Test Ride Road 2023 Suzuki GSX-8S
Next, they make the GSX-R1000 obsolete due to not enough sales, swiftly followed by an announcement that they’re building a new bike so they can get a slice of the hugely popular sub-£8000 category of bikes, and this is a very brave move. Brave because that price point is currently rammed with bikes that are simply great bikes, regardless of their price tags.
The competition that the GSX-8S faces is fierce, with the main contenders being the Yamaha MT-07, the Triumph Trident 660, KTM 790 Duke and the Kawasaki Z650, all under £8000, and all make extremely compelling cases for your hard-earned cash. So, Suzuki started with a clean sheet of paper and predictably started by opting for a parallel twin cylinder layout for the engine. It’s the easiest way to achieve a decent capacity without the cost of making a four-cylinder engine or the lack of flexibility of a single cylinder engine. It’s no coincidence that it’s the preferred choice of engine layout for all its competitors, with the exception of the Triumph which gets a three-cylinder engine.
As with its competitors, the GSX-8S gets a 270° crankshaft, which means one piston is three-quarters of a rotation behind the other which results in an uneven firing order where the second cylinder fires 270 degrees after the first, then the first fires 450 degrees later. It’s this uneven firing order that gives the layout what some might call ‘character’
