Bathurst, Australia Vintage Rally

[wayne]

Probably the biggest gathering of RE5's in Australia, ever.

Bathurst vintage rally. 100 + bikes of all makes and years but I found it hard to see past the 5 RE5's.

Great fun gorging on all things RE5.

Wayne

Note the exclusions signs, bit hard to see but that's a piston and valve in the circle:



What the Polo shirts were made for:

Left to right- That bloke, Steve Ashkenazi, Steve Thompson, John Steain, Wayne Waddington



For those who may have missed an earlier thread:





After 30 years in the solitary wilderness of RE5 ownership, I've died and gone to heaven:

[RE5Gary]

That is absolutely fantastic!!! You guys organized an excellent gathering of RE5's that sure represent the RE5 at its best!! Thanks for posting your pictures.

[wayne]

And in amongst that lot, Steve Ashkenazi is an ex - Suzuki dealer going right back to the early seventies.

I think that this may be a world first. While I find Joe Public loves the RE5, the one guy not gathering around for a look is the ex dealer who still hates them.

And not only does he now own one, he loves it. Can't believe the bad wrap that they got. Impressed with its performance and particularly with its handling and he knows how to pedal, being an ex racer and race suspension specialist.

(John Steain also an ex racer and once Suzuki salesman who sold the first RE in NSW- amongst other things, Steain and Ashkenazi teamed with Warren Willing on a Suzuki in the Australian Castrol 6 hour races).

Wayne

[kettle738]

Hi Wayne, good to see five RE5s together actually being used, a pretty rare occurrence in any country I would guess.

I'm interested to know if you compared bikes; did they all have similar performance, was a single bike outstanding in any way, and if so, why?....did they all have the infamous transmission grumble etc or was one silky smooth under all conditions?

To be able to compare so many RE5s side by side like that is so rare, I just wondered if you discovered anything from it.

Mick...........kettle738

[suzukiclub]

Nice to see Wayne.most we have (SOC) had at a meet was 3...i like the polo shirts too

[redbug2]

I see that one of the red bikes has the 76 gauge package. What happened? Did he have a 76 and paint it red or did he have to replace the original with the 76 gauge package?

All of those bikes look great. I hope I can get my blue one looking as good.

[wayne]

Apr 27, 2011 7:08:33 GMT -5 redbug2 said:

I see that one of the red bikes has the 76 gauge package. What happened? Did he have a 76 and paint it red or did he have to replace the original with the 76 gauge package?

All of those bikes look great. I hope I can get my blue one looking as good.

The M model with A instruments is owner's choice. He reckons his bike is set up "the way the engineer's intended" ; ). The bike came with near perfect M instruments and blinkers but also had an NOS A model set and he's installed them.

Wayne

[wayne]

Mick,
To answer your question, indeed we did compare and are still mulling over the differences.

All the bikes are all within the one ballpark in power and you need to be jumping from one to the other to really tell. All the bikes are relatively low mile originals. All the bikes have the infamous grinding vibration but it does vary.

All the M models run 8° ignition timing. Three of the M’s and possibly the A have the “old” carby set up with port valve and accelerator pump working at 35°. The tour kitted M has the bulletin 9 set up with earlier activation of the pump compared to port valve. Interestingly, the three best running bikes from a carburetion setup have two on old and one on new setup so it can work either way. These three bikes also run either 90 or 87.5 jets (stock). The one near-perfect M model has a larger primary jet and old style pump/port valve timing.

One of the red M models is the most powerful. It has about 5,000 original miles. Jess set this bike up for the owner and he told us that he ranks it in the top 5 that he’s ever ridden for power and behaviour. It is impossible to fault in its power delivery and performance. I tried passing this bike going up a hill on the #2 machine (power) and barely scraped past despite the fact that he was two up compared to my solo and the fact that the owner is a big boy unlike my lightweight self. This bike is also the best handler. A bit mysterious really but it feels very solid in the front end and runs stock everything. He uses Dunlop K81’s but with an unusually wide front tyre.

The #2 machine in power is probably the A instrumented M model. It has around 16,000 miles. We could only separate this from the #3 machine by a roll-on which it won by a bike length.

However, it is not perfect in carburetion but I’d call it 95%. It will occasionally give a bit of a “burp” around the change-of-throat but otherwise, it is a really nice bike performance wise. It is the oil burner of the three using about 1 cc of sump oil per klm or around 3 to 4 times as much as the others. It is also the worst handler. Probably a combination of Ikon shocks and skinny front K81 (3.60 x 19”).

The Ikons are an excellent shock and really work over the bumps but by the nature of their long travel they exaggerate the inherent weakness in the swingarm and you can feel it flexing and twisting as the shock does it work over the bumps. Strange as this seems to have a better shock resulting in worse handling, it most certainly seems to be the case. As mentioned, we have a race suspension specialist in our group and he agrees with this analysis.

The two Ikon equipped bikes weave and wiggle the most by far but we were pushing them pretty fast over very bumpy Australian back roads which I doubt you’d be able to match for “bloody-awful” in Europe or the U.S. Unfortunately, this bike will also weave on a smooth road when pushed hard through corners.

I noticed that when I first got on it how quick the steering was compared to the bikes with rounder profile and fatter front tyres. Too quick, it gets upset in high speed cornering and you can’t simply accelerate out of it, you can feel that it is getting worse by the second. The two wigglers both have Ikons and tapered bearings, the others have stock shocks and bearings.

The #3 bike is so only by a hair’s breadth. It has 2,500 original miles. It’s a lovely bike with excellent carburetion and performance and solid handling. It has stock shocks, steering head and runs Metzeler Lasertech’s.

The #4 bike is the tour kitted M model. It is not as powerful or as torquey as the other 3 but once again, we are talking margins that are only measurable jumping from one to other. It is also the highest mileage at about 22,000 miles. It is, however, universally judged as the “sweetest” engine all-round of the lot. It is the only bike running active B points. These don't affect outright performance in any positive way but do change the "feel". It runs tapered bearings, Ikon rear shocks and while it wiggles and weaves it never gets to the point where you think it will run out of control.

I think the critical difference between this and the “worst handler” is that this bike has the fatter, rounder profile Metzeler Lasertech vs the skinny K81. I’ve always put down the wiggling to the Ikons + full tour kit but obviously the poor handling of the naked M model proved this to be not the only factors. This bike also has the harshest grinding vibration but I’ll note that they all have this.

The A model is hard to categorise as it had some nasty carby problems which prevented a good assessment. It seems quite powerful and would sit comfortably in with the #2 and #3 bike, virtually indistinguishable.

On one road two of the RE’s, the tour kitted bike and the #3 bike followed a modern blaster and a Z900. I don’t know what the other RE was doing but I was screwing the neck of my bike running mostly between 5000 and 7000 rpm to keep with the acceleration of the Z and the modern. We pushed the bikes pretty hard out of very tight corners. We all topped up before this ride and immediately after:

Z- 4.95 litres, RE solo with tour kit – 5.15 litres, RE with pillion – 5.4 litres.

So much for gas guzzling inefficient rotary engines.

Wayne

[ziggystardust]

A very interesting read Wayne, thanks for taking the time to compile it.

[kettle738]

Hi Wayne, that is really detailed and interesting information, I'm impressed that you were happy to really give your bikes the beans but not surprised that they all took it so well. I have only ever been able to compare mine with those I have previously owned; I'm up to No5 now, but haven't ridden the fifth one yet.

All of my bikes have suffered from the dreaded transmission grumble to a greater or lesser extent, none have been free of it; the current M is a lovely bike in every respect except when it feels like the transmission has been swapped with a concrete mixer.....it's dreadful at times; curing it would make a good bike great.

On the handling front I've always thought the RE5 to be head and shoulders above the GT750 for instance....which admittedly isn't saying a lot, but for their size and weight they are impressively nimble. Unfortunately the UK has world beating crap road surfaces, getting worse all the time.

Those fuel consumption comparisons are interesting and surprising, I've never checked mine, I just fill it as necessary, but with the exception of my first A model which ran on almost non existant compression and guzzled fuel at an alarming rate while giving slug like performance and an insane ten minute starting ritual, I've never though they were particularly bad and your experience backs that up.

Many thanks for taking the time and trouble to detail your findings, with enough information forthcoming, perhaps eventually we might crack the transmission problem.

Mick............kettle738

[wayne]

Mick, I agree re the handling. I have a GT750 as well. Three of the other 4 owners also have GT's (possibly all of them) and they all agree that the RE is a better handler. So did the magazines of the day, Cycle naming the RE the best handling in an eight bike test.

And one other factor, ground clearance. My GT would have been smashing its stands and pipes on some of those horrid bumpy corners, all I do on the RE is scrape my boots and even that's pretty rare.

As for the grumble, I spoke with some Mazda mechanics at a race tune shop many years ago and they told me that the grumble is rotary harmonic and nothing to do with the transmission per se. They told me that the car engines have it as well. You just don't feel it as the twin rotors damp it down a bit between them and the isolation of the engine mounts means that you feel nothing in the vehicle.

I know magazines of the day blamed it on everything. But it seems it comes with the nature of the engine. That great lump of rotor flinging itself eccentrically around the shaft develops a horrid harmonic at a certain rpm. My bike is quite bad around 4,000 rpm and the fact that some are worse than others seems to indicate other factors, such as bearing wear. However, even the brand new factory set up bikes the journo's tested in the 70's all had it.

But it would be nicer without it...............

Wayne

[jm0406]

Wayne,
Sure do like those shirts you guys had made up. Are there any left that could be pried away?

Jeff

[wayne]

May 3, 2011 18:02:51 GMT -5 jm0406 said:

Wayne,
Sure do like those shirts you guys had made up. Are there any left that could be pried away?

Jeff

Jeff, what size are you........I just put in an order yesterday but all those shirts are taken, perhaps they'll order me one more as they haven't started the embroidery as yet. Let me know ASAP, price is $45 AU plus postage which is about $19 to the US as an example.

Cheers,
Wayne

[jm0406]

Wayne,
If you can add to your order please do so on my behalf. I just looked on a size conversion chart, looks like I would be a size 44 shirt. I am 1.879 Meters tall (6'2") and 95KG (205 lbs) in weight, so I hope that a size 44 would make sense. I would like to order 2 shirts if possable. This looks to be about $68.00 American each with shipping. If this is possible, please let me know how you can recieve money from the U.S.
Thank you for your response, if I can do anything for you from here, let me know.
Jeff

[h2e Al In Aus]

Great read I wish I had known about the Bathurst Rally I would have Ridden my H2 up there ,would have been good to talk to you guys about the RE5 as I'm looking for one now to buy so if you know of any for sale I would appreciate a message, I must buy more bike mags and check out events .yours Al