Thought this was the most appropriate board to post this on?
They did 46357 kilometers (around 29000 miles) with their Busa, planning on round figure of 50000 km but camchaintensioner ending it abruptly for the 2nd time. At 24295 km (around 15000 ml) they experienced serious engine damage due to original tensioner failing and they had the entire head changed under warranty because of that (which, BTW, also means that some of the parts they inspected/measured for wear now, have only lived around 14000 miles whereas the rest has done 29000 of course). When the engine was partly destroyed again recently, they decided to call it quits and make up their report based on the state it's in now.
Official Suzuki Germany statement is that the 2nd generation tensioner failing is just a singular case to them!?!?!
Oh, and BTW, Germany has some 3500 Busa's riding around inside its borders, so I'm wondering how many will follow there to make it a more general case?
Motorrad heavily emphasized the fact that it's a $2 dollar spring that's doing all this damage and that to make it worse, the whole unit of around $70 has to be replaced.
This time round damage to their Busa was 6 out of 16 valves bent and 4 valve guides being destroyed as well.
Positive things:
Crank, rods, pistons, cams, valves (those not bent) all look very good and wear so little that they could have easily gone that distance again. They measure all the clearances as well and compare them to the clearance ranges from new-at-factory to worn/to-be-replaced and only piston-to-cylinder clearance and top-piston-ring clearance were somewhere in the middle of their expected life, while all the others were close to or still within "new" clearance range!
Other negative things:
Like bigabusa just reported, they also found some bad things in the gearbox: 3rd/4th gear shift fork badly worn, a lot of the gear "mesh" dogs (?) were rounded off and they would normally have to replace 3rd through 6th gear and corresponding shift forks if they were to rebuild that engine.
The 2 clutch parts that are also involved in the Brock mod were replaced twice under warranty on theirs as the ramps/dogs were damaged and leading to worse than stock clutch behaviour (and clutch was acting-up again just before test end). Suzuki's reaction was that they'd better use the 2000 models stiffer springs??? The rest of the clutch parts, like plates, baskets etc. was all in fine condition BTW.
They also had starter problems with gear teeth on the starter and all intermediate gear teeth to the crank being damaged due to (according to them) a stuck starter "freewheel" (can't think of the proper phrase for sure, think it's starter-clutch?) and this was all replaced under warranty.
All in all, when USING the Busa they immensely enjoyed it and only hated the clutch, but in light of the tensioner and the state of the gearbox they've seen now, they think it's an unacceptable reliability issue here.
[This message has been edited by Animal (edited 12 July 2000).]
They did 46357 kilometers (around 29000 miles) with their Busa, planning on round figure of 50000 km but camchaintensioner ending it abruptly for the 2nd time. At 24295 km (around 15000 ml) they experienced serious engine damage due to original tensioner failing and they had the entire head changed under warranty because of that (which, BTW, also means that some of the parts they inspected/measured for wear now, have only lived around 14000 miles whereas the rest has done 29000 of course). When the engine was partly destroyed again recently, they decided to call it quits and make up their report based on the state it's in now.
Official Suzuki Germany statement is that the 2nd generation tensioner failing is just a singular case to them!?!?!
Oh, and BTW, Germany has some 3500 Busa's riding around inside its borders, so I'm wondering how many will follow there to make it a more general case?
Motorrad heavily emphasized the fact that it's a $2 dollar spring that's doing all this damage and that to make it worse, the whole unit of around $70 has to be replaced.
This time round damage to their Busa was 6 out of 16 valves bent and 4 valve guides being destroyed as well.
Positive things:
Crank, rods, pistons, cams, valves (those not bent) all look very good and wear so little that they could have easily gone that distance again. They measure all the clearances as well and compare them to the clearance ranges from new-at-factory to worn/to-be-replaced and only piston-to-cylinder clearance and top-piston-ring clearance were somewhere in the middle of their expected life, while all the others were close to or still within "new" clearance range!
Other negative things:
Like bigabusa just reported, they also found some bad things in the gearbox: 3rd/4th gear shift fork badly worn, a lot of the gear "mesh" dogs (?) were rounded off and they would normally have to replace 3rd through 6th gear and corresponding shift forks if they were to rebuild that engine.
The 2 clutch parts that are also involved in the Brock mod were replaced twice under warranty on theirs as the ramps/dogs were damaged and leading to worse than stock clutch behaviour (and clutch was acting-up again just before test end). Suzuki's reaction was that they'd better use the 2000 models stiffer springs??? The rest of the clutch parts, like plates, baskets etc. was all in fine condition BTW.
They also had starter problems with gear teeth on the starter and all intermediate gear teeth to the crank being damaged due to (according to them) a stuck starter "freewheel" (can't think of the proper phrase for sure, think it's starter-clutch?) and this was all replaced under warranty.
All in all, when USING the Busa they immensely enjoyed it and only hated the clutch, but in light of the tensioner and the state of the gearbox they've seen now, they think it's an unacceptable reliability issue here.
[This message has been edited by Animal (edited 12 July 2000).]