“Fast, Faster & Holy Toledo!”
The Busa Trilogy - Part 2
Click Here for Busa Trilogy-Part 1

Please tell me that you haven’t started reading part 2 without first reading part 1 now have you?  To bring you up to date thus far, we are building 3, count em, 3 Suzuki Hayabusas into fiendishly wicked performance machines; a 1999 and a 2001 will be Pro-Street monsters while the 2000 is being finished as a Streetbike Shootout machine.  When last we met, we had just finished talking about swingarms, dogbones and frame modifications.  Well, all that work is finished and it’s time to move on to more important items.  What DO you do to the frame once Terry at McIntosh Machine & Fabrication has raked it? 

Chrome & Polishing baby, that’s what.

 All 3 frames were polished to a bright as the sun mirror finish by the master of polishing himself, Phil Tinsley.  Phil also performed his magic spell on the neck area of the frame, which some polishers don’t take the time to do for most folks because of the skills and tools necessary.
 

Phil made sure that if there were a part or accessory, no matter how small on any of the machines that couldn’t be polished, it was chromed.  So we gave all 3 bikes another massive amount of chrome to complete the Eye Candy Awareness Program. Too much EYE Candy is never enough that’s why Phil started the E.C.A.P.  A little chrome here, a little chrome there, polished forks, chromed wheels, handle bar ends and the list goes on and on.  Where does it stop? How much is too much?  When it comes to looking bad to the bone, too much is never enough.  For many years I was of the belief that if you desired your motorcycle to look it’s best and it was made of aluminum, it got polished.  You’ve seen those most awesome eye glaring bikes that have all those parts polished by some very sick individuals.  Flanking every polished bike, you will unearth someone standing there continually, painstakingly, polishing it.  That’s what you have to do with polished aluminum to keep it looking good using the old methods.  Continue polishing it.  But chrome on the other hand…. (Wicked evil laugh) Buwahahaha…. that’s easy.  A soft paper towel and some Windex.  Spritz….spritz….wipe….wipe and all done.  Lets go riding.  If I could have chromed the frame and felt very confident that it wasn’t going to flake off or start to peel after a few years, I would have done that also.  I have talked to many owners of chrome frames on the Internet and quite a few chrome companies who all had both good and bad things to say.  Some people will swear by their chroming procedures by saying it will never flake or peel.  Then again, I have conversed with some old chromers who say that something as large as the frame will always peel or flake at some time.  I personally chose not to chrome and allowed Phil to perform his magic on the frame by polishing it.

He first starts with the sanders and pad grinders to knock off the rough stuff.  Then he works with the air sander at low speeds and sands the aluminum with 180 grit sandpaper and works all the way up to a very fine1000 grit before he starts his polishing magic with the buffing wheels.  It’s quite a process before Phil is finally done, but when he is, Ooooooh baby it’s like gazing into a mirror. 

 
Really, no fog, no swirl marks, just a very high luster polished aluminum.  His real trick is in the finishing touches when he…Oooops.  I almost told you his secret, I can’t do that now can I?  You will just have to call and ask him to create for you a magical piece of fine art.  As for the rest of the bike, Phil chromed every single piece that was left on the bike from the triple tree down to the chain guard.  Now I just explained to you that I basically hate polishing and that I love chrome on everything.  Well, a few items just had to be polished due to technical issues I won’t go into right now, but suffice it to say, once Phil has polished the frame, forks, reservoirs and calipers he has a trick to keep them from oxidizing so quickly.  His trick is…there I go again, I almost told you his secrets again, sorry Phil.  Lets just say, I don’t have to do very much to keep my frame looking bright as a mirror, but I will tell you that sealing the aluminum from air is important to counter oxidation…Oooops, I think I said too much.  Actually, nothing more really needs to be said.  If you want your bike to really shine and I mean really, really shine, give Phil a call.  He truly is…the master of polish and chrome.

 Since we are adding some more bolt on Horse Power…Hold on… MORE you say?????  How can that be?  Who in their right mind would want to add more power to the already “King of the street” Hayabusa? Me, that’s who.  So lets get started with the assembly of the motor for these 3 Suzuki monsters.  Mike Caputo of Maximum Performance in Toledo, OH., will be performing all the motor design, selection of performance parts and installation of those parts.  I needed someone who knows how to go fast and Pro-Modified Suzuki racer Mike Caputo knows how to get the job done.

Lets start off with a new piston kit for our 2000 Street Bike Shootout monster.  We chose the MTC 84mm Nitrous Ready high dome pistons from World Champion Top Fuel Racer, Mr. Tony Lang of MTC Engineering.  If you don’t know who this legend is, then you don’t deserve to own a set of some of the finest pistons made, but he will still sell them to you.  Each one is hand crafted and meticulously inspected by Tony himself before they are packed and shipped to your front door.

 His shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida is also home to a lot of America’s astronauts who also ride with MTC’s in their bikes.  MTC pistons come in a variety of domes, dishes, ring groove and valve pocket configurations.  We chose the 84mm’s with Nitrous reinforcement in the wrist pin area and lowered ring grooves.  Tony will custom design and build a set to your specifications and needs just for the asking (and a few $$$).  Since Mike decided to spray the snot out of the 2000 shootout motor (inject Nitrous Oxide), we needed a strong piston that could take the abuse run after run after run and MTC was our choice. 

 Now in order to fit these giant pistons into the cylinders that are only 81mm in diameter, we are going to have to make them larger or BORE them out to fit the 84mm pistons.  Since the Hayabusa cylinders are solid aluminum without any sleeves in them, they have to be bored and then plated.  Yes you heard right, plated, otherwise the piston rings would scrap against raw aluminum and I don’t think they would last very long.  It is relatively an inexpensive procedure and Mike takes great care to have them meet his precise specification for piston to cylinder wall clearances.  Not all shops can handle this kind of work so make sure you consult with a professional before attempting to have this done to your cylinder block.

 Mike also installed a 5mm stroked Falicon crankshaft and APE’s Carrillo rods to handle the higher pressures generated by the nitrous injection.  He wanted to be sure that his shootout motor was well protected both in the bottom end as well as the top.  The Pro-Street motors will be utilizing the stock Suzuki crank and rods, but one thing all 3 motors have without question is APE’s High Volume Oil Pump Gear. 
 

 It has been found that the rod bearings in the Suzuki rods are a bit of a weak point as far as oiling is concerned in the wrist pin bearing area.  The APE High Volume Oil Pump Gear takes care of this oiling inefficiency.  For the little amount that this gear cost, it should save you hundreds later down the line so you might as well order one up while your at it.

 We did not do any port work to any of the heads, as a matter of fact; we left them completely stock except for one tiny detail.

WEB CAMS

We were very pleased to have Laurie and Steve the owners of Webcamshafts.com, send us 3 sets of their small lift .378 cams.  These cams literally bolt in place of the stock cams and give your fire breathing monster quite a few more ponies to play with.  Web Cams, Inc., of Riverside, California has been around making performance cams for many years.  If you are a number 1 plate holder in just about any sport, most likely you were running Web Cams. They manufacture performance cams for just about every kind of a motor out there and I don’t mean just motorcycle.  If you call Web Cams, ask Laurie to tell you about her days racing the small go carts and kicking everybody’s butt using plastic Web Cams for a Briggs and Stratton 5hp motor (Highly modified of course).

  I recommend you have an experienced motor builder install these items for you, unless of course you have the tools and a service manual and have done these kinds of things before and you know what you are doing.  To get the most from our Web Cams, Mike installed a set of APE Slotted Cam Gears so that he could adjust the cam timing to his own specifications to get every ounce of performance from our cams and don’t ask me to tell you what he adjust them too, I DON’T KNOW.

 
No self-respecting motor builder would install a set of performance cams without first installing slotted cam gears on the cams.  Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of anyone not doing that.  APE is the home of the famous Cam Chain Tensioner we talked about earlier in Part 1.  “Jay” the owner, has given the industry some of its greatest innovations in motorcycle technology.  You can find most of these items at www.hayabusazone.com where APE continues to be innovators of many trick motor enhancements for keeping your engine running at its best.

 For the 2000 Streetbike Shootout goliath, we needed a clutch setup that would not only hold the massive power plant that Mike was building, but also allow it to slip properly when it was launched at the track.  We chose to install an MTC Billet inner hub basket along with an MTC Multi-Stage Lockup clutch.  We wanted the finest clutch we could find and MTC had just what we needed.  The Multi-Stage lockup clutch adjustments allow us to fine tune the clutch perfectly for a controlled slippage off the line and then lockup at just the precise moment when power to the pavement was required.  By using it’s wide range of inner springs and finger weights we had literally dozens of different combinations to choose from just by selecting different weights to use with different combinations of inner springs.  In addition to the MTC Lockup clutch, Tony Lang made sure we had the back plate modified with steel buttons to handle the pressures that the weighted arms would be applying to the plate while racing.  Too Cool!

The MTC Multi-Stage Lockup clutch is only as good as the clutch disc and plates housed within it so it was time for Jay at APE to come to the rescue.  APE’s high performance race clutch pack was just the ticket we needed for all 3 bikes.   

The 1999 and the 2001 had the APE clutch hub and racing clutch pack installed with the modified springs and the 2000 received the MTC Multi-Stage with the APE racing clutch pack.  A winning combination by far if I do say so myself.  Since the 1999 and the 2001 are Pro-Street bikes, Mike was really only concerned with replacing the grabby stock clutch hub and the stock clutch pack.

 If you are not going to take your bike to the track and launch it like a Saturn V rocket, then the stock clutch is quite sufficient.  Suzuki designed a very reliable clutch that is easy to use and has safeguards in place to help reduce rear tire skid when downshifting in a curve.  But in drag racing, there are no curves and in Toledo, it’s streetlight to streetlight, Hooooooooeeeeeeeeee baby!

 The 2000 Streetbike Shootout received a set of Keihin 41mm FCR carburetors while utilizing a Schnitz Pro-Street II Ignition box with Nitrous controller. Whew!  What else could we do to that machine I do not know, but I bet Mike does.  The 2000 received Mikes extra attention to piston deck height, ring clearance, cam timing, nitrous manifolds, NOS nitrous system and rear sprocket gear changes.  All of which I might add are tight secrets kept under lock and key inside Mike’s uhhh… shall we say, severely over charged brain and if any of you know Mike, I’m sure you would agree with me.

 The 1999 and 2001 Pro-Street monsters will utilize the Suzuki EFI with Dynojet Power Commander II’s ®.  The cam timing, ECU mapping (Mike’s own custom), piston deck height and suspension tuning are adjusted to Mike’s demanding tolerances.  There’s not much more to tell you for now, so keep tuned in for the Final Part of the “Busa Trilogy” where we will show you some very trick items to add on to your Hayabusa.  Here are some upcoming items: 

• Carbon Fiber Inner fairings from Street and Track Accessories
• A new combination “fender eliminator/FBG battery box/license plate holder”

• Schnitz Ignition Retard Unit

• FBG 2-Step??? Maybe…

• Muzzy air shifter

• Goodridge Kevlar brake lines

• Mototek turn signals and tail lens setups

• FBG Battery install – without carving up your sub-frame.

• Schnitz Dry Nitrous System???? Maybe…

• Motorheads Foot peg system

• McIntosh custom lowered rearsets

• And Much, Much More!

 Here are some finished pic’s of the 1999 Pro-Street 

 McIntosh Machine & Fabrication
937-687-3936
New Lebanon, OH.
Terry McIntosh – Owner

Maximum Performance
709 N. Reynolds Road
Toledo, OH.  43615

Parts and Services
Mike Caputo 419-531-0300

Chrome and Polishing
Phil Tinsley - 419-691-7553

E-Mail: MPRpromod@aol.com

 MTC Engineering
428 Shearer Blvd.
Cocoa, Florida 32922
Fax: (321) 631-8804
Phone: (321) 636-9480
E-Mail: mtcpiston@aol.com

 APE
APE - American Performance Engineering
1010 W. Oak Street - Burbank, CA  91506
Phone: 818/842-4952  - Fax: 818/842-9032
E-Mail: APEfast1@aol.com
www.hayabusazone.com
www.aperaceparts.com

 Schnitz Racing
222 N. Third Street - Decatur, IN 46733 USA
Phone: 800-837-9730 - FAX 800-213-3244
Outside US /Canada Phone: 260-728-9457
Outside US /Canada Fax: 260-728-2021
Used Part Hotline: 260-724-2839
info@schnitzracing.com
www.schnitzracing.com

 Web Cam Inc.
1815 Massachusetts Avenue
Riverside, CA 92507 USA
Phone: (909) 369-5144
Fax: (909) 369-7266
www.webcamshafts.com
E-Mail: webcam@webcamshafts.com

Until Next Time, Safe Racing to All

Guy Caputo can be reached at Guy@Dragbike.com

click here for Busa Trilogy Part 1

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