Cinderella Story

CINDERELLA STORY

CW PROJECT

We play fairy godmother to Suzuki's Katana 750

CAMRON E. BUSSARD

THE PLIGHT OF SUZUKI'S Katana 750 has been well-documented in the pages of this journal. Perhaps the best all-around streetbike available today. with a balance of performance. handling and comfort that made it an easy winner in Cicle World's Best 750 of 1989 balloting, it nonetheless has drawn flak for being. shall we say. less than beautiful. I wouldn't go as far as calling it a "tea kettle on two wheels." as some of the British press have, and I steadfastly stood up for the Katana—despite the hoots and howls of my fellow editors—in the garage styling critiques that are part of every bike's tenure at this magazine. Privately, though. I had to agree: The Katana's aesthetics were in serious need of shoring up.

Short of commissioning new bodywork, there was nothing I could do about the basic lines of the Katana, but I thought a fresh graphics treatment—the motorcycling equivalent of a cosmetic beauty makeover— would make the bike more appealing. So, the first order of business in the Katana beautification project was to seek out a suitable sportbike painter.

A couple of trips to local riding hangouts lead me to a custom paint and repair shop called Superbikes, run by Scott Daugherty. After an initial discussion, Daugherty was soon working on several design sketches. He agreed that the Katana’s problem wasn’t really in its shape, but in its graphics treatment, with the holes in each side of the fairing causing particular problems. Instead of ignoring the cutouts, Daugherty created a paint scheme which incorporated them as design elements.

Once the sketches were completed. we decided to go with metallic charcoal and black as the paint colors, accentuated with fluorescent highlights. That way the bike would have a refined look with a bit of splash, a whisper followed by a shout. And the result is just about perfect. The tank and fairing are beautifully finished in hand-rubbed lacquer, with dark-char-coal upper sections blending almost imperceptively into the black lower and rear sections of the bodywork.

Daugherty divided the main colors with candy-fluorescent pink and fushia stripes, and laid a thin, electric-blue stripe between the two. Then, he painted the stock, silver wheels black. To finish off the package, he sent the bike to Phil Whetstone, at Miracle Design, for the pinstriping on the wheels and the lettering on the fairing.

With the bike freshly painted in darker colors, its clear windshield looked out of place. Targa offers a complete line of windscreens, and lists a tinted screen for the Katana. The Targa shield screwed right on, but it didn’t fit properly, with uneven gaps between the screen’s edges and the bike’s bodywork. Also, the lower inside portion was not blacked-out, so the bike’s wiring and instrument backs showed through. A second screen arrived with the bottom portion blacked-out. and though it fit better than the first, it was far from a perfect application. Still, the darktinted screen really did cap off the Katana’s new paint.

With the bike looking vastly improved over the stock Katana, it seemed a shame to leave the engine stock. Sure, the inline-Four was fast, but it lacked soul. We figured a healthier bark from the exhaust would do wonders for the machine, so the Katana went to Kerker for a new 4-into-l exhaust system and some minor carb rejetting. In a couple of weeks, the bike was back, with a beautiful, White Tip exhaust system in place and a Dynojet carburetor-rejetting kit installed.

The exhaust system may have looked great, but it was raspy-sounding and loud; too loud for our tastes. But it did provide performance. At the dragstrip. the modified Katana took just 10.89 seconds to scorch through the quarter-mile, a tenth-ofa-second quicker than the stocker. Weak off the bottom, the kitted Katana would slumber up to about 7000 rpm, where its carburetors provided a giant flat spot. But, from there, the engine blasted up to redline, with the exhaust howling like a factory-prepped Superbike’s.

But as exciting as the Katana was to ride, it was no longer a likable machine, despite several attempts at rejetting. It had changed from being a well-mannered streetbike to a bellowing, temperamental racing machine. We had taken the fresh-faced, pig-tailed girl next-door and turned her into someone you wouldn't want Mom to know about. In retrospect, it would have been better to leave the carburetion alone and replace the stock mufflers with a set of aftermarket slip-ons to give the bike a more-exciting exhaust note without detracting from its stock power characteristics.

We had more success eliminating the spongy feel from the Katana's front brakes: The stock, rubber lines were replaced with a set of steelbraided lines from Russell. The lines bolted on in about 30 minutes, and effected a terrific improvement in brake feel and control.

By this time, the bike had nearly 4000 hard miles on it, and had been to the dragstrip three times and the racetrack once. That kind of duty had worn out the stock Metzeler tires, and since the Metronic rear and Laser front had worked well in every situation we encountered with the Katana, a second set was levered onto the rims. The stock chain hadn't faired so well, throwing a side-plate, so it was replaced with a Tsubaki Sigma O-ring chain.

So modified, our Katana is far from perfect, with exhaust noise and carburetor jetting on top of our “next-time-we’ll-do-it-differently” list. But those are fixable problems. And everyone here agrees that the Katana now is a looker, a decided improvement over the comments the stock bike generated.

And for the first time in a while, it's safe for me to enter the garage.