StreetFighters magazine No.30, August '96, Don Blanchard's GS1357

There's more goes on at Daytona Beach during Bike Week than tits, tattoos and lard-arse Americans in leather trousers without a crotch riding up and down on lard-arse motorcycles.
When darkness falls and the bros with the beards are having f un in the titty bars, you often hear the tortured, demented howl of a big Jap four on full throttle somewhere out on the edge of town.

Guys like Don Blanchard come down to the sunshine of Daytona during Bike Week to run their big-bore drag bikes out on the street ... sometimes for money and sometimes just for fun.
Don's a native New Yorker and he only runs his bike for money, but the night that l met him at Kristals on South Atlantic Boulevard there were no takers.
The night before he'd 'Shut them up and shut them down' and no one wanted to put their hand in their pocket and run against Don's fearsomely fast green Suzuki for a fistful of dollars.

I've noticed that a lot of fast Suzuki strip-style and pukka drag bikes are painted a similar shade of green and there does seem to be some kind of connection between the colour green and big-bore street/drag Suzuki GSXs - they sort of go together like drinking mescal and having sex doggy-style (the first one to come gets to eat the worm).

Out here in the land that stretches from shining sea to shining sea the early model GSX1100 was called a GS1100, ergo Don refers to his bike as a GS eleven, but it's an incidental point as there's not a lot of the original 1981 Suzuki left to make it worth arguing about. What remains of the original frame is host to what remains of the original engine and, as l say, there's not much left of the bike that rolled off the boat from Hamamatsu in 1981.
Suzuki's Piatti-inspired DOHC four-valve eleven hundred engine is a tough old customer and can be made to suffer all manner of speed-induced modifications without turning into a potential rolling hand grenade when used in anger.
Working from the top down, Don's masterblaster has a gasflowed head with 38mm valves sitting on an FBG big block containing four Wiseco pistons with a total cylinder displacement of 1327cc.
The oversize valves are opened by a pair of Megacycle race cams with a .355 lift and snapped shut with a vengeance by a set of heavy duty valve springs.
Like so many serious American bikes, the Suzuki crankshaft has had the Falicon Magnaflux treatment after being indexed and welded to prevent any unwanted flex when the Wisecos are fed their diet of high octane fuel through the four 40mm Mikuni flatslide carburettors.
To keep the rest of the bottom end inside the cases when the electronic tacho needle caresses the edge of the red zone, the gearbox features a full set of straight-cut gears and a heavy duty billet clutch basket with a lock-up centre keeping the clutch plates pressed together tighter than a trumpet player's arse cheeks when he hits a high C note. The stock 1981 Suzuki ignition coils are long gone, having been replaced with a pair of high output Dyna coils with 8mm HT leads doing a double act with the Dyna 4000 ignition and accompanying Dyna retard box.

The Suzuki frame is still much the same as when the little yellow whale eaters badly welded it together in 1981.
Don has removed a bit here and added a bit there to suit his own needs and requirements, but it's still a recognisable Suzuki product.
He obviously intended the bike to retain its Suzuki silhouette and has elected to keep the original steel fuel tank, big GSX headlight and stock tail light pod.
The stock headlamp has a black-out plate where the original speedo used to live and now houses the tacho with the shift indicator light for the MRE air-shifter fastened on top where it can be easily seen.

In true, red, white and blue street racer style, Don's bike has an on-board compressor to charge the air-shifter in between bouts concealed under the elongated seat hump juxtaposed with the brains for the two-stage NOS
With its low slung footrests and exhaust system, four inch over-length strutted rear end, lack of real brakes and shortened forks, it's obvious that Don's bike is a quarter mile animal that would be g humiliated on the twisty bits by damn-near anything standard.
But prowess in the turns is not what this bike is about - with a slick tyre fitted on the Dominator rear wheel and a set of wheelie bars Don has turned in a best ever time of 8.65 seconds with a terminal speed of 159mph over the quarter mile.
And in its street-legal clothes, as pictured here, the bike will run low nines.
For a bike with such an obvious single purpose it's surprisingly street legal, the stock alternator, battery and starter motor are still in place; both the front and rear lights are original and work and the black plastic rear mudguard cum number plate that everybody over this side of the pond can't throw away fast enough is still in place.

If you want to race against Don on the street you'll need to put up some money - and ship your bike out to The States. You can find him racing on the street at Yonkers in the Big Apple on Thursday nights or hanging out at Kristals in Daytona during Bike Week -he's the guy with the mean, green Suzuki who shuts them up and shuts them down ... for a price.


Engine:
1981 Suzuki US-spec GS1100, gasflowed head with 38mm oversize valves, heavy duty springs, .355 Megacycle cams, 1357cc FBG big block with Wiseco pistons, Falicon modified crank, Hi-output oil pump with double overhead oiler, straight-cut gears, billet clutch basket, lock-up clutch, 1150E oil cooler, Spider exhaust with ceramic-coated header pipes, 40mm Mikuni smoothbores with K&N filters, MRE air-shifter with on-board compressor, Stage 2 NOS system with delay box, Dyna coils, Dyna 4000 ignition, Dyna ignition retard box.

Electrics:
 Modified Suzuki
 Frame:
Modified 1981 Suzuki US-spec GS1100
Front End: Shortened Suzuki GS1100 forks and yokes, 18in Dominator wheel with Metzeler tyre, single Grimeca caliper and Koenig disc, stainless steel line and Suzuki master cylinder.
Rear End: 4in overstock steel box section swinging-arm with rigid struts, 18in Dominator wheel with 180x60x18 Yokohama tyre, Koenig disc, PM caliper, stainless steel line with Suzuki masters cylinder.
Bodywork: 1981 Suzuki petrol tank, headlight and modified rear light pod, seat, QD panels and rear extensions by owner, aftermarket custom front mudguard.

Paint:
Chevrolet teal green #25, fram powdercoated "hammer-look" black and silver.

Other Stuff:
 All work by owner.