The advert in the newsagent's window told me very little. Suzuki 250 four for sale, best offer. I assumed it was one of those GSXR replicas. I walked past the newsagent every day, kept checking to see if the advert was still there. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I made the telephone call.
The bike turned out to be an import GF250. A 1985 model that looked like someone had torn the plastic off an early GSXR after an accident. The owner indignantly insisted that it came like that straight out of the crate. Mileage was 56000 kilometres, general condition a bit faded but I couldn't find anything actually wrong.
Until he started the motor up. The exhaust growled nicely but the tune of highway devilishness was intruded upon by a very rattly clutch. They are all like that, said he, which given the scarcity of the model seemed an odd thing to say.
The idle wasn't smooth, suggesting that out of balance carbs might be contributing to the clutch racket. A blast on the back scared me shitless, the only thing I noted was that the owner kept the revs above seven grand. The DOHC four cylinder mill wailed away deliciously around twelve grand!
The owner muttered something about the non-standard carbs, modded electronic ignition and jet-kit adding up to a lot more than the standard forty horses. I demurred, added to the clutch racket, some tapping from the top end; visions of a complete engine strip floated through my mind.
I must've been the only visitor, he very reluctant to let me leave. His original price of 1200 notes fell to 800 and then 600! I looked the chassis over and decided if the motor blew then I could always fit a used GSXR mill - maybe the 400 would fit? I said I'd have it for 500 quid and that's how I became the proud if somewhat reluctant owner of a GF250!
Riding home, I was all for conserving the throttle and making sure the engine lasted the distance. However, below 7000 revs the power was all but non-existent. In fact, the motor was happiest at 10,000 to 14000rpm! The modifications might've had an effect on power delivery although this class of small four stroke four is notoriously peaky.
Whilst the bike would run at lower revs in the first three gears, taller ratios it just sulked and occasionally backfired as if protesting at my lack of commitment to the throttle. The six speed gearbox was ultra slick - engaging first on a cold morning it went straight in without the slightest tremour from the transmission. My old Superdream would clunk and lurch and, at first, I kept giving the lever another prod waiting for some reaction.
First stop was Arnold's, the best mechanic in Brum. He never advertises and works from his house's garage. He confirmed that the motor was similar to a GSXR250. The bad news was that it needed a new camchain, all the valves done and a carb balance. The good news was that the clutch rattle disappeared! A normal service goes for sixty notes but the camchain added ninety quid to the bill.
Even with these expenses the bike was still a bargain buy. The motor thrives on revs, beyond ten grand goes silky smooth whilst the exhaust makes a banshee wail that is well eerie! I soon got into the necessary riding technique and was screaming the bike everywhere at outrageous revs. The Suzuki would pull 15000 revs in the first few gears though top was tall enough to lose the final two grand.
The GF would put 120mph on the clock without too much hassle, saw 125mph a couple of times but it needs a long down-hill section to do that. 100mph motorway cruising was a total breeze, even the naked riding position didn't intrude as the bars and pegs allowed me to get my head down.
What did intrude was the seat whose foam was worn flat and left me on the edges of its base. Bloody painful until I bought a pad from M and P which made 100 mile sessions tolerable. The bike felt a bit rough around seven grand but into the hard power the mill smoothed out nicely and I never really suffered from dead fingers. A 250 four has such tiny components that they never generate much vibration.
The only downer was that the engine needed the carbs doing every 750 miles and the valves every 1250 miles. Clutch rattles warned of the former and loud tapping of the latter, as well some loss of the high end revving ability. I changed the oil every 500 miles because under the high rev regime I just didn't believe it would last any longer!
The chassis benefited from having to take the 400 engine as well, its main ingredient for highway coolness a lack of mass - just 310lbs dry! It felt quite flighty at low speeds, I think the way the weight is spread across the engine relative to the lack of mass in the rest of the bike, makes it want to fall into corners. It wasn't a major problem, something I soon became used to.
Not helped along by rear suspension that was way too stiff and front forks that went mushy under hard braking. The twin front discs were rather fearsome devices that had my undies full the first time I tried to stop rapidly on a wet road. Don't know how I got the bike out of the front wheel slide, just say it was a test of my reactions.
I soon swapped the rear shock for a GSXR250 item and added some heavy-duty springs to the forks. That made the bike feel much better balanced if still a touch top heavy but nothing that a bit of mind over matter couldn't cope with. A new set of sticky Metz's allowed me to get my knee down a few times, though the undercarriage threatened to put on a spark show.
Where there were lots of bends and few high speed straights I could ride the bike like a maniac and keep the 600's in sight, sometimes taking the slower riders. Really hammering the bike out of hairpins in, say, third gear, I could make the back end twitch and the front go all light, takes things far enough to the edge to get the fear and adrenaline coursing through my body!
Bloody good fun, by any standards, and something of a giant killer. I particularly liked hammering the front brake on at the last possible moment, hurling the machine over for the corner before the suspension had sorted itself out and still getting away with the manic manoeuvre with merely an almost comforting twitch running through the chassis.
This was an almost fifteen year old motorcycle and ridden with disregard for its age something had to give. The first signs of its age came with the exhaust headers cracking up. When one went I thought a gasket had blown or something, a weird crackling noise and a sudden loss of power. By the time I'd got home, the weakness in one component had stressed the other headers and only one survived intact. The welding torch sufficed but it took a lot of skill not to vaporize the remaining thin metal.
A week after that, some five months into my ownership with about 80,000 kilometres on the clock, the rear suspension linkages went all slack. The Suzuki became more like a damaged wheel-barrow than a sublime piece of high tech motorcycle. These linkages weren't identical to the GSXR's, had to order some bits from Japan! Three weeks later I had a merry time shoving in new bearings and rods.
The handling seemed better than ever, tried to get my elbow down but I would've had to lean so far off the bike that I would no longer be attached to the saddle. A week later, the front wheel bearings started rumbling and directional accuracy was a matter of plus or minus a foot! The old bearings didn't want to come out but I took the wheel along to Arnold, as an alternative to smashing it to smithereens, and they popped out pronto.
I began to treat every ride as a potential disaster waiting to happen. Wasn't that surprised when I came down one morning to find the electrics as dead as my brain at 6.00am. Ever the optimist I decided it was just a duff battery. The battery turned out to be difficult and therefore expensive to replace as its combination of ampage and size was rare! Eighty quid poorer I was totally pissed when three days later it too was flat. Not just flat but ruined by the massive voltages coming out of the rectifier/regulator. I deduced this from the way the lights kept blowing.
Arnold was given the bike and a couple of hundred quid to sort it out, as the alternator was also ruined! The GF went as well as before but I kept looking at it, wondering when it was going to fail next. The bike was dead handy for doing wheelies into shopping centres, and the like, so I was half expecting the hairline cracks that turned up in the back wheel - from whacking into pavements at 50mph!
Weld it? As I couldn't find anything else to fit that's what I had done. The alloy frame was holding up well, despite some scare stories about alloy fatigue going down after a decade or so. I put thoughts about the back wheel breaking up at 125mph out of my mind, had a month's holiday with the girlfriend and luggage out back. Had to buy her a seat pad too, she claiming she was too sore to make love after a few hundred miles riding around the UK. Couldn't have that, could we?
As a tourer, the GF had excellent economy - 60mpg plus! - and didn't need much effort to manhandle even when fully loaded up. Hundreds of miles in a day meant various bodily pains, an engine that ran very hot and clicked in protest when turned off. Frequent chain adjustment, oil changes and carb balances rather intruded upon the highway fun and games; the sixteen year old babe always more interested in the nearest disco than fettling the Suzuki.
With 93000 kilometres under its wheels, even after a service, top end performance became a touch muted. Nothing too noticeable at that point but a warning that some expensive internal engine work was due shortly. I traded in for a nice new Hornet, got 1200 notes off the already discounted price. Conclusion, get a GF at the right point in it's life it will give marvellous service and loads of fun, but will still need serious fettling along the way.
Mark Griffiths
The bike turned out to be an import GF250. A 1985 model that looked like someone had torn the plastic off an early GSXR after an accident. The owner indignantly insisted that it came like that straight out of the crate. Mileage was 56000 kilometres, general condition a bit faded but I couldn't find anything actually wrong.
Until he started the motor up. The exhaust growled nicely but the tune of highway devilishness was intruded upon by a very rattly clutch. They are all like that, said he, which given the scarcity of the model seemed an odd thing to say.
The idle wasn't smooth, suggesting that out of balance carbs might be contributing to the clutch racket. A blast on the back scared me shitless, the only thing I noted was that the owner kept the revs above seven grand. The DOHC four cylinder mill wailed away deliciously around twelve grand!
The owner muttered something about the non-standard carbs, modded electronic ignition and jet-kit adding up to a lot more than the standard forty horses. I demurred, added to the clutch racket, some tapping from the top end; visions of a complete engine strip floated through my mind.
I must've been the only visitor, he very reluctant to let me leave. His original price of 1200 notes fell to 800 and then 600! I looked the chassis over and decided if the motor blew then I could always fit a used GSXR mill - maybe the 400 would fit? I said I'd have it for 500 quid and that's how I became the proud if somewhat reluctant owner of a GF250!
Riding home, I was all for conserving the throttle and making sure the engine lasted the distance. However, below 7000 revs the power was all but non-existent. In fact, the motor was happiest at 10,000 to 14000rpm! The modifications might've had an effect on power delivery although this class of small four stroke four is notoriously peaky.
Whilst the bike would run at lower revs in the first three gears, taller ratios it just sulked and occasionally backfired as if protesting at my lack of commitment to the throttle. The six speed gearbox was ultra slick - engaging first on a cold morning it went straight in without the slightest tremour from the transmission. My old Superdream would clunk and lurch and, at first, I kept giving the lever another prod waiting for some reaction.
First stop was Arnold's, the best mechanic in Brum. He never advertises and works from his house's garage. He confirmed that the motor was similar to a GSXR250. The bad news was that it needed a new camchain, all the valves done and a carb balance. The good news was that the clutch rattle disappeared! A normal service goes for sixty notes but the camchain added ninety quid to the bill.
Even with these expenses the bike was still a bargain buy. The motor thrives on revs, beyond ten grand goes silky smooth whilst the exhaust makes a banshee wail that is well eerie! I soon got into the necessary riding technique and was screaming the bike everywhere at outrageous revs. The Suzuki would pull 15000 revs in the first few gears though top was tall enough to lose the final two grand.
The GF would put 120mph on the clock without too much hassle, saw 125mph a couple of times but it needs a long down-hill section to do that. 100mph motorway cruising was a total breeze, even the naked riding position didn't intrude as the bars and pegs allowed me to get my head down.
What did intrude was the seat whose foam was worn flat and left me on the edges of its base. Bloody painful until I bought a pad from M and P which made 100 mile sessions tolerable. The bike felt a bit rough around seven grand but into the hard power the mill smoothed out nicely and I never really suffered from dead fingers. A 250 four has such tiny components that they never generate much vibration.
The only downer was that the engine needed the carbs doing every 750 miles and the valves every 1250 miles. Clutch rattles warned of the former and loud tapping of the latter, as well some loss of the high end revving ability. I changed the oil every 500 miles because under the high rev regime I just didn't believe it would last any longer!
The chassis benefited from having to take the 400 engine as well, its main ingredient for highway coolness a lack of mass - just 310lbs dry! It felt quite flighty at low speeds, I think the way the weight is spread across the engine relative to the lack of mass in the rest of the bike, makes it want to fall into corners. It wasn't a major problem, something I soon became used to.
Not helped along by rear suspension that was way too stiff and front forks that went mushy under hard braking. The twin front discs were rather fearsome devices that had my undies full the first time I tried to stop rapidly on a wet road. Don't know how I got the bike out of the front wheel slide, just say it was a test of my reactions.
I soon swapped the rear shock for a GSXR250 item and added some heavy-duty springs to the forks. That made the bike feel much better balanced if still a touch top heavy but nothing that a bit of mind over matter couldn't cope with. A new set of sticky Metz's allowed me to get my knee down a few times, though the undercarriage threatened to put on a spark show.
Where there were lots of bends and few high speed straights I could ride the bike like a maniac and keep the 600's in sight, sometimes taking the slower riders. Really hammering the bike out of hairpins in, say, third gear, I could make the back end twitch and the front go all light, takes things far enough to the edge to get the fear and adrenaline coursing through my body!
Bloody good fun, by any standards, and something of a giant killer. I particularly liked hammering the front brake on at the last possible moment, hurling the machine over for the corner before the suspension had sorted itself out and still getting away with the manic manoeuvre with merely an almost comforting twitch running through the chassis.
This was an almost fifteen year old motorcycle and ridden with disregard for its age something had to give. The first signs of its age came with the exhaust headers cracking up. When one went I thought a gasket had blown or something, a weird crackling noise and a sudden loss of power. By the time I'd got home, the weakness in one component had stressed the other headers and only one survived intact. The welding torch sufficed but it took a lot of skill not to vaporize the remaining thin metal.
A week after that, some five months into my ownership with about 80,000 kilometres on the clock, the rear suspension linkages went all slack. The Suzuki became more like a damaged wheel-barrow than a sublime piece of high tech motorcycle. These linkages weren't identical to the GSXR's, had to order some bits from Japan! Three weeks later I had a merry time shoving in new bearings and rods.
The handling seemed better than ever, tried to get my elbow down but I would've had to lean so far off the bike that I would no longer be attached to the saddle. A week later, the front wheel bearings started rumbling and directional accuracy was a matter of plus or minus a foot! The old bearings didn't want to come out but I took the wheel along to Arnold, as an alternative to smashing it to smithereens, and they popped out pronto.
I began to treat every ride as a potential disaster waiting to happen. Wasn't that surprised when I came down one morning to find the electrics as dead as my brain at 6.00am. Ever the optimist I decided it was just a duff battery. The battery turned out to be difficult and therefore expensive to replace as its combination of ampage and size was rare! Eighty quid poorer I was totally pissed when three days later it too was flat. Not just flat but ruined by the massive voltages coming out of the rectifier/regulator. I deduced this from the way the lights kept blowing.
Arnold was given the bike and a couple of hundred quid to sort it out, as the alternator was also ruined! The GF went as well as before but I kept looking at it, wondering when it was going to fail next. The bike was dead handy for doing wheelies into shopping centres, and the like, so I was half expecting the hairline cracks that turned up in the back wheel - from whacking into pavements at 50mph!
Weld it? As I couldn't find anything else to fit that's what I had done. The alloy frame was holding up well, despite some scare stories about alloy fatigue going down after a decade or so. I put thoughts about the back wheel breaking up at 125mph out of my mind, had a month's holiday with the girlfriend and luggage out back. Had to buy her a seat pad too, she claiming she was too sore to make love after a few hundred miles riding around the UK. Couldn't have that, could we?
As a tourer, the GF had excellent economy - 60mpg plus! - and didn't need much effort to manhandle even when fully loaded up. Hundreds of miles in a day meant various bodily pains, an engine that ran very hot and clicked in protest when turned off. Frequent chain adjustment, oil changes and carb balances rather intruded upon the highway fun and games; the sixteen year old babe always more interested in the nearest disco than fettling the Suzuki.
With 93000 kilometres under its wheels, even after a service, top end performance became a touch muted. Nothing too noticeable at that point but a warning that some expensive internal engine work was due shortly. I traded in for a nice new Hornet, got 1200 notes off the already discounted price. Conclusion, get a GF at the right point in it's life it will give marvellous service and loads of fun, but will still need serious fettling along the way.
Mark Griffiths