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|front_sprocket= 16T
|front_sprocket= 16T
|rear_sprocket= 40T
|rear_sprocket= 40T
|frame            = Welded mild steel tubing
|frame            =
|suspension      =Front: Telehydraulic Fork <br>
|suspension      =Front: Telehydraulic Fork <br>
Rear: Dual Shocks Swinging Fork
Rear: Dual Shocks Swinging Fork
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== Review ==
IT WAS Colin Curwood freelance
photographer of this parish  who really reminded me of the problem. Giving
us some Long Distance Information on his 32.000 miles-plus GT550 Suzuki in June
he observed that hurling such a machine round Silverstone and then bitching
about the handling (as Bike did. many moons ago) is a pretty pointless exercise.
Stick your neck, nose, elbows, bum and boots out on the street if that's where
the bike belongs. I agreed; I still do. So what was I doing on a 550 in the Isle
Of Man ferchrissake?
It just didn't seem right, somehow. Race week in the Island without a bike may
be strawberries without cream, Coburn without Hughes, but I didn't really fancy
my chances of beating Mike Hailwood's angle of lean round the course on a Suzuki
triple. Or rather I did, but only after visiting every Bike pub between Ramsay
and Peel. Anyway, my route home across the mainland is specifically designed to
test any street bike to the outer limits, so I settled for using the 550 as
transport, pure 'n' simple.
Until these two maniacs hustled by
me one evening, going round the course. The leader was on a Trident, giving his
mate on the 750 Honda behind some work to do just keeping the horizon the right
way up. I'm well aware that you'd have resisted this vulgar challenge to ego and
riding skill and just continued plodding on towards the Chinese meal I was
headed for, but I was due on the midnight boat and it was a nice evening and I
hadn't really had a good blast all week and ... I tucked in behind the Honda and
soon we were cruising in the high eighties, playing tag in and out of cars,
combos, tractors and packs of bikes. The 550 was keeping up on the good surface,
slipstreaming the four along the straights and nudging him through the bends on
braking. Then the road deteriorated with that sort of sudden unexpected
brain-loosening lurch you get crossing county boundaries. Using all the 550's
amazing mid-range whizz to haul down the straight from one turn to another, I
felt my internal organs cannoning off each other like the BBC had decided to
hold the final of Pot Black in my visceral region. Liver off kidney down the
centre pocket: that sort of thing. I gave in finally cowardice is one of my more
attractive attributes and let the throttle slip forward beneath a limp and
unresisting wrist. Try it yourself if you don't believe me, but don't eat first,
okay?
Lack of rear suspension compliance
must be one of the Suzuki's worst points, along with a poor riding position and
inadequate fuel capacity. We've said it before about Suzuki's and it still
applies. Stiffer springs do not a better handling motorcycle make. We've also
moaned about footpegs mounted so far forward that you find yourself hanging your
heels on the passenger's rests for some relief on motorway drags. I've seen so
many other riders at the same game to know that I'm not alone, but W. Haylock of
this address informs me that the new GS750 Suzuki is built to accept normal
human beings in reasonable comfort. Perhaps before long Japanese manufacturers
will all be building bikes with old-style European riding positions, but until
then ...
The GT550's thirst remains a problem
in a country where — since the great gas crisis of '73 garages shut up
shop earlier and earlier and keep the shutters up on Sundays. Multiply 3.3
gallons by 31 and you get 102.3 miles, which is the sort of distance you can
easily cover in a Sunday evening without ever sighting an open petrol station.
On three occasions I stretched the 550's limited reserves of fuel and my own
patience to the limit, droning along in fifth gear with a handful of revs on the
dial. Twice I was overtaken by mopeds in my prayerful search for hydrocarbon
distillate. Oh, the humiliation.
But I haven't mentioned the engine
at all. Well, there's precious little to say. Mods have been so minor that it
almost takes a storeman to spot them. Early electric starter motor clutches gave
trouble and that's about it, because we know enough folk with high mileage
examples to be sure that you'd have to be rather unlucky to cop an unreliable
big triple. Most stunning internal mod on the latest A model is bores machined
straight into the cylinder casting sans liners, but coated with Suzuki Composite
Electro-Chemical Material (SCEM) or hard chrome time and thee. The GT250 is
similarly constructed and benefits are claimed to be better heat dissipation,
more constant piston tolerances and, therefore, more consistent power output.
SCEM is further claimed to be ultra hard wearing and to present no problems for
reboring.
Since its introduction in 1972, the
GT550 has changed very little. The front drum finally faded away completely in
'73 to be replaced by a single disc. Along with improved ground clearance a year
later, this was the most significant performance improvement, and the less said
about the original front brake the better. I've yet to encounter an owner who
hasn't tried to uprate it in some way. And while we still find it far too easy
to knock chunks off the road with the GT380's centre stand, I never succeeded in
making its bigger — and much smarter brother kiss the deck. Instrumentation was
'improved' for '75's M model with larger idiot lights under smoked acrylic sheet
and a digital gear indicator. I found great reassurance in looking at this
instrument and always discovering that the figure displayed was still the right
way up: a worthwhile addition for those of a nervous disposition.
Best thing about the rubber-mounted
motor is its vast acreage of usable power, spread from anything over three grand
right up to the 8,000 rpm redline. Maximum torque a hefty 38.7 lb-fts is
developed 2.000 rpm below that figure and it shows in magnificent mid-range
pzazz. Even five gears the GT 750's — seem one too many on occasion, so smooth
is the urgent surge of three cylinders. But you have to take the rough with the
smooth. The Suzuki three may be way silkier than Honda's four most of the time,
but just as you're about to sail smoothly over the legal limit at 5,000 rpm in
top, an ugly patch of vibration shows up. It lasts from just below 70 mph to
just over 80 and hammers through to your feet. There's no alternative to
choosing either a 65 or 85 mph cruising speed. No prizes for guessing my choice.
Suzuki's greatest achievement in
producing the 550 was to succeed in complete understatement. Inevitably it was
compared with the early Kawasaki 500 triples, whose bowel-loosening performance
left a legend which has tended to rub off on all air-cooled strokcr threes.
Instead the 550 looks staid, almost portly, but. nonetheless, attractive. Its
frame may look just like a collection of tubes holding two wheels apart, tacked
together with aesthetically repulsive gussetting, but it handles despite the
rear springs' attempts to prevent it holding a line. It may not wheelie its way
into your affections, but a standing quarter time in the 13 second bracket from
543 cc ain't to be sniffed at.
As I looped across England, the bike
really began to grow in my estimation. A quick warm-up down the M6 to Knutsford
had us threading in and out of the deadly day tripper traffic I hoped would be
well clear of the Peak district by the time I got into the Macclesfield - Buxton
- Matlock groove. It's a route well worth exploring if you want to learn
something about your riding and the bike you do it on. Combined with stretches
of both M6 and Ml and a final mad dash across Leicestershire and Rutland on the
A606, it features everything from a series of devastating uphill and down dale
hairpins, steep valley descents and climbs and finally a wide, lolloping stretch
of blacktop curling over the rolling English countryside. Now that the M62 has
drained it of heavy truckers, all you have to contend with are other loons who
think it's a great way to go home.
At first I was baulked all the way
into Macclesfield by coaches and caravans, until things thinned out on the
twisting climb up to the brief plateau before Buxton. Arms splayed round a
bulging tank bag, I began to feel speed fever taking over easing the Suzuki into
tight uphill curves, picking it up and squirting the power on simultaneously. No
wriggles or twitches, just power and plenty of it whenever it was required.
So far I'd failed to miss a cog in the positive, if slightly clunky, box and the
brakes were holding up under a fair amount of punishment. Even my hind quarters
weren't protesting: this is a road which demands total concentration or it's
splat into some picturesque stone wall or a long echoing scream down into a
charming roadside chasm. Heading down into hairpin after hairpin with precious
little engine braking had me grasping the brake lever yet more fervently as I
gave in to the tempo of a ride that was rapidly getting out of hand. Under the
hypnotic effects of swinging rhythmically through bend after bend I kept on
wanting to do it faster and faster and faster still. The brake pedal sagged
lower and lower and the disc seemed to require more and more pressure. I'd have
given all the digital gear indicators in Hammamatsu for another.
Source Bike Magazine 1974
==Specifications==
{|  class="wikitable"
|-
!Make Model
|Suzuki GT550K
|-
!Year
|1974 - 75
|-
!Engine Type
|Two stroke, transverse three cylinder
|-
!Displacement
|543 cc / 33.1 cu in
|-
!Bore X Stroke
|61 x 62 mm
|-
!Compression
|6.8:1
|-
!Induction
|3 x 28mm Mikuni carburetors
|-
!Ignition
|Battery/coil with contact breakers
|-
!Ibattery
|12V, 11Ah
|-
!Starting
|Electric and kick
|-
!Max Power
|40 kW / 53 hp @ 7500 rpm
|-
!Max Torque
|53 Nm / 5.4 kgf-m / 38.8 ft-lb @ 6000 rpm
|-
!Frame
|Welded mild steel tubing
|-
!Transmission
|5 Speed, constant mesh
|-
!Final Drive
|Chain, endless 530
|-
!Front Suspension
|Telehydraulic fork
|-
!Rear Suspension
|Dual shocks swinging fork preload adjustable
|-
!Front Brakes
|Drum
|-
!Rear Brakes
|Drum
|-
!Front Tire
|3.25-19
|-
!Rear Tire
|4.00-18
|-
!Dimensions
|Length: 2195 mm / 86.4 in Width: 815 mm / 32.1 in Height: 1160 mm / 45.7 in
|-
!Wheelbase
|1465 mm / 57.7 in
|-
!Ground Clearance
|145 mm / 5.7 in
|-
!Dry Weight
|200 kg / 441 lbs
|-
!Fuel Capacity
|12.5 Liters / 3.3 US gal / 2.7 Imp gal
|}


{{Suzuki}}


[[Category:Suzuki GT series|Suzuki GT series]]
[[Category:Suzuki motorcycles|GT550]]


==In Media==
==In Media==
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{{reflist}}
{{reflist}}


{{Suzuki}}
[[Category:Naked motorcycles]]
 
[[Category:Suzuki GT series|Suzuki GT series]]
[[Category:Suzuki motorcycles|GT550]]
[[Category:Suzuki motorcycles|GT550]]
[[Category:1970s motorcycles]]
[[Category:1970s motorcycles]]

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