*OFFICIAL* 2004 GS500F Pictures from Motorcycle Show

[rjsjr]

Here are some pictures of the new GS500F from the San Francisco Motorcycle show.  It was nice to see the new bike in person though I must say that I really prefer the GS naked myself.  The fairing is pretty substantial and I think it looks out of place, especially with the chicken beak lights and tubular bars well above the fairing waistline.  For some reason my camera decided to adjust all the pictures dark, so these aren't the greatest.

The new GS with Tim and Kristen from the board in the background:


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A rear shot that gives you an idea of the size of the fairing:


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A closeup of the oil cooler:


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A picture showing the cooler in the fairing.  You can sort of make out the return lines just below the oil filter cover in the larger image:


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Sadly we only realized once there that we should have brought some gstwin.com stickers to temporarily place on the bike for a few choice shots.  And Tim, Kristen, Manjul, nice to meet you guys in person. Of course, riding home in pouring rain was less than fun (especially with my rain gear back at the shop being altered).  California drivers just don't know how to handle rain.

BTW, the FZ6 seems like a great bike.  At $1500 more that's where my money would go if I were going to buy a smaller bike new (but a used gs is still a much better choice for a new rider imo).

I'll post more pictures once I have them cropped/adjusted in follow up replies.

edit: Geekmod

[rjsjr]

Instrument cluster and controls, Manjul said they appear to be identical to the 01-02 models.  I like the feel of the SV sourced controls a lot better than my 99.  This also gives you an idea of how far above the fairing they stick up:


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Close up of the oil cooler return lines below the oil filter cover:


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[rjsjr]

A detail of the fairing where it meets the frame and engine.  I couldn't get a good shot of the fairing mounts, but they are just small tabs attached to the frame so it seems that adding the fairing to an existing 01-02 and probably pre 01 should be straightforward, you'd just need to fab the appropriate mounts:


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The seat is really comfy compared to my 99, broader and more supportive so you don't feel jammed into the tank quite so much.  I think its the same as the 01-02:


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[ViD381]

Wow, that full body kit makes the bike a lot more sporty looking. The headlight too.

[glenn9171]

If the seat is the same as the '01-02, then it's not very comfy.  Try hard and not ergonomically shaped.  Hopefully the GS500F will get Corbin or someone else off their behinds and make an aftermarket seat to fit the '01+ models.

[Bob Broussard]

I was going to be at the show to meet you guys/gals, but I  had to work instead.
How do you post pictures on the message board like you did???

I'm going up Sunday to check it out.
I'll try to get some more pics of the oil cooler setup.

[rjsjr]

Bob: I have my own web servers, so I put the pictures up there after I played around with them in photoshop a bit (still rough, my camera seemed to take really dark pictures at the show so I had to bump the brightness).  Once they were up at a publicly accessible url on my server I then used the bbcode img and url markup to include them in my post.  There are buttons inbetween the subject and content text areas in the posting page that show you how to write the markup.

If that doesn't help pm me.  Btw, I keep meaning to post pics from the AFM races, really should get those cleaned up and posted.

[deck95gs500e]

I was there to meet up with guy's but have to leave around 1:30  due prior enagement..nice to see the new GS500F  in person, it looks bigger than my 94 GS though maybe because of the fairing.

[deck95gs500e]

don't know what happen but I ended up posting 3 times  

[Moose]

Alright I have to ask did they think to include fairing/frame guards like the GSXR's have.

[rjsjr]

What are fairing/frame guards?  Are those the same as frame sliders (don't think they are stock on gsxrs though)?  It didn't have sliders fitted, but I think you could add them pretty easily.

[TheGoodGuy]

First things first, it was nice meeting you all. Rjsjr  (rob) and friend, tim and andy (cam70guy - we bumped into him later on). I am sorta bummed out that i didnt get to meet kristen.

Anyway Tim and I did some major tooling around the GS. If we had tools and didnt have the suzuki staff nearby we would have stripped the 04 gs500f. I will let tim do the "explainations" of what or findings were at. But let me just say the OIL COOLER is NOT the only MOD for 2004.

The seat is actually the same as the 01 and 02 in shape and texture but actually a lot better. Its softer (actually can press down on it) and actually a lot more comfy than the 01 or 02 models. I like the 2004 seat, i wouldnt mind trading it for my harder 01 seat.

As for the other changes I would say they are SURPRISES for tim and I. It took a lot of tooling around and probing with our fingers but we got a vague idea on what suzuki has done to our beloved gs500. As i said the oil cooler is not the only engine mod.

We tried to see if we could get a "test ride" but suzuki is a Buddha Loves You, they will only give test rides to magazines with over 4Million subsribers, so when it does show up it will show up on the highly biased magazines. Needless to say I am going to pester suzuki about a test drive session and a smaller review, if not we got to wait till april to convince a dealer to let us have a tester.

From what I know I think suzuki did take some of our advice on the shocks, i think the front shocks are now UPGRADED. We know the "fork caps" up front are now actually a proper cap rather than the cap we guys are used to. I dont know how to explain but i hope one of my pics has it on it.  The front shock feels a lot stiffer, it doesnt seem to bottom out when you push down on it. The rear shock feels the same as I remember it.



In the above picture you can see the fork caps, they arent the kind where you have a cap and then got to use the 1/2 drive socket wrench, rather this one uses a C-Wrench. Which is a change of sorts.

Now for the tyres, suzuki did change the tyres for the 2004 model, so good riddance for the BT 550 Excedra's, but welcome the now worse IFP tyres (was it IFP??). From what i understood from tim, the tyres are now from a manufacturer who makes low end dirt bike tyres.
I guess they had to save money somewhere after all they did put in the fairing and stuff.

The new bike did get quite a bit of interest while we were "tooling" around the bike. Needless to say I think the GS500 will now be a force to recon with, and maybe finally we will be able to see some new parts from manufacturers.

My pictures will be up, once i can get them off the camera (new camera - just got it) and uploaded (I am on a slow ass dialup, I will upload them tomorrow sometime). Tim's review might be on this weekend or on monday.

Manjul

[rjsjr]

Those were IRC Road Winner tires.  Tim (who used to be a motorcycle mechanic) said they aren't thought well of at least for the off road tires they mostly manufacture.

[JohNLA]

Thanks, for the pics

[scratch]

WooHoo! I can post from home finally! Thanks Manjul! (Did I spell that right?) Externally, the bike just looks like it got a fairing and a oil-cooler, it was interesting to note where the oil lines routed to the oil pan on the engine, but I'm sure this has been done on older GS450's. The seat is much more comfy and I liked it much better this year. The IRC tires are, well...different rim protectors that'll just get burned off like all the other stock tires mounted on bikes throughout history. Forklegs unfoutunatly did not receive drain screws, but did get a little sticker in it's own little mold on the side; what for? I don't know. Next of noticeable differences where a couple of thingies mounted on the carburetors. The first, I think, is a throttle position sensor, as it is mounted just about where the butterfly valve is on the carb, but it has a slotted hole making it look like it's adjustable. The second is on a bracket below the right floatbowl and just looks like a vacuum sensor; it has one tube going into it and a couple of wires. (I have a phototgraphic memory, btw) Now for the interesting stuff: Manjul and I later discovered a pair of tubes coming out of the front of the cylinder block. You know those two little useless blocks cast diagonally into the cooling fins? These lines come out of those and are routed up the front and over the engine. One of them goes to a brass assembly mounted on the inside of the left-hand frame spar behind the number one ignition coil. We conjectured that it might be a fuel pump (exhaust gas operated? I dunno, I just want to take this thing apart and find out!)! Before we discovered this we had gone to see the rest of the show and it was great fun! When we stopped by the Cycle World booth we both grabbed next months issue and looked up what they wrote about the GS. They stated that it has FOUR-Valves per cylinder! There it was printed in black and white! Manjul and I looked at each other in disbelief. Can this be true?! We must go back and inquire of the Suzuki people at the booth! (O.K. it was a Spanish Inquisition, but anyway...) Eventually we went back (there was a lot to see) and inquired. You know that saying "Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see"? Well, they weren't fully convincing. So we commenced to really go over the bike. In addition to the tubes described above, Allen-head screws are now in place of the blanks on the sides of the cylinder head, but there is no way to tell if it realy has eight valves without taking it apart.

[scratch]

See below.

[scratch]

O.K. I got carried away. AOL on dialup sucks so bad that it stated that my post had failed all three times.

To compensate for the weird things going on: To see the rest of the thread you can just click reply, but you don't have to post, to just see the rest of the thread. There is more pictures.

[Moose]

What are fairing/frame guards?  Are those the same as frame sliders (don't think they are stock on gsxrs though)?  It didn't have sliders fitted, but I think you could add them pretty easily.

They are not stock, but the fairing has holes in the side where you bolt them onto the frame(on the GSXR series).  Since there is a fairing on the new GS you can't add the usual case guards that we see for the GS.  I noticed in the pics that there is no hole in the side of the fairing for the frame sliders.  I know that a friend of mine that had a GSXR600 had purchased them and it saved his fairing and frame when he laid the bike down and slid off a mountain in devils gap(I think that is the name of the road).  Fortunately the only thing that happened to him was a broken collar bone.  But I know the frame sliders protected the majority of his bike.

[TheGoodGuy]

O.K. I got carried away. AOL on dialup sucks so bad that it stated that my post had failed all three times.

its not aol, its the forums, we have an issue that we are looking into.

I will post the pics once i get them off the camera in like 20 minutes. I am still reading the manual. Damn canon and their manuals, its like 200 pages. I guess with a camera like teh A70, there has to be 200 pages cause its definately worth the money for all it can do.

[Moose]

So did anyone notice an area for a frame slider to fit on the new GS?