Yup...I'm new! CHICAGO

[JRod294]

Hey guys. The name is Jarrod (Jared). I live in Edison Park, Chicago.

Just bought my first OWNED bike a couple weeks ago, but have been riding borrowed bikes for the last 2 years. My OWN bike is a 1983 Suzuki GS650G (non-Kitana) that I am working on and planned a cafe conversion....although the conversion probably won't be finished until next season.

I've ridden sport bikes mostly. I learned on a CB600RR and a Ninja 1000. Still not liscenced, but only cause I'm too lazy to go take the test...HAHA!

I got into the "cafe racer" when I borrowed a friend's Kawi KZ400. It wasn't the quickest bike....or the prettiest, but it's fun scootin' around city streets on it. I bought my GS650 off a guy on Craigslist for $400. The bike is complete, but just needs some maintenance. Hopefully will have it running soon.

I'm just here to get ideas for my build like what parts or where to get them. I'll post a thread somewhere when I start the build.

PS- I have seen posts saying a GS650 is NOT a good cafe base.....but it's what I got, so I'll go with it!

Later!

 

[JRod294]

Here's my bike as it stands right now.

 

[rockcitycafe]

gs650 is a great cafe "base", it's already a "cafe" if your definition of cafe is basically a vintage sport bike, it sounds like their definition of "cafe" is: something with a lot of bolt on chinese parts made for it... anywho, not sure if yours is the 2 or 4 valve type, my experience with gs's is turning a 550 into a 750 with a 650 head, from doing that, I can tell you the 650 combustion chamber is probably the best 2 valve chamber designed, it was more or less the peak of refinement of the older technology, so there's plenty of potential in that bike, derestrict the air box (no stupid emgo pods please, they'll only screw things up) and rejet appropriately, and you're going to be surprised with the speed, then go to some lumpier cams, stock lift and duration is quite small, it's real easy to make it nuts with just the basic performance grind from megacycle

 

[JRod294]

Thanks for the tips! In true noob style, I did opt for the pods for now since i already destroyed the air box. I would love to find the "horn" style intakes at some point, but the pods were just convenient....

 

[rockcitycafe]

Yeah, change back to the air box, find one used on eBay or wherever because you're going to spend a week trying to tune it without any baseline, you'll get it running as well as you can with the pods and get smoked by someone on a well tuned 350 stock, it'll be embarrassing and I can't recommend it