Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128313
The third-generation Yamaha R1 is a thrilling beast... By PAUL CARRUTHERS PHOTOS BY TOM RILES rickey. Damn. Damn. Crickey. While my tongue was torn be tween two bad ver sions of the same language, my chest co uldn't have spo ken if it were able to . When the Yamaha RI's tach hit the magic 80D0-rpm mark on my first warm -up lap around Eastern Creek, it took my breath away. And like a 7-year-old on his first roller coaster ride, I wanted t o sc ream and re ach out fo r Mommy's hand . But since the only other hand in close proximity was a little busy on the ot her side of the handlebar, I had little choice but to merge the Aussie and Yank slang together, utter the universa l F-bomb in my helmet, and roll the thrott le off. Yes, mate, my brain and th e speed of the RI definite ly had some catching up to do. Since harbor cruises, bridge walks and Aussie beer don't nece ssarily get your mind pre pared for the speed of a motorcycle like the RI on a racetrack, the morn ing warnnup behind former Dutch road racer Jeffrey de Vries at Eastern Creek was naturally a bit intense. Not that de Vries didn't do a good job of bringingus to speed slowly, but let' s just say that the bus ride in Sydney traffic didn't exactly get the blood flowing. The RI, however, took care of that . In a hurry. Looking back at my notelboo k, my initial impression of the RI jumps off the page: "A bit intimidating." That was followed by "bad vibration through the handlebars ." The two were related. Being a "bit intimidated," my hands were gripping the bars like two monkeys fighting over the last banana. Once I relaxed, remembered how to ride, and loosened my grip, everything came together. In my speed-induced confusion, I'd simply written the wrong word . It was supposed to be "invigorating." Yeah, that's it - invigorating. Ever since the first Yamaha RI was introduced in 1998, it's been a wildly popular open -class sportbike with a devoted, almost cultlike following. That following continued to grow with further improve ments to the RI coming down the pipe in 2000. And in 2002, the RI's carbs were replaced with a fuel-injection system . Well, for 2004, many an enthusiast's favorite sportbike just got better. Much bet ter. With the level of competition raised by bikes like the GSX-RIOOO, the CBRIOOORR and the ZX-I OR, Yamaha knew that going back to the parts bin wasn't going to be enough for this one . Thus what Yamaha introd uced to members of the media at its worldwide press introduction in Australia is truly an all-new RI that it hopes meets its slogan of "Excitement Intensified." With the R1 always being a popular streetbike, Yamaha's aim with the '04 model was to give it more of an edge ... the company wanted to make it more "t rack focused ." You can almost hear the collec- C www.cyclenews.com tive "ame n" fro m t he likes of Jamie Hacking, Damon Buckmaste r, Aaro n Gobe rt and Jason DiSalvo... Goingstraight to the heart of the matter, a new 99& c engine was designed using absolutely zero cross over parts, accor ding to Yamaha. The aim was to make it not only more powerful, but narrower and strong er. To get there, Yamaha came up with a new cylinder head des ign that features a narrower included-valve angle (and additional water jackets) . Those five valves per cylinder are also shorter in length and have larger diameter faces (a .Smm increase in diamet er), and the compression ratio has been bumped from I 1.8: I to 12.4: I, requi ring the use of at least 9 I-o ctane fuel. The pistons are lighter (3 percent), and th e newly designed crank is another 16 pe rcent lighte r and is shorter from end to end (by 23.7mm). The cylinders are now a two -piece design, which Yamaha claims doesn't hurt the bikes rigidity because of the extra stiffness that's been added to the chassis (more on that later). With th e charging system moved rea rward, the crankcases are 56mm narrower. The clutch has also lost we ight, even t hough a friction plate has bee n added to bring the total up to nine from the eight found in last year's R I. What resulted was an RI that now revs to 13,7S0 (up from 11 ,750 rpm ) while put ting out a whopping 28 more horsepower than last year, with Yamaha claimingan output of 180 horsepower (at 12,Soo rpm at the crankshaft) for the '04 R I. Helping raise the horsepower is the fact that the RI now gets ram-air induction - finally! With the increase in horsepower, Yamaha also wanted the RI to get a bit better in the throttle response department. To accomplish this, the RI gets new long-nose injectors that are now closer to the throttle bodies. The throttle bodies themselves are brand new and feature two paired units instead of four individual units. Gone are the vacuum diaphragm secondary slides, which are replaced by new servo operated secondaries. They also feature twin throttle-position sensors, one for the primary butterflies and one for the secondaries . Additionally the ECU has also been , upgraded to a 32-bit system , and it's in a package that's also lighter. The transmission is all new for 2004. The close ratio design features not only completely new internal ratios, but the final-drive ratio has been changed as well.The previous generation RI transmissionswere never the smoothest shifting units, but Yamaha has gone to great lengths to improve the shift action. The transmissionnow uses a doublerow countershaft bearing, in addition to an oil-pressurized upper shift fork shaft. The result is a smoother-shifting tranny both on the street and on the track. C YCLE N EWS • MARCH 3, 2004 13