...fingers drum on the desktop....

...the phone sits silently, smirking....

Paul said he'd call me Friday with the verdict on the cylinder head for the GS. Now it's Monday, and I haven't heard anything. Anything.

I suppose I ought to introduce this project properly before I go talking about it. My "other" ride (in addition to my daily driver Suzuki V-strom 650) is a 1982 Suzuki GS1100E. The 1100 was once the fastest production motorcycle in existence, and a pretty comfortable mile-eater too. It has a top speed of 141 mph (professional driver on a closed course) and I have personally put over twelve hours on the saddle at a go.

The GS has been showing some age. She began to leak oil in copious quantities last fall, and a blip to 7000 at idle would produce a nice plume of smoke. Rings, valves, lord knows what else. With over 80,xxx miles on her, last January I decided it was time.

It was not perhaps the most cost efficient decision, and sure as hell not the most time-efficient decision, but I determined to rebuild her rather than junk and replace the motor. I do not have the tools and certainly not the expertise to do much more than disassemble major parts like carbs, head, jugs and crank and then give them to someone else to finish.

So right now "Suzi" sits in pieces in someone else's garage while I run around trying to find SOMEONE competent who has the time and is comfortable with refreshing a 16v Jap motorcycle head.

Evidently such a machinist is harder to come by than I expected....