Streetfighter Project-GS500F

[Tyler.M]

So, I bought this bike off of Rex a little while ago and I've just been too lazy to put up a project thread on here. But, seeing as its too cold to ride, class is cancelled and I'm all out of Skyrimz, I might as well do something I've been meaning to do for awhile.

I took the plunge and finally got into motorcycles, and I've loved every second of it. I bought an '08 GS500f that lacked the majority of the fairings, which is fine since I'm going to streetfighter the bike eventually anyways. The bike had 10,295 miles on it when I bought it, and is now sitting at around 10,700. I still have a ways to go before I hit my goal of 10k of personal riding experience (by which point I plan to find a bike that would be a good track rat) so I'm going to do some modifications to the bike to cut my teeth on motorcycle maintenance, and the black art of engine modifications to a carb'd motor. The bike may not be as fast as 600's or anything, and the suspension may be spongy, but its light, and pretty crafty in the corners. Overall, a pretty good beginner bike, and though I'd rather have a fuel injected system, this will be a good learning experience.

Currently, it's pretty ugly. The only things I'm doing until funds free up are just basic maintenance, tuning, replacing tires and making sure everything is road worthy. I did a full oil change last night, and the thing shifts completely smooth now. I might want to upgrade to a sv650s clutch plate eventually.... but I have others things on my mind first.

Pictures, when I got it:


Last night, during the oil change, and as the bike sits now:

Took it for a ride after the change, and I kinda dig the no fairings stuff. I feel like I can see what's in front better, if that makes any sense.

[SlimKlim]

My frankenbike started life as a GS500E, they make awesome little streetfighters. It's possible to swap the entire front end from a Gixxer onto these things for a better front brake and shocks, but on mine the brakes were a bit overkill, I had to keep it turned down at the lever to keep from doing unintentional stoppies under hard braking.

I'd just throw a different bar on the existing fork and lower the riding position a little, and maybe beef up the shocks a little at some point.

Are you planning on shaving the tail too?

[Tyler.M]

I see lots of people doing a Gixxer FE, but I don't want to have to go through the whole process of trying to find someone that can mess with the triple to get it to fit proper. I hear that the CBR FE fits without any mods needed... but that's down the line. R

Right now, all I want to do is get it looking okay, so yeah, I'm gonna shave the tail and maybe just do an entire fender elimination. First though, I need to deal with a few things : the sides of the engine and muffler cover are rashed pretty badly, and they need to be either replaced or repainted. The frame paint, on the left hand side, is suffering from some gas damage and I want to try to get that looking less ugly. I need a new set of bars, mine are rusted and busted, and the left foot peg is pretty wobbly. I also want to paint the exhaust a flat black, since F's didn't have painted exhaust.

I actually bought full uncracked fairings for the thing too, just in case I wanted to remount the stuff and sell it for its market value. I'm thinking to paint everything either suzuki blue (my fairings I found are gray) or just go with a white all the way around. I suppose blue would be the better option since that's what my tank is, but white would be pretty freakin' sweet.

[DavidM]

If you are just looking for stock bars I'm pretty sure I have some just hanging out in my basement...figure you probably want clip ons but if you just want stockers for the meantime I could probably get the down to the burg easily enough...

[BLINGMW]

If you are just looking for stock bars I'm pretty sure I have some just hanging out in my basement

I think I do too
I think I also have a handful of spares, pegs and such, maybe a new brake master cyl if you're interested at all I'll check.
FWIW, if you've read about the katana rear and sonic springs in the front upgrade, that's what I did to mine and it made it SO much better on the track. And great for the street too. Brakes are fine as is, leave them alone. I think I changed my front pads once. And I could lock up the front any time I "wanted to".
Made a great track bike. Anyone I passed I had full rights to laugh at. :mrgreen:

[SlimKlim]

I suppose blue would be the better option since that's what my tank is, but white would be pretty freakin' sweet.

You're goddamn right it would.





Too bad it was such a miserable shitheap and didn't run 90% of the time I owned it. I swear to god that thing was cursed.

But yeah, I would avoid changing out the fork, too much work for what it is. If it were me I'd definitely delete the fenders. My frame was uber chopped so that only one person could ride it. If I was starting from a stock bike I'd rip off the fender, huge turn signals, brake light and plate bracket. Throw LED turns & tail on, tuckaway or vertical plate mount, and then throw some matte black aluminum plates on to cover the gap in the frame and make it look like one piece. That way you get the chopped look without actually sawing off half of your motorcycle.

[Tyler.M]

I had no idea so many people had GS's here. That's awesome. Thanks for the suggestions Joey, I think that's the route I might go. I'd like to keep the tail fairing and space for two (tbh, i'd like to try my hand at commuting and I'd like to add a tail bag at some point) but I hate the look of the fender and the massive turn signals. Good idea on the chrome plate though to cover the gap, I'll have to check that out.

Also.... :bow: to your bike. I don't see too many white customized ones nowadays, and yours was pretty shmexy. Sorry to hear it didn't run well though... I had some issues to when I first bought the bike, and it all goes back to dem damn carbs. Sorted out now though, which is all that matters.

FWIW, if you've read about the katana rear and sonic springs in the front upgrade, that's what I did to mine and it made it SO much better on the track.
Made a great track bike. Anyone I passed I had full rights to laugh at. :mrgreen:

Dang, I wanna hear more about what you did to track prep it and all that stuff. That's honestly my entire reason for getting into motorcycles in the first place. From what I've read gs500's aren't really... competive against some other smaller sized bikes, but they still seem to have a pretty devout following.

The katana rear shock is pretty popular as is the r6 one too from what I've seen. Thoughts on which is better?

David, stock bars would be great as long as their black and not all rusty like mine are. I want to go the clip on route, but other things take priority and some cheap stockers would fit the bill for what I want atm.

[JPolen01]

Screw paint. Let's wrap it like we talked about!

[Tyler.M]

That would actually be pretty shmexy

[CaptainHenreh]

As far as on the track, the GS500 seems a lot like the SV650...the Miata of Motorcycles.

[SlimKlim]

Sorry to hear it didn't run well though... I had some issues to when I first bought the bike, and it all goes back to dem damn carbs. Sorted out now though, which is all that matters.

Yeah, mine ended up coming apart a bit more than that...



The guy that sold me mine screwed me over, he passed off two blown valve seals as "bad carbs," so after I rebuilt the carbs it looked like my smokescreen button was stuck on. So I put a head on that motor, and blew the bottom end out of it 100 miles later. So I bought a whole new motor and they shipped it to me with rust in the cylinders and a stud missing in the head, so I took it apart and threw together another motor, and then the bike wouldn't run for jack shit. A dozen hours of diagnosing later I replaced the stator, and sold the fuckin' thing.

[Tyler.M]

As far as on the track, the GS500 seems a lot like the SV650...the Miata of Motorcycles.

I'm getting the vibe too, which is good for me because its good introduction into it all. I mean, I went on a ride with a few friends with gixxers, and they'd pull away in the straights but I'd get right on their tail in the corners. They were surprised I could keep up, and so was I, frankly.

And holy shit Joey, that's ridiculous. These engines can be pretty finicky, but I've heard people getting well over 100k on them before a rebuild.

[Tyler.M]

BTW Joey, how much did you end up selling your bike for? I'm still on the fence of how far into a streetfighter build I should. If it'll be financially viable I'll go for it, but if returning the thing to stock will mean I get more money, I might just do that.

FWIW, I was watching sv650s videos all morning. DO WANT

[Jake]

If it'll be financially viable I'll go for it, but if returning the thing to stock will mean I get more money, I might just do that.

I'm confused now, are you trying to build a cool bike to keep and ride for a while, or do a quick fix-n-flip for profit?

[SlimKlim]

BTW Joey, how much did you end up selling your bike for? I'm still on the fence of how far into a streetfighter build I should. If it'll be financially viable I'll go for it, but if returning the thing to stock will mean I get more money, I might just do that.

FWIW, I was watching sv650s videos all morning. DO WANT

If you're trying to get the maximum dollar amount out of the thing then don't mod it. Just fix every single little imperfection you can and sell it in the spring when people get motorcycle fever. If you go down the modification rabbit hole you'll never your money back out of it IMHO.

I bought my 500 already chopped with the Gixxer fork and a rear shock from something, but its not a good basis for comparison because mine was a '93 that was fucked seven ways to Sunday. I paid $1k for it, and sunk another $1400 in a nasty combination of motors, parts from Japan and diagnostic time in the shop.

I sold it for $1700, but honestly that was probably mostly due to the drop dead gorgeous paint job my dad did for it and the fact that the kid buying it didn't know an engine from a hole in the ground. I don't completely regret that bike just because it was so damn cool, but it certainly taught me a lesson about knowing when to walk away from a purchase. I faired much better on Kaan's bike and the Miata. I should find something else to flip...

[.RJ]

Its easy to change the front end on the bike as long as you use EVERYTHING from the donor bike. Just take off the upper triple clamp and the whole thing falls out of the frame :lol:

Usually suzuki parts will bolt right up and you'll have to do some research about the steerer stem diameters & lengths, fork offsets, etc, etc, because there will be year/model differences. Chances are someone's already done it and done the homework.

[SlimKlim]

Its easy to change the front end on the bike as long as you use EVERYTHING from the donor bike. Just take off the upper triple clamp and the whole thing falls out of the frame :lol:

Usually suzuki parts will bolt right up and you'll have to do some research about the steerer stem diameters & lengths, fork offsets, etc, etc, because there will be year/model differences. Chances are someone's already done it and done the homework.

I think it was either you or Kaan that told me motorcycles are like grown up legos when I was getting started on my GS. :lol:

[Tyler.M]

If it'll be financially viable I'll go for it, but if returning the thing to stock will mean I get more money, I might just do that.

I'm confused now, are you trying to build a cool bike to keep and ride for a while, or do a quick fix-n-flip for profit?

yes.

[SlimKlim]

You have conflicting interests IMO, spending money to mod it won't make it worth more and will move you further away from profiting on it.

If you really do want the best of both world's I'd avoid taking a saw to anything (except maybe the stock plate bracket) and only do bolt ons, so you can return it to stock and sell the bike and your parts separately.

[CaptainHenreh]

You youngin's need to learn this:

Mods are a money pit. Every dollar you spend on modifications is a dollar you can *assume* you're flushing down the toilet. Sometimes you get *some* of it back which is a happy bonus but most of the time you lose your ass.

This applies to cars, bikes, airplanes, guns, houses, women, model trains, and politicians.