Katana 1100

[Guest]

Hey guys, I just wanted to get some feedback on the katana 1100, I rarely see one and was just wondering what your input on this bike is, I'm not sure if they still make them, or when they started, but I've seen some pics of a 1994 bike. Can anyone tell me about the 1100 series.

[The CyberPoet]

When you say Katana 1100, there are two basic options:

The true late model Katana 1100, which was made from 1988 to 1993. These were produced by Suzuki, and one of our board members (Mojoe) has one in good shape. Send him a PM if you have questions and reference this thread.

Then there are the bolt-together versions. These use later model Katana 600 or 750 frames (either 88 - 97 models as "pre-98's" or the 98 - 05 models as "98+"), and replace the stock engine with an engine from one of the production years of the oil-cooled GSXR1100 variants. Since there is no such thing as a '94 Katana 1100 from the factory, I suspect this is actually what you are talking about. You can find more information on the cross-compatibility and fitment for bolting GSXR 1100, Bandit 1200, early GSXR 750 engines in the various Kat 600 and 750 models here: http://www.katriders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=78

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[Mojoe]

The true late model Katana 1100, which was made from 1988 to 1993. These were produced by Suzuki, and one of our board members (Mojoe) has one in good shape. Send him a PM if you have questions and reference this thread.

actually, they made them up to 97, but north america didn't get any after 94. also, the 88 was different. i would stay away from that one. it was shorter and a bit more unstable. it also had alot of vibration to it in the grips and pegs. in 89 they lengthened the swingarm to give it more stability and used rubber engine mounts. the also changed the head\fork angle. major improvements...so stay away from the 88 if you can.

there are maybe 5 of us on here who owns them, and pretty much all of us swear by them. it all depends on what class of kat interests you. you have the vintage class.....the early 80's 1100's......they are the "muscle bike" version. they have the "i am so ugly that i am beautiful" look going on, and the power is there. Then the you have the 88-93 1100 kat. This class is the "flagship class", in my humble opinion. it's big, powerful, sleek, comfortable.
After that, you have all the smaller kats, that i like to call kittens, but don't out of respect to the ones who own them...lmao. just kidding guys.

anyway...it's a great bike. if it isn't too much bike (not just power, but weight...it's heavy, so you have to be comfortable handling it) for you and it appeals to you, you can't go wrong with it. if you ever buy one, just be prepared to accept the fact that there isn't a huge supply of aftermarket parts. new body panels are hard to find and some are discontinued. the chain is an odd size (532) and more expensive, so do a chain conversion to 530. ebay will become your best friend and i suggest buying anything you "might need", just in case.

don't know what else to tell you, other than i love mine and have rode the 1100 kat since 93.

[Mojoe]

oh...here is some good readin on the bike. you have all this info, CP?

Models:

http://www.suzukicycles.org/GSX-series/GSX1100F.shtml

Specs:

http://www.suzukicycles.org/GSX-series/GSX1100F_numbers.shtml

[The CyberPoet]

You have all this info, CP?

I've read it on that site before, and have referenced that site in my book's list of URL's, but I didn't cover the 1100 Kats in much detail in the book itself.

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[ThAzKat]

all suzuki's ever made is awesome. I use them as a refferance also.

[Mojoe]

all suzuki's ever made is awesome. I use them as a refferance also.

yup...that is the one stop site for all zuki info. all technical info needed is there.

[Mojoe]

i would definately remove that stupid looking "V" thingy behind the license plate.

[ThAzKat]

it is a prototype, not what is actually coming out. there will be changes made before it comes to production. So for you that are worriedd about that V thingy, don't, it isn't as cheap as the same ole plastic shovel they always put on. I don't like the tan seat but I know that will change too.

[Mojoe]

that engine must purr. general rule of thumb is that the more cylinders you have, the smoother the engine runs.

[The CyberPoet]

CyberPoet's Analysis (don't read if you don't want to know)...

6-into-1 into short/stubby low exhaust system with no appearent collector box -- muffler (& lack of collector) shown unlikely to be feasible with that end can as shown due to the need for pollution controls & sound requirements, but with each cylinder on a 6-cylinder 1100 engine consuming 183.3cc's of displacment, it would be very smooth flowing if the firing order was kept so that the engine fires as 6 separate events per 720 degrees (as verses to firing pairs of cylinders together). Exhaust gases would flow sweet even with small pipes because of timing...

Rear brake control & reservior placement are probably fantasy. If you try to draw a rider posed on the bike, between the seat and the handlebars, you end up with a foot position that leaves the foot naturally tilted forward more. This would put the foot closer to that muffler (foot-heat issues), and so the brake control's pivot either needs to be moved up (to permit greater angle without foot-burning) or forward (to remove the angle requirement). The rear reservior appears to swing with the rear swing-arm assembly (implying the master cylinder is as well), which would mean either the entire rear controls swing with the swing arm (undesirable due to jarring of the rider's foot) or are supported on brackets (which would expose the master cylinder to rear wheel fling). That aspect is unlikely to see production as-is (or they better be selling a standard hugger with the bike).

Thin-blade flat-spoke cast wheels hark back to earlier days.
All rotors axially grooved for outward gas disipation. That would probably make it to the final product. Front caliper gets a radial brake. That would probably also make it to the final product. Front rotors float on an innovatively different carrier that looks like it would do a very good job of keeping the heat from reaching the main wheel bearings...

Rear blinkers aren't likely to make it in the current form, either getting faired in or at least having their lenses shortened. Long arrow lenses tend to often show up at shows but rarely or never make production.

Rear passenger seat looks comfy, but there's zero hand-holds. No grab rail, no strap. Better be holding tight, baby... Unlikely to stay this way (which is a shame, as all the solutions I can think of given that seating position would ruin the lines).
Note the small panels in the rear fairings above & slightly behind the passenger footpegs. This would imply either saddle-bag mountings, or a spot for side-grabs for the rear passenger, possibly both just hidden away on this prototype for the purity of the pretty lines.

Underseat storage space looks as if it will be minimal if present at all, given the tank and airbox requirements for a 6-cylinder 1100cc engine... Looking at the velocity stacks which rise up at almost a 70 degree angle to the horizon, the airbox is probably long and curved... There would be two ways of doing this -- either airbox forward (opening above and just behind the radiator area), or airbox stretching backwards into that triangular area under a seated rider's knee. With no visible RAM-air openings, there's no specific clue as to which would be the case. Either position would require partial relocation of the fuel tank capacity to maintain a good tank size, either into more of the underseat area or into a large dip above the valves (or both); again, both options have advantages, as moving the fuel forward increases the front-end weighting to keep the wheelies down, while dropping it into the rear/back would place most of the load lower, reducing the height of the center of gravity (CG) for the bike. The raised center section on the tank reinforces the whole 'relocated fueling' concept and causes me to suspect that it's moved rearwards, into that triangular area below the rider's leg.

Controls. Not a lot to be seen here except that they are using risers, cable activated clutch, and a raised/floating front brake reservior on a bracket. I think I see a radial master cylinder at work, but that could be tricks on my eyes late at night (my copies of the image have things sketched all over them, such as sketches of riders seated on the bike to figure out rider placement, notes, etc).

Windshield really needs paint from the upper mounting brack downward, IMHO. Expect it to be a common mod (since you can't see through the gauge panel anyway). The particular design chosen would permit substituting an adjustable-height windsheild fairly easily.

Headlights in a known-good configuration for real world use. The fact that they separated the covers for the headlights and the windshield (rather than having the windsheild also shield the lights) indicates to me that the design had to meet enough "reality" criteria to have a serious possibility of production.

Gauges - Thin, flat box gauge area imply all digital gauges. The set-up also shows a variable gauge viewing angle (the way the support brackets are set); expect that to go the way of the dodo bird if it sees production.

USD gold-nitride-coated forks with wind defusors (to help keep the brake heat from flowing into the radiators) are very nice, but appear to use very expensive fork components that I suspect won't see actual production if the bike makes it there.

Expect to see a rear chain gaurd on any production model.

6 cylinder engine: extreme torque output, very smooth operation. I'm slightly surprized that they didn't stager the cylinder placement (forward and back between adjacent cylinders) to reduce the width of the bike, but the location of the exhaust ports in the side-view of the bike indicate all the cylinders are aligned. Heavy water cooling requirements even with a low RPM ceiling (10k RPM?) due to very narrow/tight cylinder spacing means big radiator, large water pump. I'm really curious if the designer thought it through enough to put a small secondary electric water pump into the system as a run-after pump (doubious for weight and complexity reasons, but it would probably increase the bike's longevity quite a bit). At first I suspected that it might be a very massively over-sized oil cooler to deal with a 6-cylinder, but the tight cylinder spacing and proclaimed power levels makes that very very unlikely.

Oil filter placement sucks and should be moved (you would literally have to drop the headers each time to get the filter out).
Wet oil sump shown.
Injectors would be virtually mandatory (and appear on the model) -- I can't see this bike coming with carbs due to packaging/size/emissions requirements.
Expect at least two, possibly three fans inline on the back-side of the mildly curved radiator.
Doubious that this design would lend itself well to being fully faired at any point due to heat issues...

Alternator stacked above the transmission, with problematic side-exposure to the rear of the alternator. At least the casing for the alternator will need to change for final production (too easy to get water-entry when parked, from driving rains).

The backside of the front fender assembly virtually gaurantees the headers will get mucked up in a heartbeat. Expect fender extenders (common in Europe) to be a common add-on.

That's one frickin' long sidestand. Expect that to change from the chrome beauty it is to something simpler. Also expect some sort of side-attachment on it to make it easier to kick out into the down position.

Missing on the proto-type, but probably required for the real world:
Rear passenger grab strap or rails of some sort.
Underseat cargo rails, helmet holder.
Mirrors (where would you put them if it were up to you?)
Rear chain guard.

Unanswered questions:
What's the gauge faces look like?
Will the engine use 4 valves per cylinder or forego it in the name of space availablity and heat management?
Will they build it? Based on the responces I've seen around the web, as long as they give a fat mid-range (say a torque peak around 8k rpm, with the main torque curve starting from about 4k), build it and they will come.
What brand/make of tires are those? I suspect they're custom-cut slicks just for the prototype...
Is that a petcock, or part of the airbox connection on the one picture?
What's the compression ratio? Given an estimated 180HP, it's probably around 12.5:1, if I had to guess.

Finally: Expect it to be a knee roaster as shown at summer traffic lights when the fans kick on.

Oh, and what it's missing IMHO: A hollow carbon-fiber shaft drive assembly.

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[ThAzKat]

I don't care what you say Cyber

I like and I know the final bike that comes onto production will be different in it's style cues. I am looking forward to seeing a version of this to go to production.

[Mojoe]

I reead all you wrote, cp....and for sure some changes have to be made. there is one thing that i will quote though:

Front rotors float on an innovatively different carrier that looks like it would do a very good job of keeping the heat from reaching the main wheel bearings...

what bike actually had a problem with heated wheel bearings? for most bikes, don't they float on carriers? I know my stock ones do. they are designed pretty much like thoses....with the outer braking surface of the rotor being a seperate part from the inner part of the rotor. you don't have this on the 600 and 750's?
and even if not, you would have to be pretty much be "riding the brakes" for them to be in use enough to actually heat the wheel bearing to any temp significant enough to worry about. before any wheel bearing would ever suffer, i would think you would have to worry about brake fade more than anything.

[The CyberPoet]

what bike actually had a problem with heated wheel bearings?

A large number of them have at various cross-over points through-out the motorcycle's history: switching to front rotors, switching to rear rotors, switching to sintered pad technology, creation of progressively higher friction rate sintered pad technologies, switching to carbon rotor/pad technologies (still primarily limited to racing venues for cost reasons), and now the newest thing on the market: ceramic pads designed for street use with steel rotors.
While it's true that floating rotors have been around for quite some time on the MC market, the particular shape of the inner-brackets that hold these floating rings on the Stratosphere appeared to be uniquely different to me eye, and if my suspicions are correct, there is an additional cooling benefit from the shape (I might be wrong and it could simply be an artistic expression of design).

As for overheating the wheel bearings (more correctly, overheating the wheel bearing grease and turning it viscous enough that it pours out past the seals or bearing covers, or heating sufficiently to render it non-lubricating), this can happen to even modern street riders under special circumstances (track days, repeated high-speed stopping such as certain 'periodic' style traffic jams, riding in locations with extreme heat combined with high contaminant levels, as well as for anyone with a non-releasing/warped brake lever or rotor).

Most typical street riders probably won't overheat their bearing grease any time soon, and those who do will probably notice that their front bearings aren't working well long before the point of total failure. But even you have to admit that front wheel bearing failure occurs for reasons aside from accident damages and/or manufacturing flaws; that leaves the primary culprit either heat or chemical exposure (spraying brake cleaner past the seals under pressure by not watching where the over-spray goes)...

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet