4. SUZUKI GSX-R1100
Year: 1986
Horsepower: 125bhp @ 8,750rpm
Torque: 62ft.lb @ 7,800rpm
Layout: 1,052cc, DOHC, parallel-four
The most inspired bike of the Eighties was Suzuki’s GSXR750, whose ultra-light, aluminium-framed chassis and unprecedented race-replica aggression took high-performance motorcycling in a radical new direction on its launch in 1985. But the decade’s most impressive engine arrived a year later, when Suzuki fitted a strengthened version of the same frame with a 1052cc four-cylinder motor to create the GSX-R1100.
Like the smaller powerplant, the slab-sided GSX-R was a dohc 16-valve unit, oil-cooled by Suzuki’s SACS (Suzuki Advanced Cooling System) arrangement of underpiston lube jets and tightly packed cylinder fins. The larger motor had a lower 10:1 compression ratio, used CV instead of slide carbs, and was far more flexible. Its peak output of 125bhp at 8,500rpm was a gain of 25bhp, but the real advantage was its massively increased midrange grunt.
That helped make the light and fine-handling GSX-R1100 by far the world’s fastest and best sports bike on its launch in ’86, and its advantage did not end there. In contrast to the fragile 750 motor, the GSXR1100 was so tough that it rapidly became the powerplant of choice for drag racers and builders of radical specials, many of whom kept it remarkably stock despite outrageous power outputs. 500bhp was achievable.
In 1989 Suzuki enlarged it to 1127cc to power the GSX-R1100K, which was even more powerful, equally robust and even better suited to tuning. In 1993 Suzuki finally joined the liquid-cooled masses with the GSX-R1100WP. But for many, that unburstable oil-cooled Gixxer was the best big motor all. To this day, it’s still the most infamous big-capacity sportsbike engine ever made.
