OK, the "easy" mods are done. Now what?

[rcoville]

Hi all: Since I bought my GS last fall, I have done a bunch of small and easy things to keep this bike running and looking as good as I can (with my limited experience). Thanks to a bunch of help from this forum's members, I have been able to clean up the wiring to and from the R/R unit, and replaced the original with a SH538-7. I have also swapped out the old-style battery with a maintenance-free AGM, and hard-wired the battery indicator light on the way by to get rid of the "idiot" light. I also did the coil relay mod recently. Plugs are new Iridiums, and the air filter is K&N (as is the oil filter). With that all behind me, are there other fairly straight-forward mods / tweaks, etc. that can be done fairly easily that will help boost reliability, performance and the like? Thanks.

[steve murdoch]

Looking at the pic of your bike i am assuming you do a bit of travelling.
With the added weight of gear i would be looking at some minor suspension upgrades.[actually extra gear or not].

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=150064&highlight=gs1100+progressive

[posplayr]

To really give this thread some interest Rcoville should just give us a budget and let us spend it for him .


So how much $500, $1000, $2000 .........

[Guest]

Do your brakes . New bits where possible/necessary . Money well spent .

Cheers , Simon .

[rcoville]

The brakes are all new (as in pads) and the rotors are well within spec. However, brake lines are not. Is that an area that could use attention?

[taswegian]

You could choose to fit braided lines which will improve your braking.... If you dont want to fit the braided lines the least I would do is to flush new fluid thru the system and bleed them up...

[TooManyToys]

Braided lines would be my first choice for you.

[Flaggo60]

+1 on the braided steel lines. The best dollars you'll ever spend on that bike-one finger braking if called for.

[Steve]

I did not see any metion of valve adjustment.

I will take this opportunity to invite you to read the last part of my sig, then take action as you see fit.

.

[TheCafeKid]

I did not see any metion of valve adjustment.

I will take this opportunity to invite you to read the last part of my sig, then take action as you see fit.

.

Sorry steve, he's got an 1100ES. The spread sheet will do him little good ;p

Braided lines are a must with all that extra...uhm...weight you've added to that speed machine. I'd also suggest high volume oil pump gears as a minimum investment in a reliable top end if you run that thing in the higher revs much (which you should, that's where that bike likes to live). I assume you've taken care of the jetting with the KN drop in filter? Idealy you'd want a bump in the jetting dept (they really needed it either way but the high flow filter will cause a bigger need, might pick up a stage one dynojet kit). A valve check is also a good idea as steve mentioned.

[Steve]

Sorry steve, he's got an 1100ES. The spread sheet will do him little good ;p

OK, I missed that part.

I guess the action that would be appropriate would be to ignore the invite to get the spreadsheet,
but he should still check his valve adjustment.

.

[rcoville]

I did the valve check when I replaced the valve cover gasket about 6 weeks ago. (That's when the Iridium plugs went in).

However, I made no changes on the jets when I added the K&N. Good idea on the Dyna-jet suggestion. K&N says no changes are required, but is that just the sales department talking?

The braided lines sounds like a good idea as well. I may need to think on that, 'cause if I'm buying new lines anyway, maybe a new set of handlebars to increase pull-back might be in order at the same time. That will mean other changes as well, I know, so maybe that's an off-season keep-me-out-of-the-pool-hall project.

[Nessism]

Shimming the carb needles improves driveability on most GS's. Another cheap but very effective mod is some Progressive fork springs, or at least cut a few inches out of the stockers and fabricate some new spacers.

[posplayr]

So NOW you say it has to be cheap

OK here you go: adds 10 hp and you will never go back

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=135697

[rcoville]

So NOW you say it has to be cheap

OK here you go: adds 10 hp and you will never go back

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum...d.php?t=135697

Outstanding, Posplayr! However, It took me closer to 15 minutes to do this. I had trouble finding my box of plumbing odds 'n sods. Thanks.

Also, I'm in process of ordering up the SS braided brake lines. I agree that is one up-grade that is essential. These are old lines on this bike.