How to Slam and Prep a ’Busa... Part 2 - Event Date: January/01/1900 - January/01/1900

  In “How to Slam and Prep a ‘Busa" part one, we learned the basics for a new owner’s first trip to the strip. Now... if you are like me and my riding buddies, the thoughts of “How can I beat them soundly as opposed to barely?” jumped into your head on the way home from your first attempt at the track. We travel to the strip to enjoy serious fun.

After "How to Slam and Prep, Part 1" Mods

  No one likes to get out-ran, and we know that a properly set-up bike, along with practice at the track, is the key to quicker time slips. But, what if your “used to be” close friend starts adding bolt-on parts to his Busa in an attempt to give you a consistent glimpse of his license plate? There seems to be a million or so hop-up parts for these machines: exhaust pipes, tires, EFI management units, modifications to the stock parts…. etc. The list is long and confusing. I personally can’t stand purchasing the wrong parts in my quest to get faster. Some of these items are expensive, not to mention there is nothing quite like the feeling of humiliation after bolting on the”latest/greatest” and traveling to the track to prove to the world that you are dumb enough to spend a hefty chunk of coin to go SLOWER?! Yet again, this is where I can help.

  This next section might sound like a blatant, shameless plug for my new StreetSmart TM Exhaust packages…it is. As usual, I would never steer anyone in the wrong direction to make a buck. I have been a racer my entire adult life…. I’ve grown accustomed to being broke! An extra dollar or two now won’t make much difference. I saw the need for a pipe designed for what I like to do - ride on the street and occasionally beat my buddies into submission on the track. I turned to my long-time friends Lang and Lee Hindle of Hindle Manufacturing in Canada. They have always been known for a quality product at a fair price. This is what I needed, in addition to more power than any other pipe on the market. I wasn’t sure if we could do it or not, but we were willing to try. Two hundred plus dyno pulls on my personal bike and a pile of “ this is supposed to work” scrap pipe pieces later, we had succeeded. I am a drag racer, I have no use for accelerating out of a corner, and I would have no idea how to design a pipe to do so. But if you put someone next to me, I do know how to out-accelerate my opponent as quickly as possible. This system was designed and tested with my goals in mind and it passes with flying colors. We wouldn’t have had to build this system if something else was available that works better for sportbike drag racing.

  One of the modifications I suggest with my pipe package is to the stock air box. This brings me to some valuable information that I don’t mind sharing. Listen VERY closely; the new machines of today enjoy nearly nothing in common with the old KZ’s, GS’s and even GSXR’s of the past. The new bikes are nearly perfect. Unless your modern day rocket is parked on a dyno, nine out of ten changes that you make to the stock configuration will probably result in a LOSS of performance and/or reliability. It takes a pretty brazen individual, from the confines of his own garage, to second-guess a multi-million dollar research and development team! Leave your bike alone except for the changes I suggest, and soon we will all be out-running the guys who try to think alone. It will be our own little cult of fast guys on stock bikes, kicking the crap out of anyone who dares sit still next to us…Anyway, I fought the airbox mod tooth and nail. If these bikes can run nearly 200 mph through that little square hole with a flapper valve in the way, who am I to change things? The bike only breathes through one cylinder at a time, right? This should be plenty. But, after numerous dyno pulls and trips to the track and ONLY in conjunction with the dynojet Power Commander II (which I personally wasn’t convinced did anything but slow me down at the track, until I used one in conjunction with a Dynojet model 250 and A/F sniffer!), the airbox mod I detail in my pipe literature works well. The around-town drivability doesn’t suffer, thanks to the PC-II, and the max power output is definitely increased. The StreetSmart TM exhaust is over-sized to allow the ram air and box mod work to function at maximum potential. Of course, any hopes of passing an emissions test are thrown out the window with the removal of the stock system.

  There is another modification that one of the other sportbike-oriented magazines has praised as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is a timing-retard eliminator (TRE) available for the 2000 and ‘01 Hayabusa. This is a great mod for guys who race at Bonneville, have several of miles of speed limit-free roads in their area (I wish!) or like to practice wheelies. If you like to drag race or do roll-on's , this product will SLOW YOU DOWN! We have tested it time and time again on different bikes at the drag strip with the same results - around one tenth and 1 ½- 2 mph slower. The track measures performance and does not lie when used properly. The bike does have more “seat of the pants” grunt for about the first 5 feet in 1^st gear (or up to 4500 rpm), then is confused into thinking that it is in 5^th gear all of the time, even though it is in 1^st, 2^nd, etc. I’ll bet that big-buck Suzuki R&D team didn’t place all of those different load maps in the ECM for no reason!

  There are a couple other areas, which need to be addressed to extract the maximum acceleration from your engine. One is oil. A simple solution is to add 3 ½ quarts of Mobil One 5w-30 fully synthetic CAR oil. We have used this oil for years, it does not cause clutch slippage. It does allow the rider to slip the clutch at the track without damaging the fiber plates as much. The low oil level is at your discretion; if you like to wheelie, DO NOT RUN LOW OIL LEVELS!! An even larger improvement in acceleration can be noticed by using Alisyn <<0W or Motorex Top Speed oils. Another area is the drive chain. O-ring chains have considerably more rolling friction than high quality non o-ring chains. We usually switch to the EK530DR chain available through Schnitz Racing. It is very strong and we have seen A-B improvements at the track over the stock Busa chain.

  Since you are parading the fastest vehicle available to the average consumer without wings and are now even more grossly over-powered on the street, you need to make some additional changes to extract maximum potential at the track. Basically, your bike just became harder to ride. The addition of a Schnitz/JCS Billet Top Triple Tree will allow the front end to be lowered an additional inch or so with the strap. This doesn’t seem like much, but you can feel the improvement on your first launch.

  The next problem is traction. Why is air pressure so confusing to some? Have you ever tried to push anything with a flat tire? It is always much easier with air. The rear tire on a bike is no exception; you need to run as much air as possible without sacrificing traction off of the line. A huge decrease in trap speeds can be noticed in a 10 PSI reduction in pressure. On some tires it can be as much as 3 mph less. The track surface has a great deal to do with initial pressure. We usually start at about 18-22 PSI and keep raising the pressure a couple of PSI at a time until the tire spins, then we go back.

A great example of this is the use of the Mickey Thompson MCR2 Shootout tire. Even at questionable tracks, this exceptionally sticky tire can usually be run in the 25-28 PSI range with the stock swingarm (more rebound dampening on the stock rear shock adjustment is all that is usually necessary with the stock arm). On a sprayed track, we have run as much as 35 PSI (BIG mph!) with ample traction. This tire doesn’t last long and is not recommended for the street. For continuous street use with very good traction at the strip, it is hard to beat the Shinko R003 also available through Schnitz Racing. It is basically the old Yokohama tire used by shootout racers for years before the introduction of the MCR2. Shootout racers would pay as much as $500 for USED Yokohama’s after they quit making motorcycle tires. Enough said.

View Larger

Dyno run of 165.5HP, 98.5 ft-lbs. of torque
SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) numbers
shown....More common STD numbers are @ 2 HP higher.

(Notice bike is new at the time of article. Same bike, now broken-in, posts 173.2HP, 103 ft-lbs STD)

  A shift light and air shifter is also a wise investment for the track. We set the light at 10,625 rpm to take advantage of the peak power of the StreetSmart TM  Exhaust package. The stock limiter comes in at 10,800 rpm’s (around 11,200 on the stock tachometer) so you need to be on your toes. A rider can usually launch much harder with an air shifter due to not worrying about having his foot on the peg for the 1-2 shift.  The serious Supersport types also install a set of World Wide Bearings Ceramic wheel bearings; I have personally used them with measurable results. These crafty individuals also install a stepped seat, knowing that lowering the riders body position on the machine also lowers the center of gravity for the entire bike/rider package, helping to minimize the ET-crushing wheelie.

After "How to Slam and Prep, Part 2" Mods
(foot shifting / no shift light)

  Brock Davidson Enterprises also has a new product available for the clutch lever on the Busa. I feel that it is far more controllable to launch a bike with the lever closer to the handle bar. Your fingers have more strength closer to making a fist than farther away. We are introducing a Clutch Lever Cam that allows for more adjustment of the stock clutch lever position. It helps my launches; I’m sure it will help yours.

   
  Clutch Lever Cam for drag racing launches

  Well, there it is. If you noticed, we only had to break the factory seal of the engine to install the clutch conversion. I like the completely stock aspect of this package. Worry and hassle-free performance on pump gas. We have made numerous 9.3 passes at nearly 150 mph with this configuration. 9.20’s or even teens at over 150 are possible on a good track with great air and an exceptional rider (a 39 tooth rear usually comes in handy for these conditions). Some go-fasters would opt for a lengthened swingarm in addition to the noted mods. There is no doubt that a lengthened arm will help your quarter mile times, especially if you can’t ride. I like the stock arm because I can raise the bike in less than 10 minutes and I’m ready to ride anywhere, curves included. Of course, I know some guys just can’t live without a built engine…we will address this also.

Until then, go beat up on a ZX-12 or an improperly set up Busa!

 -Brock