Long-term Busa report German Motorrad mag

OB_Animal

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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).]
 
Good on ya Animal
Nice piece

All the problems that everyone else is having all point towards the same sort of stuff eh?

Lets hope Suzuki do something about it.

Thanks again

Grateful Nuts ;)
 
Seems like that, NN.

I was glad that at least no shocking, NEW bad things turned-up, but Suzuki's official statement about the tensioner pissed me off!
 
Have decided to go manual on the cam chain tensioner adjuster (to give it its proper name!)
(the cam chain tensioner is the curved plastic runner that the CCTA works on, while the other two straight bits of plastic runner are cam chain guides (yeah, yeah, I read too much I know!))

According to Schnitz to adjust the manual one, do it up till it is finger tight. I've got strong fingers!! There ain't gonna be any rattle coming from my cam chain!!

Re: the gearbox. I think most of us have experienced at one time or another during ownership problems in selecting, jumping out, false neutrals etc. But the dogs rounded, this is a sure sign of clutchless gear changes (mainly the down shifts that cause this, although porly executed up shifts also )If it was a long term tester for a magazine, they would have ragged the living daylights out of this bike, so realistically the outcome is not too bad, in fact overall prognosise, for me is one of pure goodness......apart from Suzuki's attitude. But that is only to be expected really.

so, to sum up main points coming from the test(IMHO)

#1. get the camchain tensioner adjuster sorted
#2. Go steady with the gearbox and clutchless gearchanging (don't know if this would be a problem with auto shifters like air or electric....anyone??)
#3. Change clutch springs for 2000 ones (I heard this before, think it was JohnnyCheese)
#4. Starter clutch ?? hhmmmmmmm new one don't know about this, might have some more bedtime reading tonight!!

Do you agree Animal?

Nuts ;)
 
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