold with the stock Master Cylinder you can pull them with ease all the way back to the bars with one finger!! (I tried an Msport Bmw s1000rr Gen 4 whilst there and it was worse!!!!!) It's strange because the bike has brembo calipers and Brembo T Drive discs and pads.. so not exacty fisher price happy shopper spec. I have fitted a Brembo Corsa Corta M/C to mine which has helped as well as race fluid however when pushing on I found coming from my race bike set up I was having real troubles running in to the abs and in turn running deep in to corners which isn't ideal and causes you to loose confidence on braking (but sadly not uncommon either for modern bikes). My next step will be to upgrade the brake pads - I'm very aware that ripping out the abs will solve the problem but I really want to see if other mods can make it usable first. Electronics: The traction control is actually very very good, for me 0-4 is track orientated and anything above that (goes up to 10) is very much more road/wet biased. I found anything over 6 was fairly intrusive and rightly so. The TC system does seem to allow for slides and doesn't cut in hard like some systems, you can really work with it and ride it on the lower settings. It's a good trustworthy system and was absolutely faultless in the pissing rain on road tyres as well ( I ran the stock RS11's for the whole three days where we experienced nearly every season from scorchio to monsoon ). For me the only slight issue is the anti wheelie which you are unable to adjust independently from the TC... it is a really good system in the road modes, but is fairly intrusive on TC setting 5 and above. Anything below 5 and it's seemingly non existent as @Expat Jack will confirm when I went past him on occasion. The bike goes skyward rapidly (again the aforementioned fork pull through will help this). Down the line I will likely have the software flashed (more on that shortly) as Woolich etc offer software that enables you to independently adjust the anti wheelie but also finer parameters within the TC and engine mapping. The quickshifter is excellent on the road (I've swapped mine to race shift), in race shift it is a little wooly on down shifts on track and it could really do with rear sets for more adjust-ability on the change movement...however I could live with it the way it is. I did however on occasion have the issues Neevesy mentions in his videos with getting a random extra blip on corner entry from the blipper which isn't ideal. Oddly also by day three was having a very occasional flat spot (can't think of a better way to explain it) it almost feels like you're on a quali fuel load and underestimated the amount you needed (I'm sure many can relate) you know that corner exit when the fuel has sloshed and not been picked up and the bike goes flat on you from fuel starvation... I've done a little research and this looks to be due to the stock chain stretching. I've adjusted it.. so let's see next time out. I'll likely swap the shifter for a Lohman one as they're the absolute puppies parts. Exhaust: Yes. It's massive. Engine: The engines great albeit a little asthmatic at the bottom end and fairly ballistic top end (bit two strokey tbh) -I'm told this is due to the mapping/euro bollocks million cats exhaust/wheelie bin. The bike is a lot quicker than it feels, it's only when you realise the bikes you're reeling in do you realise how fast and more importantly usable the power is. You can really feel the strangling by all the catalytic converters in the exhaust though at the bottom end specifically. The bike absolutely needs a full system and a remap. The low speed fuelling in 'A mode' isn't fantastic and the throttle uptake is a little jerky (lots of play in the throttle by day three on track which has now been adjusted). All of this can be sorted with an exhaust and mapping thankfully. Full system, bellmouths, filter and map will see you anywhere between a genuine 197-204bhp which is more than enough on such a versatile motor. (I was getting between 31 & 34MPG in the fast group) - Boring. Conclusion: The bike isn't perfect but what bike is? especially at this price point. It really wouldn't take a lot to make the bike race fit as proven by it's back to back world wide success in superstock 1000 and it's become a real club racers favourite. There is a few things I want to change, full system, map, filter, quick shifter, pads, screen, clip ons etc.. I wouldn't say that this is anything unusual though on a modern bike for what I'm doing with it and I'd definitely buy it again if put in the same situation. Parts are superbly cheap for the bike as well.. just take a look on ebay you can get all sorts of unused parts taken from race bike conversions for bugger all. I got offered a brand new spare set of road fairings for £350!!!! I'm a happy chappy - Happy to answer any questions you may have
I can confirm: It wheelies like a 12 year old Liverpudlian on acid. The brake lever is right back to the bars whilst mine was good and solid. It does slide on occasion (I saw it once) Adam looks stupid on it as he is too tall and should therefore give it to me.
Haha I’m sure @Expat Jack was not talking about yours, maybe someone else also had one which was doing wheelies?
Good write up just the sort of info I need. Mine was put in raceshift straight from the dealer and I have only ridden it for 460 miles on the road. As you said the blipper is wooly and I was hoping it would be better on track once I'm at higher revs. I find myself using the clutch still in the lower two gears. Even on the road it feels very front endy and turns really quickly. All reports say raise the forks to the crown of the fork top so I might do that before my trackday next Monday. The Hel M/C and RBF660 will be fitted before then and like you I would prefer to keep the ABS fitted and try to setup around it. What did you settle on for the T/C setting at Donington? I'm no wheely merchant but don't mind the front coming up in a controlled manor, when it flies up unexpectedly I'm not so comfortable. Read sh1t myself.
Also I'm 5'10" and the bike seems small to me which I like. I fitted a DB screen before I rode it and that is perfect for keeping me out of the wind.
End of day one my left ankle was a bit sore from the accentuated movements I was having to do on down shifts mate. T.C in my opinion entirely depends on conditions and what tyres you’ve got on. 3&4 on the road tyres seemed acceptable to me.. I tried it on 1 and found it a real handful personally on the road rubber. I have a sneaking suspicion we will be pulling the abs out mate If you hammer brakes like me.. you will not like the abs... you have to be fairly progressive braking not to run in to issues. You can ride around it to a degree
I will have Vo2's on so will start on 4 and work down from there. I've been using 5 on the road with no noticeable intervention but to be honest I've not really pushed it much.
start on 4/5 to get a feel and then move down, just be aware that the anti wheelie doesn’t do much or atleast it doesn’t feel like it does on 1/2/3 especially my discs are fairly blue from holding on to the brakes longer than ideally I’d want to. Vo2’s will give you a lot more grip and forces through the suspension. I’d definitely be winding in preload (probably springs eventually). I’d say a min of 2-5 turns in the rear, probs more like 5 to be honest (be aware that slick profiles raise the rear also) If you haven’t already.. you’ll probably find the front bouncy, I’d be inclined to put some rebound & compression (Have to do both sides as the bff’s are independent) in the front and pull the forks through as well and go from there. I’d actually leave the preload on the front initially and see how you go with compression. gearing makes a difference in these. The popular choices mean you can run the bike longer which helps a lot as well !
