Buying used: Suzuki GSF1200 Bandit

This friends, is a real muscle-bike. It's the legendary oil/air cooled 1157cc, DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder engine that started life as the original and baddest 1052cc GSX-R1100. Besides being bored and lovingly fitted with bigger valves, the engine has been slotted into a short, cheap and effective steel tube frame, fitted with a decent set of brakes, a small but worthy fairing and wheels that accept sticky rubber. As a second-hand buy for the intelligent and discerning hooligan, the Bandit 12 is an absolute bargain.

Compared to the GSX-R, the GSF Bandit has been heavily restricted, but the good news is that Suzuki, in its infinite and blessed wisdom, put all the restrictive garbage into the exhaust system. This means for a few bucks, an hour or two with the spanners and a quick trip to the crusher with the old exhaust, you get the kind of motorcycle your mother always warned you about.

The original T version of the Bandit arrived on these shores in 1996 - 10 years after the GSX-R1100 - and stayed unchanged through the V, X and Y models until the launch of the K1, K2 and the K3. All of which featured one of the ugliest pieces of plastic to ever get hung on the front of a motorcycle anywhere. So there you have it, with the exception of an ABS version that appeared in 1997, some subtle colour changes and the hideous fairings, the Bandit is, and always has been, an absolute pearl.

On the road

This is a great road bike. The Bandit starts well hot or cold and, with slightly lower gears than its sporting forebears, there's loads of low speed punch from the moment the clutch escapes the reach of your fingers. Featuring softer cams, the Bandit can be ridden in the lower registers easily and makes for deceptively quiet but brisk progress. Noise in standard form is negligible from either the exhaust or the induction. Even with an after market can alone the Bandit is commendably quiet thanks to some of the baffling being in the actual collector box.

But pootling along is a waste of a good Bandit, this is a bike that loves to hurl you at the horizon on a big fat wave of midrange torque. That's not to say that the Bandit can't cope with the twisty stuff because it can, especially if you're prepared to spend a little on the suspension. More on this later. As standard it's true you're not going to catch a good rider on a good sportsbike, but as finding both together at the same time is as likely as finding Saddam's WMD, the Bandit is good enough for most. Some people reckon the front-end is no good, claiming the steering is slow and soggy, frankly I don't agree and we'll come to the reasons why later.

Where the Bandit scores well is in the comfort and useability stakes. Once again a lot of riders whinge about the seat, while others complain of excessive vibration. The seat admittedly isn't the sort of place you'd want to spend a four-hour stretch on, but in truth it's bearable. As for vibration, okay, there is a bit, but once again it's bearable. Especially if you have a cruise control fitted so you can shake your throttle hand back to life from time to time. Overall the Bandit has an excellent riding position well suited to large and small riders alike, while the 19 litre tank and 16km/l thirst means you'll be having a stretch every 240 kms or so. For those that carry pillions, my pillion guinea pigs reckon that the footrests are well positioned and the standard grab rail easy to find and use.

In the workshop

The Bandit is probably one of the most reliable and simplest of all the Japanese motorcycles ever built to run and work on. Servicing can be performed by a home mechanic and is cheap and easy. Everything is easy to get to and the screw and locknut tappet adjusters, which should be checked every 12000kms can be set by anyone with a set of feeler gauges and half a brain. That ease of access also ensures that getting the job done by a professional is pretty cheap. Expect to pay about $150 for a minor service and about $250 for a major, assuming there are no unexpected horrors or high cost replacements like tyres or discs.

What goes wrong?

Nothing really. The Bandit 12 is capable of withstanding staggeringly high levels of abuse and neglect without showing any signs of stress. There are reports of the odd regulator/rectifier causing charging problems but in general a Bandit 12 is a testimony to rock solid engineering principles.

What to look for

With a bike so inherently reliable as the Bandit, it's the consumables and crash-damage that need checking before handing over the wedge. Here's a universal truth. Anyone with a red blood cell somewhere in their body will have tried to elevate either the front or rear wheel of a Bandit at some point. If the person doing the selling is dressed in white, has a shiny ring around his or her head and sports a decent set of wings, then it's possible he or she has resisted the temptation, but in the mean time check for rough steering head bearings and blown fork seals. These items aren't usually the only items to get a hard time by the mono-inept and throttle-insensitive. Check the drive chain and sprockets for wear and tight spots. Check the brakes and make sure that both pads and discs are in good nick.

When it come to crashing, the Bandit doesn't do too bad although things like the engine cover on the left hand end of the crankshaft will break if dropped hard enough. A common bodge-up is to fill, smooth and paint over the damage. Don't be fooled. Being tubular steel, if the chassis cops a hiding it's easy enough to get straightened and all the other bits are readily available through the wreckers who advertise in these pages.

As with any machine, check it over thoroughly and look at things like the throttle and footrest rubbers to see if the amount of wear tallies up with the numbers on the odometer.

Modifications

This is the original blank canvas. It's my suggestion that more things have been done to the Bandit than any other Japanese motorcycle. Many people go for horsepower for no other reason than the Bandit is so strong. And if that's your aim then the sky's the limit. Over in the US there are turbochargers available, which I have to say makes a lot of sense. Or you can go down the blueprint road or indeed the big-bore kit road, which ends up at the same place. And that would be Horsepower City - right next to Skintville. Mind you big-bore kits can have their problems, as boring out the standard liners too far results in distortion and even as with the barrel shown in the picture the liner cracking all the way round.

However the simplest, safest and cheapest way to extract more power from the Bandit is with a full exhaust system from someone like Hindle or Akraprovic. Back in 1996 another magazine got a staggering 22PS extra at the back wheel simply with a full Hindle system. Add a jet kit, a better air filter and a set of early GSX-R camshafts and suddenly you're looking at 130PS with a huge increase in torque as well. As if that isn't enough, with the standard system thrown in the crusher the Bandit now weighs a substantial 10kg less.

Horsepower is one thing, but it's nice if you can use it. Of course you can spend Giga-zillions on top shelf suspension but the cheapo way is to fit a fully adjustable rear shock from an earlier GSX-R750. A side benefit is that the 750 unit is 10 millimetres longer than the standard item and this simply transforms the steering beyond belief. Naturally any 750 unit you find is going to be a bit tired so a freshen-up and set -up from a suspension expert is mandatory if you actually want the thing to work.

Up at the pointy end, as I said earlier some people reckon the front is weak, being mushy, vague and unhelpful in the task of scuttling through bends. Bollocks I say! My own experience is that once again a freshen-up and a change of oil to a heavier grade is a workable compromise and cheap into the bargain.

With all the go it will of course be necessary to slow down at some point. The brakes on the Bandit are just fine. If you're going to do anything a set of braided lines helps feedback and will outlast the old rubber jobbies.

The Bandit is the original factory streetfighter, so a set of motocross handlebars look the goods as will a pair of twin chrome headlights, but the early fairing worked quite well and doesn't look too bad either so for mine it'd stay. 

Which one?

Earlier the better I reckon cos the later ones looked like cat sick. If you're going to have a Bandit for the right reasons, then get a proper one. If you need the fairing you should get a Diversion - you really should.

Summing up

In the future the Bandit will be a collector's item. If you get asked "did you ever ride a Suzuki Bandit?" you should be able to say yes.

AMT USED BUY RATING: Four stars.

ENGINE:
Type: Four-stroke, liquid-cooled, DOHC, 16-valve, in-line four-cylinder;
Bore x stroke: 79 x 59 mm;
Displacement: 1157cc;
Carburetion: Four x 36mm Slingshot Mikuni carbs.

TRANSMISSION:
Type: Five speed, constant mesh;
Final drive: Chain.

CHASSIS AND RUNNING GEAR:
Frame type: Steel perimeter,
Front suspension: Conventional 43mm Showa - adjustable for preload only;
Rear suspension: Showa monoshock with rising rate linkage adjustable for preload and rebound.

DIMENSIONS AND CAPACITIES:
Dry weight: (claimed) 214kg;
Seat height: (claimed) 835mm;
Fuel capacity: 19 litres.

PERFORMANCE:
Max power: (claimed) 96.5PS at 8500 rpm;
Max torque: (claimed) 9.8kg-m at 4000rpm.