During the next four years, a lot happened in my life. I left the Army, moved to San Antonio, and eventually wound up in Northern California. I never forgot about my old "Suzi", but just didn't have the time nor the secure space to store and work on her. I started thinking HARD about getting the bike back under my wing while in California. I finally had the room to put all of my tools, and a decent place to put my bike.

I had a couple of weeks off on August 2001, so I decided to drive back to Colorado and pick her up. I knew that I didn't have the money or desire to redo the race-built motor at that time, but I did plan ahead and picked up a clean spare head and some other internals from Steeles Cycle Salvage in Englewood, CO. I'll finish the motor one of these days.

The original race motor, in limbo.

After much thought I decided against making a "7/11" bike (750 frame, 1100 motor) on advice from a friend and mechanic of mine. He did the conversion, but said that it really affected handling and was really too much torque and power for a frame that was not reinforced. I opted searching for an old junkyard "crate" motor to drop in the frame.

I used the internet after failing to find a decent used motor around here (forget about it, way too expensive). I hooked up with Mike Kertscher at MSK Racing in Wisconsin when looking for the 1100 motor. He said he might be able to hook me up with a 750. I eventually got the call, and he hooked me up with a 1985 750 crate motor from Canada (GSXRs were shipped everywhere but the US in 1985, they came here in 1986) with 12K miles on the clock, allegedly.