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/904678
YAMAHA SCR950 SUPER HOOLIGAN RACER P66 Feature shifter. It's really simple—if you break it, you just need another WR450 shifter." Jeff then went about ditch- ing the belt drive and installing a conventional chain setup, but ran into an issue with the rear wheel, as the now 19-incher (standard is 17 inches) would foul up against the swingarm. "The swingarm has a cross- brace in it," Jeff says. "We just took an inch out of it to clear the 19-inch tire. The wheel clears if you run the chain way back, but I wanted to give the option of making it shorter." Next up was sorting the wheels by lacing the 19-inch Sun rims to the standard hubs and mating them to Dunlop DT3 130/80-19 and 140/90-19 front and rear tires. "Sun Rims are super light," Jeff says. "Everybody uses them because they're about the light- est thing you can stick on a bike like this." The motor has been left stock save for a Power Commander 5 mated to a highflow K&N air filter and a super-hot looking Two Brothers exhaust, with some dyno work. That gave us a healthy 55 horsepower at the tire and 60 lb-ft of torque. "We ran setting from Power Commander, and it was so close it was almost pointless to try to optimize it any further," Jeff says. "It worked so well right out of the box that we messed around with it for another hour and only got about a quarter of a horsepower. We just add a little bit of fuel on the bottom of the rev range so that it doesn't pop and sputter. It is a little cleaner. We always do that. It's hard with a wide-open pipe like the Two Brothers item if it gets too much air in there." All up this build took about 40 hours from beginning to end, which includes all the handmade parts. "It took two guys the better part of three days to do it all," Jeff says. "That's probably a little light on the hours considering we had to fabricate the back end. Now that I have a mold, if I did another SCR it would be faster." HEADING TO BOLSA CHICA Getting to know the SCR at speed was an interesting prospect as regardless of the stuff stripped from the produc- tion bike, the SCR is still a big, heavy bike. The 950 engine is the main culprit here—that mas- sive V-twin takes up a lot of real estate and govers how you need to ride the bike. In other words, grab it by the scruff and let it know who's boss, before it does likewise to you. Having already ridden Ro- land's Indian, I had a rough idea of how to handle the SCR and after a shakedown at Milestone I was happy to report the SCR Hooligan handled rather well for its size. We kept the suspension stock save for some heavier fork oil and ratcheting the rear preload up to the max, but all in all I was happy with how the big girl behaved as we loaded up for Bolsa Chica that afternoon for the first running of the Moto Beach Classic by Roland Sands Design. The tiny little track on the shores of Bolsa Chica State Beach could almost fit into the Cycle News office. At 20 seconds for one lap, it's one of the most intense little tracks I've ever ridden but the SCR felt immediately comfortable on the Nico the Frenchie made sure the steering head bearings were in tip top shape.