Suzuki Bandit 250 frankenzuki

Hey guys,

So I've been farting around on my 250cc Suzuki Bandit for the last two years and it has served me well as my first bike! I love it to bits. It's pretty quick for a 250 (four cylinder sewing machine), looks nice, has a bit of a naked cafe racer/Ducati Monster look. I've mucked around with a fairing and a seat cowl, little bits and pieces but nothing serious.

I always thought I'd lose the 250 and start properly customising with my first "big bike". Then today I thought "fuck that"!

Why not have a fucked up crazy 250 that I'll remember as being really cool than a pretty much 90% standard bike?

So begins my plan. I can't really make it faster, so I've decided to make it one of the best handling, best stopping 250s around.

1st stage - new front end!
I'm in the process of piecing together a complete front end from a 1990-1995 Suzuki GSX-R 750 - forks, triples, steering stem, wheel and axle, rotors and calipers, the lot.
After doing my homework and a bit of tinkering I have found that the forks are identical length and the steering stem is the same as my '92 Bandit so it should bolt up with minor modifications. So I can go from a piss-poor sponge-cake front end to a fully adjustable inverted front end with twin 6-pot calipers. ' Cause why the fuck not. At the same time I'll have a crack at rebuilding the forks with new springs, seals etc.

2nd stage - new rear shock!

The rear shock on the Bandit is similarly crappy. The back end has always felt pretty dodgy cornering at speed so I'll change that! A GSX-R 750 rear shock (1990-1995 again) will bolt onto my swingarm with some reshaping of the top shock mount, and a place to mount the nitrogen reservoir. Fully adjustable rear shock should tidy the back end up a bit while jacking the arse end up by about an inch (ground clearance has always been an issue in the twisties!)

3rd stage - swingarm!

Lastly, if I can locate a GSX-R400 swingarm it'll go on. The 400 swingarm is aluminium, as opposed to my steel, and it's about 2" shorter so the wheelbase will start getting into the territory of things like my brother's '06 GSXR600. And maybe a sprocket change to favour quick acceleration will top it off!

Of course this all has to be done as cheaply as possible, which as I'm finding out is half the fun.

A question for the experienced bike manglers here, will this stuff I'm doing leave me liable to need a low volume cert? It seems like you need one when you start getting into modifying frames etc., I'm gonna be turning mine into a hybrid of at least two different bikes is this an issue? It's really just swapping out OEM parts for other Suzuki OEM parts though.

No I don't think you need a cert for that. I don't imagine a wof inspector would be concerned with any of that, so I doubt he would refer you to get a cert.
There's a list somewhere on the net that tells you what you can do, & can't do, before you need a cert.
I went the other day to our local testing station with a hole cut in my falcon bonnet & a shaker sticking out of it, & they didnt tell me to cert it, so Im sure you'll be okay

you may get through a wof with an inspector thats not onto it but those mods do require a cert. i put different triple trees a 6 pot caliper and braided line on a softail and the wof guy picked it up and ordered me to get a cert. its not like a spoiler or wing on a car. in my opinion i'd be getting it certed for piece of mind that all is well.

Try Collin at Papakura motor cycle services ph2998420 top bloke, bikie from way back and not anal like so many of wof inspectors

Wicked thanks for the help guys. I was considering ringing a cert guy to ask, I think I have Neil Frasers number around somewhere.

andrewj wrote:

you may get through a wof with an inspector thats not onto it but those mods do require a cert. i put different triple trees a 6 pot caliper and braided line on a softail and the wof guy picked it up and ordered me to get a cert. its not like a spoiler or wing on a car. in my opinion i'd be getting it certed for piece of mind that all is well.

They will always jump on braided lines because those are specifically listed in the regs, that may be why he pinged you. Changing your triple trees & putting on better brakes doesn't warrant a cert, from what I can see in the regs.

brett7777 wrote:

andrewj wrote:

you may get through a wof with an inspector thats not onto it but those mods do require a cert. i put different triple trees a 6 pot caliper and braided line on a softail and the wof guy picked it up and ordered me to get a cert. its not like a spoiler or wing on a car. in my opinion i'd be getting it certed for piece of mind that all is well.

They will always jump on braided lines because those are specifically listed in the regs, that may be why he pinged you. Changing your triple trees & putting on better brakes doesn't warrant a cert, from what I can see in the regs.

That's what I thought, I have spoken to a brake specialist up the road from me about braided lines. They told me they would include a certificate with the work that I could display to a woffer to get them to pass the mods.

Changing triple trees to non factory issued items needs cert as does upgrade in braking. If you put a completely different front end on a bike it needs a cert. You cant do it with a car so why would a bike be different.

Braided lines dont need to be from a specific place they have to be swaged at each end, you can get ones that screw together so you can make em at home and dont need the hyd press but you cant have them on the road, ive have braided lines on my bikes and they dont worry about them for a wof, that old story that you have to get them from that one guy in AK to pass a wof is long gone.

if its upgrade or non standard major component it should need a cert, your little 250 may have pissy little brakes but they are right for the weight and length of the bike, chucking twin 6 pots might throw you over the bars quicker than you can blink! the certifier will be looking at all that stuff, just cause there is no welding or cutting there is more to it than most think.

hope this all helps mate, be good to get it all legit and on the road, thats how we do it!

oh ok have it your way fellahs - certify away !