Suzuki decided enough was enough and totally re-engineered the renowned Suzuki GSX-R1000 to restore it to the top of the sports bike food chain after years of playing second fiddle to rivals Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. The Gixxer was brought up to date with a new chassis, a new engine, and updated electronics, making it competitive with brands like Honda, Kawasaki, and Yamaha both in showrooms and on race tracks. Here is everything you need to know about the finest GSX-R1000 to date.
Sports bikes in the early 1980s were large, heavy, and fast, but they lacked a little in the chassis and handling sectors. Then came the Suzuki GSX-R750, an ostensibly road-legal race bike that revolutionised the idea of sports bikes. The Suzuki GSX-R1100 motorcycle then came along in 1986, created by lighterening the GS1100 naked road bikes and adding a fairing, but the handling was still very lacking, partly due to still being too heavy.
By the time we reached 2001, the Honda CBR900RR Fireblade from 1994 and the Yamaha YZF-R1 from 1998 had both demonstrated the way forward. Suzuki answered with the GSX-R1000, a motorcycle that could move 374 pounds of total weight while producing 160 horsepower and 80 pound-feet of torque from its engine. The GSX-R1000 had eight iterations between 2001 and 2016, each bringing changes to the engine and chassis.
In the litre sports bike category by 2017, Suzuki was once more falling behind Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki, who all outperformed the Suzuki in terms of horsepower and electronics. Suzuki needed to start over if they wanted to compete with what might have been a vanishing breed of motorcycles but was still crucial for having a flagship model and serving as a foundation for production-based racing. Sales were down, but the Japanese big four manufacturers still believed in litre sports bikes despite the rise of the adventure bike. This model is still being produced today.
Since the 2009 update, the Suzuki GSX-R1000 has had one new engine. It was expected that an inline four-cylinder engine would have adequate primary balance without the need for additional complexity, thus a higher rev limit was one thing, but a balancer shaft was a shocking omission. Having said that, Suzuki used variable valve timing for the first time by adjusting the timing of the camshafts using a centrifugal ball-and-plate mechanism. The engine now generates 199 horsepower at 13,000 rpm and 87 pound-feet of torque at 10,800 rpm thanks to improved fueling.
