I love racing motorcycles, I love racing history, I love endurance racing, and it turns out, seeing all that brought together under the warm star filled sky of Spa many years ago flicked a switch in my head that could only be turned off by taking part, but taking part needed a bike.
The following posts detail the thinking, the building, the parts, the spending (groan) and not least, the huge amount of help and inspiration from people much cleverer than me to get it done.
The original* plan was for this to end up on the grid at Spa to race, and have not only a fabulous looking Katana at the end of the journey, but a race finish to celebrate.
*Spoiler alert/teaser - we did get to Spa... to find out what happened, read the rest of the story!
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There was simply an amazing Classic Motorcycle race, and a bloke that really wanted to be in it….
True that, and I’m the bloke. But before we even start talking about building a Katana, I need to get this off my chest; it wasn’t so long ago I didn’t even like them.
Having firmly decided to build a racing Katana for next year's Spa 4-hour classic endurance event, I now faced the difficult bit; Thanks to 28 years of not paying any attention to the big Suzuki, I didn’t actually have a clue what I was doing!
Rules. Does anyone like them? If you’re going Classic Racing, you’d better get ready to drown in them! Getting this Katana ship-shape and legal for Spa has required about as much time reading and absorbing the regulations as it has in the garage so far.
First job: Turn the 32 year old bendy frame into something ready to attack one of the world’s most challenging racetracks.
With a frame, yokes, forks and even wheels already sorted, I just needed a swingarm to make this project roll...
Let’s say the 4-stroke racebike of the day had ridiculously simple electronics - 4 plugs, 2 coils, and a starter motor would have been about it.
When the big GSX1100 engine we’re using in our Katana left the factory 32 years ago,
Let’s be clear, I’m not a great mechanic. My engine building style if called anything at all, would be called a triumph of wishful thinking (and frugality) over talent.
I probably shouldn’t ever be allowed on the internet. The comedian Dave Gorman once described it perfectly “ I don’t know about you, but I find being connected to everything ever quite distracting”
It’s heavy, it’s fast, this build won’t use any original suspension components, we’ve made the frame much stiffer and to cap it all, I haven’t done anything like this before; what could possibly go wrong?
Do a Google image search of Katana and you’ll end up with an array of pictures that you’ll barely believe started life as the same model.
Somebody needs to make the chosen electrics work by making a wiring loom to join it all together. That man is Andy Woolrich, of Electro34.co.uk
My plan was always to update the blog in real time as things happened on the lead up to the event. But....
Why is it that however much planning you put into something, and however many hours you work on it, stuff is only ever ready at the last frikkin’ minute?!
It's the morning of the day we leave for Spa, I was working until 3am, and this is what I saw when I opened the garage in daylight...
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