“Increase is addictive,” says Matt Coulter of Sticky’s Speed Shop. “Insane energy supply and tunnel imaginative and prescient on the identical time. I rode a turbo ‘Busa and knew I needed to have a turbo bike.”
When Matt makes his thoughts up it doesn’t take issues lengthy to occur. The UK-based builder parted out an Aprilia RSV-R he was making an attempt to promote for a turbocharged Suzuki Bandit 1200, and began a protracted, costly journey.
Regardless of its laughably lame identify, the Bandit 1200 grew to become a cult bike within the UK in a method that was by no means actually replicated elsewhere. Following the 600 cc Suzuki Bandits, and smaller 250s and 400s that have been by no means formally imported, the 1200 launched within the UK in 1996 as a unadorned road bike. The half-faired model adopted later.
On the time, the nation was operating low on reasonably priced, unmolested oil-cooled GSX-R1100 engines, so drag racers and sprinters marched right down to Suzuki sellers for these low cost, unflashy muscle bikes.
Some turbocharged them immediately—they knew these motors, and what they may take, inside-out. However turbocharged bikes are hardly ever hassle-free. Matt was over the moon along with his blown Bandit… for precisely two weeks.
“Then it shat itself,” says Matt with some resignation. “The gasoline strain regulator failed, dumped gasoline into the turbo and backside finish, and it spun the crank bearings.”
The engine went to the turbo specialists Quick By Me, who rebuilt it with new cast pistons, uprated rods, and considered one of their very own billet drag blocks. “It provides improved oil move, nevertheless it will get scorching,” says Matt of the brand new block. “It’s not designed for London visitors.”
The turbo itself is a modified TD04—the sort utilized in a great deal of automobiles from Imprezas to Volvos—however this one has a flowery billet impeller. The engine breathes by way of the unique bike’s rejetted CV carbs, which apparently work nice on turbo bikes. Matt and Dave from Quick by Me made the slash-cut pipe, whereas Gary, a scorching rod fabricator native to Matt, made the uppipe. The clutch is an Orient Specific lock-up.
When you’ve seen any of Sticky’s Velocity Store efficiency customs, you’ll know he doesn’t observe the herd, or select the extra apparent crowd-pleasing model choices that some builders depend on for likes and compliments. That is the bike’s fourth look within the 12 years Matt has owned it, and the second because it was nicknamed ‘Scud.’
“I painted it listening to assist beige and thought it appeared just like the desert camouflage of a US army Humvee,” he says. “Scud being the identify NATO gave to a kind of missile.”
Let’s decide by way of a number of the extra uncommon selections—like becoming a 200-plus-horsepower bike with these one-off Talon/Excel wheels and journey bike rubber. “These are Dunlop Mutants, however I fitted Continental TKC80s after they first got here out. The rear wouldn’t final greater than 100 miles.”
That didn’t cease Matt from taking the Bandit on a monitor day at Manufacturers Hatch. “It was raining and it will wheelspin within the 4 gears I’d dare use. I used to be simply getting the hold of it when one of many oil traces got here off…”
Then there was the time a pipe got here off the turbo actuator and turbo increase went from 8 psi to 40, “The bike was spinning and wheelieing on the identical time, then it span the rear tyre on the rim and ripped the valve out of the tube.” Tubed tires on a turbo bike? Discuss residing dangerously.
The tail unit is from a Triumph Road Triple—there’s nothing mistaken with that, however Matt had the seat pad coated in ‘controversial’ brown leather-based. “The old-school efficiency bike lot hate brown seats as a result of they hate hipsters,” he says, taking the chance to wind them up.
The latest modifications embrace a full suite of Hel Efficiency brakes and a Steelheart Engineering billet swingarm. “The swingarm is the primary one Steelheart has produced from billet and so they did it in two weeks for me as a giant favor,” says Matt. A Nitron mono-shock gives rear damping, whereas GSX-R1000K4 forks droop the entrance.
Matt has collaborated with English artist and illustrator Ryan Roadkill a variety of occasions, so when Matt needed some new graphics for the inaugural Worship Moto Present he gave Ryan a name. “The design was impressed by the Scud identify, which is synonymous with the Gulf Warfare to me,” says Ryan, “The band of yellow across the entrance mudguard is suggestive of the purple or yellow band across the missile warhead the Scud launchers carried, whereas the teal inexperienced is a nod to Soviet-era automobile cockpits.”
“I replicated a desert camo sample for the principle physique of the design, however Matt had the cool concept of retaining the colour however making it a digicam as an alternative. The tear-through is taken from the identical shapes I used on the Icon Motosports banner on the present.”
The graphics have been made and laid on by Matt’s graphics agency, Picture Worx. Scud is ready for an additional spherical of tweaks earlier than being unleashed on the twin carriageways of Essex once more. If there’s one factor Matt has realized over 12 years of turbo bike possession, it’s “Going quick is a sluggish course of.”
Sticky’s Speed Shop Instagram | Photos by Thomas Kettlety
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