This bike has plenty of power and speed for it´s displacement, as do most 2 cycle road bikes. Very reliable. Mine was a basket case when it was adopted. Despite the fact that it had a broken primary gear, clogged carbs, plugged SRIS valves, and hadn´t been run in over four years, it still ran when it was put back together.
This and previous years have a serious design flaw involving the starter gear which engages the primary shaft with a kind of bendix arrangement. The gear will shatter without warning, causing the engine to seize, possibily at speed. The fix is to get a post 1976 clutch/starter basket (which are impossible to find, anymore,) or remove the bearing arrangements which "grab" the shaft from the back of the clutch basket, underneath the copper plate. This eliminates the electric start, but this is a small sacrifice when you consider the consequence.
The engine is a simple affair to tear down and work on, making it good for a project bike, if you find one.
As with all Suzuki triples of this era, the sore spot is the crank. If seals blow, it will be problematic to rebuild, though seals are still available (2002.) Assume three to five hundred dollars for a professional rebuild.
Great for highway driving, but probably not for long hauls.
I have owned several bikes, and I´ll tell you that this bike is addictive, and my preferred.
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