Suzuki Hayabusa - Bird Of Prey

Fans of the Suzuki Hayabusa have no doubt been frustrated by our recent AMA/Prostar drag bike profiles, which so far have focused on newer, fresher machinery like Rickey Gadson's Kawasaki ZX-14 Super Street racer ("Big Guns," page 60, SSB June 2006) and Kent Stotz's turbocharged Honda CBR1000RR Pro Street machine ("Not-Quite-So-Big Red," page 66, SSB Sept. 2006). Our bias toward these other bikes is just another example of the old-news 'Busa being overshadowed by this year's new hotness, right?

Forget magazines for a moment, though; the one place where the top dog Hayabusa hasn't been overlooked is the one place that really matters-on the drag strip. While the headlines have been hogged by the King Kong-strong ZX-14 and Stotz's over-achieving liter bike, it's been a different story at the track. The top spot on the podium, more often than not, has been held down by a Hayabusa, specifically the 'Busas built by Suzuki super-tuner Barry Henson at Velocity Racing. Proof: This story went to press immediately following the Norwalk round of the AMA/Prostar championship, where Henson's 'Busas ruled the roost and won both the Super Street and Pro Street racing categories. Despite fierce new competition in 2006, the well-developed Hayabusa is proving to be anything but washed up.

With the release this year of the Kawasaki ZX-14, which appears on paper to be the biggest threat to the 'Busa's drag race dominance since the big Suzuki first appeared in 1999, we all knew this year would see a battle of the titans on the showroom floor and at the racetrack both. And at the beginning of the year it looked like Kawasaki had the upper hand. Kawasaki sent three different ZX-14s to the opening round of the 2006 AMA/Prostar series in Valdosta, Georgia (a non-points exhibition race), while Suzuki didn't even bother preparing a Hayabusa to run in the newly created and high-profile Super Street class. When that first weekend wound down, Kawasaki left Valdosta with Rickey Gadson taking the win in Super Street on his Coby Adams-prepped ZX-14 and setting the class record at 8.51 seconds and 175.09 mph. American Suzuki race department officials were present at that first event in Valdosta, and they didn't take the Kawasaki threat lightly. Suzuki turned to Barry Henson of Velocity Racing and asked him to put together a new Super Street race bike in only four weeks and have it ready to compete at the next round.

Henson and his Velocity crew know fast 'Busas-Velocity-built (and often, Henson-ridden) Hayabusas have pretty much owned the premier Pro Street (formerly Streetbike Shootout) class for years now, so building a competitive Super Street racer to take on Gadson's ZX-14 wouldn't be much of a stretch. That's not to say that it would be easy, exactly-the Super Street class has a different rule structure than the Pro Street class and its own unique challenges to going fast. The idea behind Super Street is to give racers (and fans) another streetbike-based racing class that wasn't as expensive as Pro Street, where a competitive bike can cost as much as $60,000. The Super Street class was designed to allow real streetbikes (nitrous and turbo both) to compete head-to-head, with a more restrictive state of tune to be easier on the bike owner's credit cards. To help control costs, turbocharged Super Street bikes are limited to a 54mm inlet diameter (vs. 62.5mm in Pro Street), and they are not allowed to use multistage boost controllers. For boost control, they are limited to just two stages (with only one tied to spring pressure). Also, they are not allowed to use water injection or intercooling of the intake charge. Clutches are also slightly different in this class, with no multistage lock-ups allowed. Instead these bikes use just a two-stage lock-up, which forces the rider to carefully launch the 64-inch-wheelbase bikes to prevent wheelies.

Always the racer, Henson would not reveal the boost settings used for the Super Street application, but reliable sources peg it at around 5-7psi at launch and 15psi in the second stage. Henson did say that they use a fully prepped turbo engine as a base in order to make as much power as possible at low boost. That means a full turbo-ported head from Ward Performance, JE-forged pistons, Falicon knife-edged rods, Ward Performance cams and double-sprung valves, and a rpm locker clutch on top of an OEM clutch basket.