The New Shape of Perfection – 600 GSXR 2008
If you would ask which is the best selling motorcycle among sportbikes in the United States guess what would be my answer. Let me introduce you the next generation of lightweight rockets the new 600 GSXR 2008. Actually what most of the Japanese motorcycle makers are doing is that they refresh their line up every four years but in the third year they just polish them a bit so this year’s Suzuki is basically a refreshed version of the 2006 model. Regarding the performance department the Suzuki engineers focused on to squeeze out more midrange power delivery because usually on 600cc bikes all the manufacturers used to concentrate on high end horsepowers. The battle for the mighty torque is absolutely essential because without it you would feel yourself a bit embarrassed in a situation when you do a full throttle acceleration below 8000 rpm and a lorry suddenly overtakes you. The trick to raise the torque is professional but simple. First the engineers would increase the compression ratio up to 12:5:1 and then they would use 8-hole injector units and iridium spark plugs for better combustion. Secondly they would decrease the exhaust pipe’s parameters by 3mm for more peak power and they would use new intake ports which are tapered to increase velocity. Thirdly they would reduce the valve lift of the intake camshaft. All these modifications must be working like magic because the dyno tests are showing the extra power gain throughout the rev range. The most obvious change surely won’t go unnoticed because the whole bodywork was redesigned with one thought in the head of the designers: “Let’s make a beautiful bike, let’s make a beautiful bike…” What was born under their arm is pure engineering masterpiece. The nose of the bike is the most attractive change with dual main-beam lights at the sides of a centrally positioned low-beam reflector for increased visibility. Indicators are still embedded into the mirrors and this trick works well because it is a tidy solution to get better aerodynamics. The redesigned fuel tank has an increased capacity with half of a litre up to 4.5 gallons so now you can abuse this machine on the track a little bit more… to be continued in the next post.
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