How a bike gets its name’s one of the real fascinations of custom building, I think. My favourite’s of a friend’s XS1100 cut-down, which he’d self-christened ‘Greebo’ after Nanny Ogg’s cat in the Discworld books, but was soon renamed by an old boy outside a pub watching him trying to start it. “Ah”, he said, nodding wisely, “Daisy – some days ‘e start, some days ‘e doesn’t.”
The ‘90s-style streetfighter you see here’s called ‘Pork Chop’ as, as we all know, the GSX 1100 EFE Suzuki that it’s based on was, although fast as hell, a big, heavy pig of a motorcycle, and this one was chopped, by a gentleman by the name of Joe Sullivan back in the ‘90s, hence ‘Pork Chop’. Actually, Carlos, the owner and builder has a story to go with it; “when I first nicknamed it, I had a life-like sticker of a pork chop stuck on the tank, and someone once asked “is that Australia?” (the shape vaguely resembled the country). Guessing geography wasn’t one o’ their better subjects at school, eh?”
Strictly speaking, the bike’s not actually an 1100 EFE; it’s a 750 ET with an 1100 EFE motor, but I defy even the most anal of Suzuki nerds to know that without being told because, well, there’s pretty much no 750 ET left bar the bottom of the frame loop and, maybe, the area around the swingarm pivot – everything else has been, er, butchered, to use an apt choice of word. It, I’m guessing with the 750 ET motor, was actually Carlos’ first legal bike (“rode without a licence for many years, as many of us did”), and was a real dog (pig, shurely?) of a thing when he first acquired it, but he loved it as it had a bit of character. After the wiring loom caught fire outside his local Woolworths in 2012, he decided to butcher (that word again) it to fit the vision he had in his head, and his first port of call was his friend Greg’s where, he knew, he had an 1100 EFE motor sat collecting dust (mind you, he says, he had been hassling him about it for over a year). With that in hand, the long, long journey to how you see it now began.
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Starting from the front, the wheel n’ USD forks are from a water-cooled GSX-R 750 WN, held in substantial billet yokes by Roy ‘Billet Brain’ Martin of Billet Bike Bits in Norwich. The rear wheel’s from a GSX-R 1100, as is the swingarm, albeit modified from its standard single-shock arrangement to a twin-shock that suits the look of the bike better, and all three of those funky-looking brake discs are Armstrong wavy ones which you can buy online from the UK. Front brakes’re Tokico six-pots, as used on Hayabusas and the like, and the rear’s from a Bandit 12, while the rear shocks’re Bilsteins off a quad. The tank’s a single-cap Mustang that’s been cut n’ stretched for extra fuel capacity (Mustang tanks’re quite small as standard, and not really up to the fuel thirst of a big Jap’ four), the seat’s one made by Carlos himself and covered locally, the side-panels are homemade stainless, and the rear muddie’s from an ’Arley, modified to sit just so.
Moving on, electrically the bike’s got all the right bits; a one-off loom by Tony ‘Cosmo’ Caliandro that uses a motogadget mo.unit to keepo things tidy, a motogadget mo.button to keep the ‘bars clean, a Shorai LFX Lithium battery to power the uprated starter motor (more on that, and the engine in a mo’), a blindingly bright 7.7-inch Cree LED headlight, and a neat little LED rear light hidden under the rear mudguard. Oh, and Dyna coils and Taylor leads (setting fire to a bucket of p*ss, for the use of), and a Dyna 2000 ignition, natch.
In fact, the engine in this ‘ere mo’bike’s a little special; bored to 1230cc, and with stainless valves, the head(s)’ve been ported and polished, the carbs replaced with Mikuni RS36 flatslides with bell-mouths, the crank’s been welded and balanced crank, and there’s a heavier-duty Trac King clutch, and a more powerful Rick’s starter motor (which I didn’t even know you could get as Rick’s’re primarily a H-D-based parts co.). There’s an uprated oil cooler and lines, from Earls, an offset front sprocket to get the cain to line up with the lighter Talon sprocket on the rear wheel (750 ETs didn’t come with 180 rear tyres, y’see), and a very clever under-tail exhaust system built, using carbon cans from a Dynomite R1 Yam (remember them?) by Steph and Spam at Cut ‘Em N Ride. It’s a neat design – at first glance you wonder where the exhaust can is, and it’s not until you walk behind it that you see the twin outlets. With all this done to it, the carefully set-up motor puts out a very respectable 132bhp (stock EFEs were 124bhp at the crank – this one’s 132 at the wheel), and has a torque curve so strong you could pull down walls with it. Impressive!
Its crowning glory, though, is its paint; “after changing the colour from black to white, I decided to have it airbrushed by John O’Hara of Pitstop Paint. I’d been following his work for a considerable time and knew he’d be the man for the job. I gave him a brief description of what I wanted, as in the angry pig and the pork chops hanging off meat hooks, but said he could freehand the rest of the bike, doing whatever he wanted. Once the finished paintwork was completed (which he smashed out the park, may I add) that’s what gained the bike some recognition. I think that’s when Nik saw it, and started chasing me to get it photographed, and finally managed to at the Rock & Blues last year.”
Future plans, he says, would be to update the older front and rear ends at some point, “but then again it does the job the way it is. Building it, I was always a little paranoid about how it’d feel and handle on the road, but it handles superb – even though it is long and relatively low.” You could say, then, that he’s as happy with it as a pig in shi… er, clover, couldn’t you?
Spec: Suzuki GSX 1135 EFE engine (bored to 1230cc, stainless valves, ported/polished heads, Mikuni RS36 flatslide carbs, Mikuni bell-mouth ‘filters, welded/balanced crank, Trac King clutch, Dyna 2000 ignition, one-off under-tail exhaust system with Dynomite R1 slim carbon end cans, Dyna coils, Taylor leads, Earls oil cooler/braided hoses/AN fittings, offset front sprocket, Rick’s starter motor), 1980 Suzuki GSX 750ET frame (modified), Suzuki GSX-R 1100 rear-sets (modified)/swingarm (modified)/rear wheel/rear master-cylinder/torque arm (modified), Bridgestone BT014 tyres (120/17 front, 180/17 rear), Suzuki GSX-R 750 WN front wheel/USD forks/front mudguard, Armtrong wavy discs (front/rear), Tokico six-pot front brake calipers, one-off billet yokes/risers, Goodridge braided brake lines, aftermarket ‘bars, Titan brake/clutch levers, Rizoma front brake master-cylinder, Venhill quick-action throttle, Motone custom switchgear, Koso speedo, Pro Taper grips, single-cap Mustang tank (modified), one-off seat, homemade stainless side-panels, homemade aluminium battery/electrics box, H-D rear mudguard (modified), homemade ‘plate mount, Bilstein shocks, Suzuki Bandit 1200 rear caliper, gold X Ring chain, Talon rear sprocket, one-off loom by Tony ‘Cosmo’ Caliandro, motogadget mo.unit, motogadget mo.button, Shorai LFX Lithium battery, 7.7-inch Cree LED headlight, LED rear light
Finish: Fully airbrushed front mudguard/tank/tailpiece by John O’Hara of Pitstop Paint, wheels & swingarm powder-coated by Windridge Coatings, polishing by owner.
Engineering: Frame modified by Joe Sullivan, bike built by owner, exhaust by Cut ‘Em N Ride (07811 154581 or [email protected]), yokes by Billet Bike Bits (07507 001603 or www.billetbikebits.com)
Thanks To: “Steph Hartley & Spam at Cut ‘Em N Ride; Tony Cosmo; Mark Solly (Stig); John O’Hara; Nick at SPS; & Grumpy at Grumpy 1260…”
