Stock Gixxer Got You Down?
(The first 200hp GSXR1000)

It must have been about 10:30 or 11:00PM on Thursday and I was in route to Charlotte to meet with Lee and get the Gixxer ready to run at Maxton, NC at the speed runs. Then the cell phone rang. It was Lee of course. He says "Dude- you're not going to believe this" I ran your bike on the dyno and it made 201.6 hp. "What time will you get here?" he asks. At the crank I asked? Lee laughs and says "rear wheel, we did it, we made over 200 just like I said we would!" I said that I was planning on stopping pretty soon and driving the rest of the way in the morning. Lee says "No way, get to Charlotte tonight so we can get the bike ready to pass tech inspection on Saturday." I continued on and drove to Charlotte that night in order to arrive at Lees Performance Center by 8:00 am on Friday. I had hoped he would sleep late after working until 11:00 the night before. I would later learn Lee does not sleep much.

I arrived at 8:00am on Friday and the shop was already busy, even though they don't officially open until 9:am. I spent Friday with Lee getting the bike prepped, safety wired, etc as well as watching the other mechanics. I even spent time with his machinist, watching him work on a head for a big Hayabusa motor. Lee estimates that most of his performance-work these days is by far for the GSXR1000 and the Hayabusa. After a full day in the shop, we finally called it quits at about 10:30pm feeling satisfied that the 1000 was ready for Maxton. The shop had slowed down from the flurry of activity that went on all day, and I was beat. Lee had arrived at 8:00am and worked until after 10pm, and never left the shop; not for lunch, not for dinner. He was now ready for Maxton. The question I had was "is Maxton ready for the Lee Shierts' GSXR1000?"

Lee finally leaves the confines of his extra zoot, checkerboard showroom floor and climbs into his big Cummings turbo diesel powered Dodge and headed home, while I left for the palatial hotel suite I had booked.

No sooner had I arrived at the parking lot of the hotel and Lee calls and advised that the tranny in his Dodge had experienced problems. I would need to take over towing duties in the Dragbike.com GMC Yukon. When I asked what had happened Lee admitted that his truck motor was not exactly stock. Not only does he have the diesel dynamics kit that he sells and installs out of his shop, he also informed me that he has nitrous on it too. After more questions he told me that his truck makes over 1000 ft/lbs of torque on the squeeze. No wonder the tranny gave up I said. I get the feeling that everything at Lee's shop has either a piston kit, nitrous, or BOTH !! We map out a new plan for tomorrow's race and I check in the hotel.

As soon as I walked into the suite I glanced out the window of my room which overlooked the enclosed atrium of the hotel and what did I see but two women making out in the hot tub. With cat like reflexes I toss the luggage onto the bed (while noticing the beautiful mahogany wood) and in one swift move I pull my swim trunks from the suitcase put them on and hot foot back to the pool. Now looking from a different angle I could see that what I had thought was a great scene turned into a "Big ole mess, Sheena was a man" The second female turned out to be a longhaired man and since I could only see the back of her/his head above the waterline I had been fooled. I tried not to act surprised, but you can imagine my disappointment.

Enough fun and games lets get back to the motor. Two hundred and one point six horsepower. That's what you wanted to know, right? Rather than have you wait until the end of the article, I thought why not go ahead and spill the beans now? Let me say it again 201.6 HP. No matter how many times I say it or how many times I feel it as I whack the throttle open, this thing is fast. Make that stupid fast. Oh sure, you read about AMA Formula Extreme bikes having 190hp, but until you sit down, shut up and strap on the new Lee Shierts (www.leesperformance.com, 1-704-599-1507) built GSXR1000 you have no idea what it is like to have a motor this well endowed in a bike this light.

For those of you that have been breathing in the last ten years or so you have no doubt heard of Lee Shierts. He has a reputation of talking the talk and most importantly backing it up with the goods. In fact Lee is so confident of his work he makes this promise on his web page.

Lee Backs Up His Talk

Who is Lee Shierts?

Just to give you a brief history of Lee here are a few of his many accomplishments. Lee Started riding in 1969 on a Honda Z50 and knew then, that he had found his calling. In 1979 he was racing on a Suzuki RM80 and in 1983 he won the 125cc state MX championship. Two years later he was roadracing on a Kawasaki ZX6 and in 1985 he won the Willow Springs open class championship. Now this is where it really gets good. In 1989 as a rookie in the pro series he qualified 9th in the Daytona 200. That same year he finished 5th in the AMA endurance series. The year 1990 came and he moved over to the 250 GP class and took 4th overall. After a year off for a broken back he returned faster than ever and took 4th overall two consecutive years in the Formula USA series and was the top privateer. Then in 1994 he qualified 9th again for the Daytona 200 Then he was back to the Formula USA series in 1998 where he gathered a 6th place overall finish.

Those of you that follow the Hayabusa may remember Lee as the first person to break the 200 mph barrier on a GSX1300R at the East Coast Timing Association event in Maxton, NC . www.ecta-lsr.com

As you can see Lee is not afraid to race on any kind of bike anytime, anywhere. If you read any of the major print magazines you will also have noted that he has been featured several times there as well. Magazines such as Roadracing World, Motorcyclist, and Cycle World have all featured Lee and or his bikes. The most recent article was the article titled "Baby Busa" in the April 2001 issue Sport Rider magazine. In this article Lee stuffed a 220-HP Busa motor into a GSXR600 frame. In 2000 he opened what is perhaps one of the biggest and best performance shops in the USA and for sure on the east coast. Located in Charlotte, NC, his new million-dollar performance center is a 10,000sq. ft mecca that includes a large load control Dynojet dyno, a beautiful 3000 sq ft showroom and a 4000 sq. ft shop with enough "know-how" to build anything you can think of. He even has a full size automotive dyno that is put in use on a regular basis doing work for NASCAR teams as well as doing dyno work on his own projects like the busa powered "Radical" that he is working on now. A radical is a road-racing car with a motorcycle engine for propulsion.

For 2002 he plans on building and racing his own GSXR600/1660cc Hayabusa powered bike packing 260-rear wheel hp, before the squeeze!! Lee is so fast his dog is even named "Speedo". I saw it for myself!!

Enough talk so let’s get into the details of how to make a big horsepower 1000. As you read in the first installation of this project (www.dragbike.com/news/1101/gsxr1000_main.htm) we had already installed the Ti-Force pipe, a Dynojet Power Commander and the Web cams. Both the pipe (www.orientexpress.com) and the PC IIIR (www.powercommander.com) return for duty in phase II of the project but the Webs were replaced with a larger set. More info on that later.

How To Make HP (Advanced)

As you may remember we left the 1000 with 166 HP on the special Nutec fuel after phase I of this project. As any of you know that have tested a bike on two different dynos at different times etc they always make a few HP more or less. In this case without the Nutec and almost 6 months later during the winter on a different dyno our bike did a baseline run of 160 hp on pump gas. So don't cry foul when you compare this installation of the project to the last one. The important thing is to compare the before and after on a given dyno to measure performance gains.

To "get this party started" we turned to JE for a set of custom 2mm over pistons. Lee gives the specs to JE and they make up these beauties for him special. As you know compression makes power and these pistons are approx 13-1. Final compression ratio is a function of pistons, as well as headwork and one of Lee's closely guarded secrets, so don't even ask. Retail on these is $750 and you can only get them from Lee.

JE (www.Jepistons.com, 714-898-9763.) builds pistons for almost everyone in the industry including such notables as Kenny Bernstien, Larry Dixon, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Sterlin Marlin etc. If you want to make some serious power the journey starts at JE. These are 2mm over stock and the resulting displacement is 1042cc. Also available are 3mm over units that net you 1070cc. We asked Lee to keep this one streetable so he opted for the 2mm overbore to keep cylinder wall thickness up and heat down as much as possible.

The larger pistons have to fit into a new bore so for those duties we don't trust anybody but Millenium Technologies (www.mt-llc.com/millenium/home.htm, 1-920-893-5595) They are by far the best in the business when it comes to cylinder boring and replating. As you know the Suzuki comes from the factory with a special plating. Millenium uses a Nickle Silicon Carbide process to restore this plating. After the NSC electro plating it is then finished using a diamond hone down to a .00025" tolerance. The resulting surface is so strong it bonds onto the aluminum bore better than the aluminum does to itself. We don't claim to be chemists but we do know that it works.

Next on the parts list was the new Web cams (www.Webcamshafts.com, 909-369-5144) Once again Lee has his own special grind cams that get him the desired results. He feels the standard Webs are great for stock bore motors but once you start the deep breathing exercises that this one will do, it needs all the lift and duration possible. To get the cams degreed exactly right he added the APE adjustable sprockets and their manual cam chain tensioner. Both of these items are a must.

When using cams with this high lift, the 1000 springs are not up to the task so he replaces them with the GSXR750 springs to prevent valve float. As of now Lee is not sharing his cam profile numbers or lobe centers. If you want these, you have to send your motor to Lee. He is not selling this cam as an individual part at this time because he has developed a special combination of lift, duration and lobe centers, and is not willing to give up his secrets. Based on this bike I would say he has done a great job because I have not seen or heard of ANY other street- able 200 hp 1000's running stock stroke like this one. Retail price on the cams is $699, regrinds only but again they were included in this motor package. I can't say I blame him for not selling parts only as he spent a lot of time on the dyno developing this profile and he has to recoup that investment.

On Lee's stage 4 motors, crank work is not included but highly recommended. After talking to him I decided that for this bike I wanted to balance the crank and get rid of the balancer and gear. It results in a lighter crank capable of spinning as fast as one can stand to go. Looking at the photo you can see they created a masterpiece.

Jay at APE (http://www.aperaceparts.com/, 818-842-4952) says he balanced this one himself. This loss of weight really makes a difference and the bike rips through the rev range now like never before. This is a $500 option added to the price of this project but in my opinion worth every penny. At first I was afraid of losing the balancer and the resulting effect on vibration. But after riding the bike I doubt you will ever know the difference, except on the dyno or track when you are laying down a few more HP than you competition!! When you look at the dyno chart you can see that thanks to the crank and other mods it was still pulling at over 12,000 rpms when the rev limiter kicked in. The crank looked so good I hated to even put it back in the motor!!

Last and perhaps most important of all the parts we added to this bike is the billet clutch basket. For those of you that follow any of the internet e-mailing lists (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Gsxr1000/join) or other web pages dedicated to the Gixxer, you will have heard of one or more clutch basket failures on the stock bike. I personally know of one failure in our group of extreme riders alone. (www.Team-Mcd.com) In order to handle the power of this beast we knew the stock unit would last as long as ¼ mile run or two so we contacted Falicon (www.faliconcranks.com, 727-797-2468) and they hooked us up with the billet basket shown here. In the photo you can see how much stronger this one is than stock. This is a wise investment on any GSXR1000. We would hate to spend this much jack on a motor only to have a basket failure scatter everything, so Lee will not even consider a full engine without it. Once again this is included in the package price. The Falicon basket is a lot tougher than stock so much so that Lee suggests you add this to any 1000 that is expected to get hammered with lots of drag starts or clutch wheelies. Retail on this basket is $500.

One thing I can say about Lee is that he does not suggest unnecessary parts, but he will not let you scrimp by with stock components if they don't work. It may be your engine, but it is his livelihood and he can't afford a few horror stories ruining his great reputation. It is quality parts like this that keep his reputation going strong. For example Lee uses only the finest Cometic gaskets (www.Cometic.com, 1-440-354-0777) which in his opinion are the only gaskets he is willing to trust on these high compression engines. Imagine the cost and trouble of spending all this time and money on an engine only to have a head or base gasket fail. Lee says " they are the most reliable and best gaskets for the money on the market today". When the pro talks, I listen.

Once all the parts were selected it was time for the laying of the hands by Lee himself to extract every foot-pound of torque possible from this 1042cc mill. First he turned his attention to the head. Normally this kind of headwork will run you about $1200 but in this case, it is part of the stage IV motor price. Again every engine builder has their secrets and Lee is not ready to give up any details but here are a few photos to tease you with. While he was milling on the head he took the opportunity to stuff in a set of 1mm over intake valves as well. When you are hunting for 200hp you can't leave any stone unturned, and he didn't. It is here in the head that the real magic takes place, and what separates the "wannabes" from the real players in this game of high horsepower. Don't scrimp in this area or the whole bike will suffer.

Once all the parts were secured Lee proceeded to install everything with the loving care of his neighboring Nascar teams. His shop and engine area are hospital like in appearance as shown in the photo below. You can buy all the best parts in the world but if they are not assembled correctly with the little details checked, like piston to valve clearances, cams properly degreed, and a hundred other little items I don't even know about, the project will not achieve the results you desire.

Once everything was put together and back in the bike it was filled up with Redline oil and then over to the Dynojet dyno (http://www.dynojet.com) to do some break in pulls and heat cycling of the engine. Lee has been a long time fan of Redline oil (www.Redlineoil.com) and for good reason.

Lee uses a load control Dynojet dyno to build a custom map for the bike with the new modifications. The map is then loaded into the onboard PCIIIr-Power Commander (www.Powercommander.com). These new dynos and PC-III's really make life simple compared to the old way before the advent of fuel injected bikes and devices like this.
After all the mapping work was completed he then filled the tank with Nutec Special 4 (www.Nutecdivision.com) fuel and gave it one more blast on the dyno to yield the chart you see below.

For those of you not familiar with Nutec it is not about high octane. This fuel is oxygenated. According to the spec sheet it contains 2.55% oxygen, which allows you to run it with an optimized fuel air ratio and better ignition timing compared to normal fuel because the Nutec carries some of its own oxygen needed for good combustion. As already pointed out this is one bad Gixxer. After the mods this bike is making more HP at 8800 RPMs than the Phase I bike did at peak. If you want to talk torque, this thing is pounding out torque like a Busa. How does a peak of 96.9 ft/lbs sound? The Shierts' motor is making more torque at 6000 RPMs than the old motor ever did and keeps it there or above until the redline chimes in and puts a halt to the fun. The old motor made its peak power of 160hp at 12200 rpms. This one puts down 160hp at 9200 rpms. From there on the big 1042cc kit really kills the old engine. Note on the dyno chart the yellow area. This is the horsepower advantage this motor has. On pump gas it still pulled an impressive 193 HP and over 93 ft/lbs of torque.

Riding the Beast

I don't really even know where to begin in an attempt to describe what riding this bike is like. It's not as if I have never been on a big horsepower motor before, because I also have a slightly massaged big bore stroker busa with a sneaky Pete setup that is laying down about 235 hp before the happy button is activated. But I have to tell you that this thing pulls like a locomotive. From 6000 rpms on it spanks the Phase I bike so bad it is not even funny. In fact if you play your cards right and don't advertise your new power plant you will be sure to drop the hammer on a lot of Busas. Yes, even built ones.
How does it wheelie you ask? Well if you thought the stock bike was fun this one is a real blast as wheelies happen in the first 3-4 gears about 2-3000 revs lower because of the extra grunt. If you can imagine it, this one can do it, not that we condone or participate in any form of street racing but suffice to say that if you can't make enough money on this engine to pay back it's cost, then it's your fault.
Enough about dynos, lets talk real world. I know what you're asking. Is it fast? Just to make sure you are convinced we completed the bike in time to attend the weekend races in Maxton, NC. The East Coast Timing Association event. For those of you not familiar, it is an airport converted for race duty over a 1-mile runway and timing lights are used to very accurately measure the top speed at the end of the mile.
(www.ecta-lsr.com for more information)

We geared the bike for the moon with 17/37 ( 17 / 42 is stock) sprockets, and with Lee acting as pilot he netted a speed of 193.77341 MPH. The class record 194.384 so while not quite fast enough to take the record, it was enough to make us all very happy though.  The bike was geared way to tall and our sprocket selection on hand was not sufficient to address the windy day. To prove a point he made one run in staying in 5th gear and still gathered a very impressive 190.28691 MPH. Just in case your still not convinced we then loaded her up and headed over to Darlington to the quarter mile drag strip. The only additional modifications made to the bike was to lower it, remove the mirrors and front blinkers and we added the new Brock Davidson Clutch Cushion (www.sportbikedragracing.com) This is a very cost effective upgrade to the clutch and one that I suggest for anyone intending on doing any drag starts. It makes a big difference in the feel and quality of the launch on this wheelie prone bike.  The proof came with the 1.56 second sixty-foot times the bike ran with the clutch cushion. We did NOT run a long swingarm. Using this set up and with Lee handling the launch duties it ran a very impressive 9.08 and just over 155mph. Oh sure it was a handful at launch, and it did pretty much wheelie the whole 1320 feet but check out that time. Not bad for a little 1000cc streetbike huh? 

On this day the best outing by a stock GSXR1000 was in the 171mph range. With this one doing 22mph faster you know this is one serious bike.

I know you're wondering what something like this will set you back so here goes. Ship your motor along with a cool $5500 and you too can be swimming in the deep end of the ZX-12 and Hayabusa swimming pool without any fear. Add the $500 crank if you so desire. If you add up the individual parts and labor prices you will see that the engine package is the way to go. Lee is offering a great package prices on these motors so you better call now before the line gets too long. After all you don't want to be the last one on the block to get hooked up.
To give you a comparison the recent Yoshimura prepped GSXR1000 made 14hp gains and cost a whopping $4165, or $297 per HP. Ours gained 41.6 hp for a cost of $132 per HP. He offers several packages from mild to wild so if this is not enough, or if it is too much, I bet he has a package to suit you. Lee even offers cryogenic treatment if you should desire this service. This is available through (www.percryo.com). There is not much you can imagine that he has not done.

After all the work put into this bike I decided to add a few touches of my own. To help my recently diagnosed spondylolisthesis (sore neck) at the ripe age of 38 I added a set of Heli bars (www.helibars.com/suzuki.html, 1-800-859-4642) and I can tell you first hand that they do make a huge difference in both my pain level and in how much Vioxx I have to take in order to do a 300 mile day. As you can see in the photos they raise the bars and bring them a closer to you. They are also a bit wider which adds a bit of leverage on the bars. Installation was so easy even a R1 rider could put them on. They are beautifully made and look great on the bike, and for $289 I think it was a bargain. If you really want to make them look trick you could always have them Ti Nitrated to match the forks.

Last I sent my Arai Quantum helmet and had it painted to match the bike. I found a custom painter online that has been doing quite a few lately and all of his customers were praising his work. So I boxed it up and shipped it off to Nick at Cycletrickz in Orlando Florida. I think you will agree it looks really cool. Unlike the factory Suzuki paint matched helmets; I get to choose the brand and style helmet I like. After all, if you are going to be riding around on a bike that makes this kind of power you want to look as fast as you are. Email him at Gixx1300R@aol.com

In summary this project bike was taken on in order to present to you, our faithful readers our best attempt at customizing our bike in a way that would represent typical mods that you could do to your bike. And, to make you jealous. We think this journey has been a huge success and after reading some of the print magazines that spent almost $5000 on an engine and only gained 10-15 hp, we think this Stage IV engine from Lee may be the best bargain going as this one picked up over 40 hp. I know you may be thinking this is expensive, but if you start adding up the total expenses on your last motor build, I bet you will find just as I did that doing everything all at once is the only way to go. Rather than tearing the engine down 2-3 times and paying that labor fee over and over this route saves you that expense. Since the engine work is done all at once as a designed system instead of a bunch of parts, the net gains are maximized.

Now if we could just convince those Attack and Yoshi guys to bring their bikes to Maxton, we could really teach them a lesson in southern hospitality.

E. Don Smith            Motojournalism@aol.com
 

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