Mischa Hof's MengelSoes

Chassis.
The swingarm nowadays is 40mm shorter than the original. The guy who sold it to me said it probably came from a '90 1100R, but I don't know for sure. (It looks damned much like a '91 750 arm).Static wheelbase at this moment is 1405 mm. This increased manouvreability, and made the rear suspension a little stiffer. Theoratically it decreases stability, but I didn't notice any problem up till 280 k's an hour.. I also threw away the steering damper. The handling got better, but it isn't what it should be. Want to increase riding height: Thinking of a good rear shock with adjustable everything, including riding height.Or maybe I'll first try to increase it in another way.

Gear box.
I kind of missed a 6th gear on my gixer, and since I had a 750 6-speed box lying around, I started comparing.... After sorting everything out, it actually is quite easy to put in.The main problem when doing this, is to assemble a clutch. Since I took the 6-box from a 750R, which has no pushrod through the
countershaft, a hole needed to be machined through that shaft, to be able to fit the 1100 clutch and pushrod on it. Luckily I found a machine shop enthousiastic enough to destroy some top quality drills on it. (It was a hell of a job and the guy told me he will never do this again). The next problem are the inner clutch parts, I used the standard 1100R basket, but the 1100R inner components with diaphragm spring didn't fit anymore, 'cause the 6-box countershaft is about 1 cm. shorter. The clutch from a 1100F katana engine is different, it uses 4 compression springs, instead of the diaphragm spring. Also the 1100 katana countershaft is shorter than the 1100R shaft, so I used the 1100R basket, 1100F inner clutch comps. These parts all just drop in like that and it works fine. The 6-box shift cam also drops in without modifying anything. The crankcases need a little bit of machining, 'cause some gears will hit casting marks. I took the ball bearing from the 5-box driveshaft and installed it "inside out" on the 6-box driveshaft. This was needed to get a proper line-up in all gears. Now I needed to machine a little hole in the crankcase to place the "ball bearing positioning pin" in. Also put some shims somewhere, to get the best possible line-up betweeen all gears. Because the bearing from the 5-box is wider than the one from the 6-box the oil seal on the output shaft hasn't got as much space as it has originally, but since the (original) retainer helps keeping it in place, there's no problem (so far).

Cylinder head.
The head was taken from the same '88 750R that I took the 6-box from. The '88 and '89 750 (biggest bore 750's) have the same size valves as the 1127GSXR, so I won't loose any power by that. Matched the '91 1100R manifolds to the 750 head. The 750 head gives more compression and has straighter ports. The air box doesn't fit anymore. Actually, the carbs themselves hardly fit in. So I had to get some K&N filters. I don't know yet about the power. It feels powerfull though. In a few months I'll have it sorted out on a dyno.

Visible ?
The only visible mods to my bike are the exhaust system and the K&N's; maybe some gixer-freak may notice the shorter swing arm, the small 40-teeth rear sprocket or the unusual position of the carbs....

The work of a mixed up mind

From the other side

Now those carbs are a tight fit