MARTEK GSXR1100 TURBO

 

In '96/'97 Martek built two frames based on a 750W to take the oil cooled 1100 motor. Guy Martin has one, this is the other. If you have ever tried to do this conversion you will appreciate the difficulty involved. The headstock has been relocated and top rails braced, the front frame rails moved to clear the headers, the back end altered completely to take the (2" extended) Ducati 916 swinging arm with built in air tank and adjustable ride height, all new engine mounts made and then all the little cut outs and brackets for the turbo. The seat subframe is such a work of art its a shame to put a seat on it... you can sit and look at the thing all day.

 The original bike was apparently seen by Prodigy fun boy Keith Flint who decided he wanted one building with all the best stuff, no expense spared, and it wasn't !

The front and rear suspension are White Power (back then you could still call it that), with Marteks' own billet yokes, brakes are Spondon discs with Brembo calipers, front wheel is GSXR1100 deseamed and rear is Ducati. Ignition is Dyna with 2000 adjustable module which sits at the front under a neat little cut out in the tank so its easy to get at. The tank is also plated underneath and has the Pingel tap relocated right at the rear.The motor was a real low mileage 1127 with JE 80mm pistons (EFE) and flowed head carefully put together by Roger Upperton. The Rayjay turbo set up is the original Mr Turbo job and left Grimsby with an S&S carb, it supposedly made around 220 rwhp.

 When KF parted with his dosh (iv'e heard £26k) the bike was red, black and white with a neat little KLE headlight fairing and one off very small seat unit. He hooned about on it a bit then (allegedly) took the bike to Jack Frost at Holeshot for more work, I have no details of this as I have been unable to get in touch (he ignores my emails), however it does now have a huge Keihin Flatslide in place of the S&S. He then sold it to a friend who sat it in his living room and polished it for 6 years. The friend then sold it to Leigh who I bought it from, he got tired of looking at it, took it to get MOT'd then crashed it on the way home. With a load of metal in his arm as a result the bike had to move on which is where I came in.

 Nothing major was damaged, mainly tank/seat/fairing/lights/bars/levers/foot pegs/oil cooler, the usual stuff that gets trashed in a bike crash. The main saviour was a 2lb Nitrous bottle which was fastened to the right side front of the frame, the bike had gone down on that side and the bottle acted as a big crash bung, without it the motor would have taken a big hit.

 The seat i fitted is off a TZ125 race bike, anything bigger looks immense as the bike is so short (3" shorter than a stock GSXR11). It looked OK but was made of tissue paper so needed a fair bit of work to make it suitable. I'm still not sure about it but until something better comes along it will do the job. Ive added a few little trinkets along the way too like the engine cases, carbon guards and KC headlight.

 There is no point giving a full detailed spec of everything, you can see it all in the photos, the thing is loud, thirsty and proper barmy, not for touring.

 If you fancy it bring me near to £6,000 (part exchange welcome) and you can be the next to dodge death or polish it in the living room, if not it can stay here and look hard.