Somewhat new rider - recommendations for lean-running bike?

[phendric]

Hi everyone,

I'm fairly new to the world of motorcycle riding, having passed my BRC at the end of July.  Only a week or two after passing, I found a great deal on Craigslist for a 2001 GS500 (naked): it was in great running condition, the body and seat were pristine, the manual and all service records came with the bike, and it only had 12,333 miles on it.  I jumped on the ad, and with the help of my dad, got the bike home the same day it was posted.  For the first month, I only probably put 30 miles on the bike riding it around my neighborhood, practicing the basic exercises that you learn in the BRC, so as to familiarize myself with my new bike, its controls and handling.  Starting a month ago, I transitioned to using the bike as my daily commuter (I live in the Los Angeles area, where my commute consists of riding straight down the twisty section of the 110 freeway, through downtown - I work just south of downtown).  I've become comfortable using the bike, and found that I can get home any day, at any time, traffic or not, in 30 minutes or less, which is GREAT (my previous commute took about an hour using public transportation)!  It's a fun bike to ride, is plenty peppy, but is very light and (I've read,) forgiving of newbie errors.

Now to the point of this post.  I'm having a couple of issues with the bike that I'm hoping you guys can give me recommendations to solve.  First, the bike is VERY cold-blooded.  For the past week, with 60-degree mornings and evenings, I have to run the bike for 5 minutes before it's warm enough to ride without issues.  When I first start her up, giving her any throttle usually results in nothing happening, or in revs decreasing.  If I try to ride before she's warmed up, back-firing usually occurs during the initial hard throttle, and then subsides.  My understanding is that these are the classic symptoms of a lean-running bike, no?

The question then becomes: how do I make the bike less cold-blooded?  What are the common causes of cold-bloodedness in the GS500?  Any tips or recommendations you can give would be very helpful!

Now, to the second issue.  Not long after purchasing the bike, my dad was visiting, and noticed that the bike was leaking oil from the top of the cylinder case.  He told me that I should take care of the issue, but that I didn't have to do it immediately, as the leak wasn't bad.  I took the bike to a local shop a couple of weeks later, whereupon the service writer informed me that a bunch of gaskets needed to be ordered and replaced.  Last week, they finally called me for an appointment and did the work.  I checked the oil level after that, and it didn't even register on the dip stick (!), so I had been losing more oil than I thought!  I put a quart of semi-synthetic 10W-40, which brought the level up to the very bottom of the stick (the "L", I think), so it needs another 1/2 quart or so, I think.

However, ever since adding the additional oil, I find that whenever I start the bike up in the morning, it often pours a ton of smoke out of the exhaust for a minute or two before clearing up.  Any ideas what's causing this, and how to fix it?

Thanks for your suggestions!  Hope to spend fun times on these forums!

Phillip

PS - even though I live at the base of the mountains in Pasadena, and have great mountain/canyon roads to ride (Angeles Crest, Glendale Mountain Road, PCH), I haven't yet ridden any of them.  How is the GS in the twisties?

[Dr.McNinja]

The worst feature of the GS500 is how lean it is. It's caused by factory jetting, and worsened by weather and dirty carbs.

It's done by Suzuki to pass EPA, mostly in California. The upside is that lean bikes get better mileage, but when a car gets 10-20 mpg, anything better than 30 mpg is good enough for me. As such, the fix is to add more fuel.

Getting the bike rejetted using a proper kit (Factory Pro kits are awesome, Buddha's kit is good too but the turn around time isn't exactly great or reliable) and adding some performance parts to boot will help. You can rejet with a stock exhaust and filter for pure benefit of richening the bike's fuel/air ratio but I like to justify things lavishly. I'm rejetting mine when I get my K&N lunchbox and Jardine RT-one exhaust in. A cheaper bandaid is to just clean your carbs. The problem is the jets are tiny and are WAY less forgiving on forgetting a clean now and again.

The "classic" symptom of incredibly lean behavior is a hanging idle. However everything you're experiencing fits into the less serious side and is how most GS500s behave. Sputtering while the bike isn't warm is normal. The throttle becomes more responsive as the bike warms up. If it stays like that after a few minutes however, you have something to look at.


What color is the smoke? Blue smoke is oil, white smoke is typically a gasket burning (or in the case of a new exhaust, the 'burn-in' stage). Seafoam also causes white smoke. I would probably spend some time looking at the GS500 wiki. It has all the oil information you need. Don't make an uneducated pour. The blue smoke makes sense when you say you need gaskets replaced. They're probably leaking oil which is getting burnt.

As far as twisties, the GS500 can handle them. The suspension basically consists of two wet noodles for forks and a harder (dente) noodle for a rear suspension. If you really like the twisties I'd invest in an aftermarket suspension from another bike (SV650, katana, GSXR, etc).

[Barrie]

Nice Post Dr. McNinja !

[rayshon]

That post is amazing ninja!!!

[phendric]

The worst feature of the GS500 is how lean it is. It's caused by factory jetting, and worsened by weather and dirty carbs.

It's done by Suzuki to pass EPA, mostly in California. The upside is that lean bikes get better mileage, but when a car gets 10-20 mpg, anything better than 30 mpg is good enough for me. As such, the fix is to add more fuel.

Getting the bike rejetted using a proper kit (Factory Pro kits are awesome, Buddha's kit is good too but the turn around time isn't exactly great or reliable) and adding some performance parts to boot will help. You can rejet with a stock exhaust and filter for pure benefit of richening the bike's fuel/air ratio but I like to justify things lavishly. I'm rejetting mine when I get my K&N lunchbox and Jardine RT-one exhaust in. A cheaper bandaid is to just clean your carbs. The problem is the jets are tiny and are WAY less forgiving on forgetting a clean now and again.

The "classic" symptom of incredibly lean behavior is a hanging idle. However everything you're experiencing fits into the less serious side and is how most GS500s behave. Sputtering while the bike isn't warm is normal. The throttle becomes more responsive as the bike warms up. If it stays like that after a few minutes however, you have something to look at.


What color is the smoke? Blue smoke is oil, white smoke is typically a gasket burning (or in the case of a new exhaust, the 'burn-in' stage). Seafoam also causes white smoke. I would probably spend some time looking at the GS500 wiki. It has all the oil information you need. Don't make an uneducated pour. The blue smoke makes sense when you say you need gaskets replaced. They're probably leaking oil which is getting burnt.

As far as twisties, the GS500 can handle them. The suspension basically consists of two wet noodles for forks and a harder (dente) noodle for a rear suspension. If you really like the twisties I'd invest in an aftermarket suspension from another bike (SV650, katana, GSXR, etc).

Dr.McNinja,

Thanks for the detailed post!  I'll go through it better when it's not almost midnight (and I'm therefore tired), but a couple of things immediately come to mind:

1) I don't know very much about carbs - is there any particular size or dimension I should look for in a rejet kit?
2) I will check out the GS500 wiki in more detail.  The smoke that comes out is dark.  I wouldn't say it's blue (it looks more black to me), but it's dark - definitely not white.  And the gaskets have already been replaced.  The smoking didn't start occurring until AFTER the replacements went in, so I don't think it's the gaskets.
3) As for oil levels, I checked them a few days ago, but I did it with the bike on the center stand, which you're not supposed to do.  So I'll check the level properly tomorrow morning, before I leave.

[Dr.McNinja]

The worst feature of the GS500 is how lean it is. It's caused by factory jetting, and worsened by weather and dirty carbs.

It's done by Suzuki to pass EPA, mostly in California. The upside is that lean bikes get better mileage, but when a car gets 10-20 mpg, anything better than 30 mpg is good enough for me. As such, the fix is to add more fuel.

Getting the bike rejetted using a proper kit (Factory Pro kits are awesome, Buddha's kit is good too but the turn around time isn't exactly great or reliable) and adding some performance parts to boot will help. You can rejet with a stock exhaust and filter for pure benefit of richening the bike's fuel/air ratio but I like to justify things lavishly. I'm rejetting mine when I get my K&N lunchbox and Jardine RT-one exhaust in. A cheaper bandaid is to just clean your carbs. The problem is the jets are tiny and are WAY less forgiving on forgetting a clean now and again.

The "classic" symptom of incredibly lean behavior is a hanging idle. However everything you're experiencing fits into the less serious side and is how most GS500s behave. Sputtering while the bike isn't warm is normal. The throttle becomes more responsive as the bike warms up. If it stays like that after a few minutes however, you have something to look at.


What color is the smoke? Blue smoke is oil, white smoke is typically a gasket burning (or in the case of a new exhaust, the 'burn-in' stage). Seafoam also causes white smoke. I would probably spend some time looking at the GS500 wiki. It has all the oil information you need. Don't make an uneducated pour. The blue smoke makes sense when you say you need gaskets replaced. They're probably leaking oil which is getting burnt.

As far as twisties, the GS500 can handle them. The suspension basically consists of two wet noodles for forks and a harder (dente) noodle for a rear suspension. If you really like the twisties I'd invest in an aftermarket suspension from another bike (SV650, katana, GSXR, etc).

Dr.McNinja,

Thanks for the detailed post!  I'll go through it better when it's not almost midnight (and I'm therefore tired), but a couple of things immediately come to mind:

1) I don't know very much about carbs - is there any particular size or dimension I should look for in a rejet kit?
2) I will check out the GS500 wiki in more detail.  The smoke that comes out is dark.  I wouldn't say it's blue (it looks more black to me), but it's dark - definitely not white.  And the gaskets have already been replaced.  The smoking didn't start occurring until AFTER the replacements went in, so I don't think it's the gaskets.
3) As for oil levels, I checked them a few days ago, but I did it with the bike on the center stand, which you're not supposed to do.  So I'll check the level properly tomorrow morning, before I leave.

As for the jets:

http://wiki.gstwins.com/index.php?n=Upgrades.Rejetting

[phendric]

Sigh...if I read BEFORE I posted, I wouldn't have to post so much. 

Thanks for the link...I'll go read more of the wiki before I ask any more questions...