Suzuki have come out swinging for 2006 in their quest for a bigger slice of the huge 600cc road bike market with an all new GSX-R600 that is leaps ahead of its predecessor.

Suzuki engineers left no bolt untouched in their efforts to make their latest and greatest middleweight the best it could be, and those changes have firmly put the GSX-R back in the hunt as a top contender in the class. After spending time at Phillip Island with many of those engineers that treat this latest product as their own baby I was delighted to see how passionate they were about their offspring.  And while engineers from any country can largely be a very strange lot the Suzuki boffins from Japan were very funny dudes indeed and there was never too much time between laughs while in their company.

The laughs obviously come easy to them, as times are good for Suzuki. Over 67,000 GSX-Rs rolled out of the Hamamatsu factory last year, which has taken the total number of GSX-R sales close to 700,000! The current GSX-R1000 model has repeatedly been crowned top dog in the litre bike wars since its inception. While the litre machine has only seen minor revisions for the new model year, the company has produced an all new Supersport contender in an effort to clinch the top dog moniker in that category also.

While the engine is new, it does retain the same 67 x 42.5 bore and stroke dimensions as before.  Interestingly this is identical to Honda's CBR600RR and Yamaha’s latest YZF-R6. Yamaha did have a different bore and stroke previously but have gone with the consensus for their all new 2006 model.  Kawasaki's ZX-6RR also utilises those exact dimensions which means that all four Japanese middleweights produce their 599.4cc in exactly the same way.  Spooky huh? 

Suzuki has changed the layout of the crank and transmission shafts, however, and as a result have managed to shorten the overall length of the engine by a significant 54mm.  Cylinder pitch has been reduced from 80mm to 76mm, which makes the powerplant 16mm narrower overall. Along with a 20mm reduction in height this makes for one very compact package.

Interestingly, the inertia of the forged steel crankshaft is up by 16% in the quest for better traction characteristics at the limits of performance.

But how does it work?

Click through to page two to find out...