What do you think will happen to our beloved GS500?   

I assume you mean all bikes sold (where did you get this law or whatever it is?), so it will be removed from Suzuki's line up and may or may not be replaced with a bike that fits a similar market segment, but the replacement will cost more. You can't complain, if the GS500 is manufactured all the way to 2011, that's a 22 year production run. That's extremely long, even by bike standards, which is always good news for getting cheap spare parts.

I'm interested in where you've found this law. A friend of mine told me he'd read an article that said a similar thing, that new US emissions laws meant that all bikes sold in the US would need to be liquid cooled, have catalytic converters and fuel injection. This was a few months back and all the searching I did I found that the emissions laws only specify allowable emissions, not what a manufacturer must do to meet those emissions. It was speculation by some that that liquid cooling, catalytic converters and fuel injection would be required to meet the regulations. My further research also found that the new US limits are the ones already in force in California so any bike currently available in California already meets the requirements. I believe the GS is available there but has some evaporative control device added?

This was just what I could find with the best of my searching. If anyone has more information I would greatly appreciate it. While the laws may not directly affect Australia I could see it having impacts on what bikes we have available here. For example I can't see Buell making bikes it can't sell in the US

Didn't Obama just pass something about stricter emmisions?  Maybe that has something to do with it?

Haven't followed anything about it, don't care much, but the usual pattern is that the emissions are set, not how you get there. Much urinating and moaning is made about how it can't be done without x, y and/or z, until someone is clever enough to meet the requirements with q. At least that's the way it's worked for 3 decades.

The usual "must be liquid cooled" argument centers around holding tighter clearances. Of course all air-cooled bikes are air/oil cooled bikes, and it may be that one can engineer the oil system a bit and hold whatever tolerance you need to hold without getting into glycol, but what who will do remains to be seen, as always... As for injection, on a manufacturer scale it's an easy mod, while the same thing in one-offs or even tiny production is prohibitively expensive and/or tedious to pull off (IMHO).

In any case, 20 years so far of very similar GSs should mean a good spare parts supply for a long time, regardless. Beats the heck out of my other bike on that score...

If they can make a ninja 250 cheap and fuel injected and liquid cooled there's no problem remaking the GS500 the same way. Now what I'm really still scratching my head over is when they'll make a bike that really is fuel efficient. I mean out of every highway capable motorcycle on the market why does a 20 year old design still beat out what's on offer on the current market, 58 mpg. In fact even the ancient design of the harley sportster gets better mpg's than any of the modern commuter class bikes like the ninja 650r.

I always wondered why the GS was redesigned to include a different body mod but kept the same engine technology?  Wouldn't that money they spent designing the fairings have been more profitable spent FI the GS?

Besides, wasn't there someone working on a FI project for the GS?  Whatever happened to that?

Plastic is cheap. Motors and frames require engineering effort. Slapping some plastic on a known, debugged, engine and frame is far more profit than mucking about with a whole new design...plus they still sell the E in other parts of the world.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/tag/motorcycle+emissions/
http://www.yenra.com/motorcycle-emissions/
http://www.cmtabate.com/Legislative/EPA/EPA%20Emmissions.htm

Yep looks like the old motorcycle is in for a revamp.

Quote from: qwertydude on May 24, 2009, 10:09:34 PM
If they can make a ninja 250 cheap and fuel injected and liquid cooled there's no problem remaking the GS500 the same way. Now what I'm really still scratching my head over is when they'll make a bike that really is fuel efficient. I mean out of every highway capable motorcycle on the market why does a 20 year old design still beat out what's on offer on the current market, 58 mpg. In fact even the ancient design of the harley sportster gets better mpg's than any of the modern commuter class bikes like the ninja 650r.

ninja 250 fuel injected ? huh ? where ?

Quote from: ohgood on May 25, 2009, 06:36:39 AM

Quote from: qwertydude on May 24, 2009, 10:09:34 PM
If they can make a ninja 250 cheap and fuel injected and liquid cooled there's no problem remaking the GS500 the same way. Now what I'm really still scratching my head over is when they'll make a bike that really is fuel efficient. I mean out of every highway capable motorcycle on the market why does a 20 year old design still beat out what's on offer on the current market, 58 mpg. In fact even the ancient design of the harley sportster gets better mpg's than any of the modern commuter class bikes like the ninja 650r.

ninja 250 fuel injected ? huh ? where ?

Quote from: 08GSSteve on May 25, 2009, 05:35:49 AM
http://www.autobloggreen.com/tag/motorcycle+emissions/
http://www.yenra.com/motorcycle-emissions/
http://www.cmtabate.com/Legislative/EPA/EPA%20Emmissions.htm

Yep looks like the old motorcycle is in for a revamp.

Hmmm, how well did you read those articles? Did you notice that last two are from 2002 and 2003? These are the kinds of articles I was talking about when I said that the only references to bikes having to use liquid cooling, catalytic converters and fuel injection because of the new laws. The laws themselves are only for what emissions the bikes are allowed to produce and the manufacturers have already proved the articles wrong by producing bikes that pass the regulations without having to make them liquid cooled and fuel injected and with catalytic converters.

The first link you gave had a few newer articles.. one comparing scooter emissions to hummer emissions, one mentioning new Euro 5 emissions laws and another talking about changes to exemptions for custom built bikes but none of them mentioned any legal enforcement of how a bike is to meet emissions requirements. I'm still yet to see any evidence of a law requiring this.

I think people need to have a look at how much black smoke trucks spew out before they point the finger at motorcycles.....

Yea i know they were old articles but posted them to bring others a little more up to speed to what is being "suggested"

Ninja 250's are fuel injected in europe for emmisions reasons, to save a couple bucks the US version is carbureted. But because of tighter motorcycle emmisions of euro-4 standards the fuel injected models actually make less power than here.

http://www.kawiforums.com/showthread.php?p=1644618

with the number of bikes that are now FI, I can't imagine it would cost substantially more money to engineer a FI system than it did to design the fairings and oil cooler.

Quote from: qwertydude on May 25, 2009, 10:00:32 AM
Ninja 250's are fuel injected in europe for emmisions reasons, to save a couple bucks the US version is carbureted. But because of tighter motorcycle emmisions of euro-4 standards the fuel injected models actually make less power than here.

http://www.kawiforums.com/showthread.php?p=1644618

stink ! we can't seem to get any cool smaller bikes with EFI here in the USofA. unfortunately if it's not sporting 200 hp, it's not a sport bike, and doesn't warrant any extra expense on the sales floor.

A FI ninja 250 would be soo very nice. (shaking head, and wondering why people are blinded by only horsepower numbers)

Quote from: qwertydude on May 24, 2009, 10:09:34 PM
If they can make a ninja 250 cheap and fuel injected and liquid cooled there's no problem remaking the GS500 the same way. Now what I'm really still scratching my head over is when they'll make a bike that really is fuel efficient. I mean out of every highway capable motorcycle on the market why does a 20 year old design still beat out what's on offer on the current market, 58 mpg. In fact even the ancient design of the harley sportster gets better mpg's than any of the modern commuter class bikes like the ninja 650r.

I wonder the same thing. A friggin GEO Metro was getting 50 plus mpg in the late 80s early 90s. The best bikes can get now and still get out of their own way are the mid 60s (my GS can do this if I don't turn over 5500). Heck a new 500 horse power vett can get milage in the mid 20s and go as fast as a busa but they can't build a 75 horse power bike that gets 100 mpg. I guess it boils down to necessity, if folks aren't asking for it or the government hasn't mandated it it will not be built.

Quote from: ohgood on May 25, 2009, 06:36:39 AM

Quote from: qwertydude on May 24, 2009, 10:09:34 PM
If they can make a ninja 250 cheap and fuel injected and liquid cooled there's no problem remaking the GS500 the same way. Now what I'm really still scratching my head over is when they'll make a bike that really is fuel efficient. I mean out of every highway capable motorcycle on the market why does a 20 year old design still beat out what's on offer on the current market, 58 mpg. In fact even the ancient design of the harley sportster gets better mpg's than any of the modern commuter class bikes like the ninja 650r.

ninja 250 fuel injected ? huh ? where ?

Euro version only, I believe
<edit>
heh, I should read the rest of the posts before jumping in there all smart-ass-like.  (Better to keep your mouth shut and let others think you are an idiot, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.)

It boils down to physics. You need to push air out of the way, and motorcycles have smaller frontal area but much worse drag coefficients. So at highway speed, they have significant drag. Even if you have an optimal sized engine (gutless) that has no throttling losses (throttle pinned all the time) on your (pick a small number) cc bike, there is an upper limit. If you are willing to go slower, then you can go further per gallon of fuel. And you get a 40MPH, 100MPG 50cc Honda Metropolitan.

Quote from: Paulcet on May 25, 2009, 07:44:34 PM

Quote from: ohgood on May 25, 2009, 06:36:39 AM

Quote from: qwertydude on May 24, 2009, 10:09:34 PM
If they can make a ninja 250 cheap and fuel injected and liquid cooled there's no problem remaking the GS500 the same way. Now what I'm really still scratching my head over is when they'll make a bike that really is fuel efficient. I mean out of every highway capable motorcycle on the market why does a 20 year old design still beat out what's on offer on the current market, 58 mpg. In fact even the ancient design of the harley sportster gets better mpg's than any of the modern commuter class bikes like the ninja 650r.

ninja 250 fuel injected ? huh ? where ?

Euro version only, I believe
<edit>
heh, I should read the rest of the posts before jumping in there all smart-ass-like.  (Better to keep your mouth shut and let others think you are an idiot, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.)

And yet even with restrained driving I never got better than about 108 mpg on my Honda Metropolitan and I see consistent reports that the ancient Honda Cub did better. The Cub is heavier, has a lower tech air cooled engine with lower compression and increased frontal area yet manages 150 mpg. Are we all just going backwards or did engine technology peak in 1960's-1970's. I bet I can design a better engine than the Japanese do now, it's a trade secret. As in Soichiro Honda's original belief that lower revving engine's are inherently more efficient but the current generation of Japanese love 50cc engines that rev to 20,000 rpm and cost a ton to engineer instead of making it just a bit larger and lower revving and that is much more efficient. But a car with a truly efficient torque range and maybe only a 5000 rpm redline wouldn't get the passion moving like a weedwacker at 20k rpm. And if you need further proof, there's only one car with 400 hp that doesn't suffer from the gas guzzler tax, the Corvette. And guess what it's got GASP! pushrods.

If you still don't wanna believe me here's a little excercise (literally and figuratively) Take a 1 pound dumb bell weight and a 10 pound dumb bell weight. Hold your arm straight out with the weight in your hand. Take the 10 pound weight and in 10 seconds move the weight up and down a fixed distance 10 times. This is 100 units of work lets equate it to say 100 horsepower. Now lets simulate it with 1 pound. Take the 1 pound weight and in 10 seconds move it up and down 100 times. This is the same amount of work but perfectly demonstrates what I've even seen lots of engineers baffled over. Parasitic losses.

That piston changing directions 100 times a second wastes a lot of energy, a lot of engineers will still think it's wasted on lubrication and therefore still wonder where it's going when they've reduced viscosity down to 0w oil. Still got those pistons banging around at 4000 rpm and any second rate physics student knows KE=M*V^2. That V-squared thingy is a real kick in the balls because if you have smaller and smaller engines revving higher and higher to make their power then what happens is that as revs climb and power is doubled to meet demand then the energy needed to make that work doesn't just double it quadruples.

So that's why a 4 cylinder 250cc engine sucks gas and something like a 2 cylinder 250 sips it (FZR250r vs ninja 250). This doesn't even take into account parasitic losses from lubrication and moving parts which also increases exponentially with rpm. So maybe the lesson learned here is that the 1960's may have gotten a lot wrong but larger low-revving displacement engines are the way to go. Not only do you get efficiency but longevity lower revving engines last longer and don't need exotic materials and manufacturing techniques. But you'll never see these "innovations" in a country where an engine never sees more than 30,000 miles.

And therefore a 3 cylinder geo metro will always get better gas mileage than an anemic 4 cylinder modern car. The only thing to buck this trend is India's Tata Nano, 2 cylinder. And if they got their engineering right, likely cause there's a lot of engineers over there, then this will truly be the mpg king that will finally knock the geo metro's legendary mpg status.