Yamaha Demo Ride

[IanDMacDonald]

Got a chance to ride the 2017 Yamaha line of street bikes. My favorite? The '17 FZ-10. If there was ever a bike to get me arrested/bike towed, it would certainly be that bike.

[3Phase]

The guy across the street from my buddy bought one of these last year, he was putting new tires on it the other day. It's a bitchin' bike and sounds totally gnarly!

[donebysunday]

The movie

this bike was made to look like the bugs from planet of the bugs, NO ? Looks like it is ready to jump on the next unsuspecting creature that crosses it's path !!!!!

[madmax-im]

Hey Ian..bitchin' ride indeed...Looks like it would get me killed..did it look like this one?

[IanDMacDonald]

Hey Ben- It was all gray. No accents. Disgusting amount of torque

[madmax-im]

Hey Ben- It was all gray. No accents. Disgusting amount of torque

LMAO..it must have been just awful... is it upright seating..cant tell...it definitely looks alien...

[Bonz]

Hey Ben- It was all gray. No accents. Disgusting amount of torque

Yeah, in a 466 lb bike that torque sure seems like a lot! The FZ10 has more torque up top (77 ft/lbs) by a healthy margin from 103cc less than the XS1100, but looking at dyno charts they have basically the same torque at 6500 rpm. I think the FZ10 has more torque (flater torque curve) below 6500 most everywhere, the XS more or less catches (steeper curve) up at 6500 RPM before the XS tails off.

When you consider 37 years difference in their age and technology, the XS1100 was pretty stout.

[DiverRay]

Yeah, the XS1100 was WAY ahead of it's time! but my 2011 C14 is 102Lb-ft at 6200RPM. But then it IS 1352cc...... AND not the same fun as the XS!

[Bonz]

I believe 102 ft/lbs is at the crankshaft rated by Kawasaki. It comes in at 88 to 90 ft/lbs consistently at the rear wheel from past magazine articles I took a look at. Now, if you're C14 has some aftermarket goodies on it with respect to exhaust and ECU mapping, you could be putting out closer to 102 ft/lbs at the wheel. That's a lot of torque by any measure!

The XS1100 was rated at 66 ft/lbs by Yamaha, and did put down around 62 ft/lb based on a dyno chart I found on this forum.

My wife's Uncle has a Gen II VMax, 200 hp as rated at the crank by Yamaha. The rear wheel sees about 175 of those according to the magazine tests.

You know this from your riding in Colorado in the past, it won't have the same go-go that you are used to feeling in the seat of the pants out here. I will venture to guess that your gas mileage for the rally riding in Colorado will be higher than what you have seen to date. There is a good bit less wind resistance and the fuel injection will compensate the fueling for the lower O2 in the air. Combined they add up to nice mpg numbers.

[IanDMacDonald]

I rode the '17 Connie on Tuesday. That FZ-10 would eat that thing for breakfast. Fire-breathin' dragon. The Connie and the FJR felt the same to me. The Connie felt a little more peppy, but just as-smooth. The power of the Connie and FJR are very linear. Nothing surprising. Super-quiet. Absolutely no surprises. I have an old '92 Suzuki GSX-1100 Kataba that would ride right along-side the FJR. Felt like the same exact bike, except the Katana has clip-on's, and the FJR/Connie were uprights. The Connie might beat it. That FZ-10 made me say "whoa!!!" when I took off. You can feel the torque down below leaving idle.

One bike that surprised me was the V-Star 1300. Bike felt weak, and above 65 mph, the wind wanted to take your head off.

The SCR 950 was okay. The Bolt was weak. The Super Tenere was nothing to rave about, the R1 hurt my whole body, the R6 was boring, and the FJ-09 was fun. I did not ride the smaller FZ's.

Next weekend is Suzuki demo days, and after that is track demo days for Yamaha and Honda.

[IanDMacDonald]

A few pics of the demo day in Caro.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-...mhtSEUzaFBLZ3M

[DiverRay]

Yeah, I did a demo ride last year at Laguna Seca, but not on the track. I tried the FJR and liked it, but I don't have a dealer in my county, and the close dealer was an idiot so I ended up with a Connie... I STILL want the FJR, just can't let the wife know.

[Bonz]

Awesome on the ride days!

[XJOK2PLAY]

I believe 102 ft/lbs is at the crankshaft rated by Kawasaki. It comes in at 88 to 90 ft/lbs consistently at the rear wheel from past magazine articles I took a look at. Now, if you're C14 has some aftermarket goodies on it with respect to exhaust and ECU mapping, you could be putting out closer to 102 ft/lbs at the wheel. That's a lot of torque by any measure!

The XS1100 was rated at 66 ft/lbs by Yamaha, and did put down around 62 ft/lb based on a dyno chart I found on this forum.

My wife's Uncle has a Gen II VMax, 200 hp as rated at the crank by Yamaha. The rear wheel sees about 175 of those according to the magazine tests.

You know this from your riding in Colorado in the past, it won't have the same go-go that you are used to feeling in the seat of the pants out here. I will venture to guess that your gas mileage for the rally riding in Colorado will be higher than what you have seen to date. There is a good bit less wind resistance and the fuel injection will compensate the fueling for the lower O2 in the air. Combined they add up to nice mpg numbers.

Howard and Ray,
Steve Sefsick (aka steveinsunnyflorida on COG) who owns shoodabeenengineering posted some dyno runs of his C14 back in 9/2015 when he introduced his first ecu flash.

Now, I'll grant you, dyno's can vary... a lot. But in this case, the dyno he used belonged to Chris Jones, the guy that builds Ricky Gadson's race bikes... so I'm pretty sure it's an accurate representation of RWP.

In stock form, his C14 laid down 128 RWHP and 98 lb ft torque... max torque achieved and maintained between 7-10,000 rpm.

Steve has gone through several ecu flash revisions now, his latest is the "Evolution" or Evo flash. This is what I have.
Here's the dyno chart for it...



It now achieves max torque @ 6000 rpm/ (97 ft. Lbs.) But, the amazing thing is that it now produces 85 ft. lbs. torque at only 3000 rpm! Significant gain!

RWHP= 146.18 @ 9000 rpm. Difference from stock? Instead of a roller coaster curve, it's now linear, like a rocket from 1500 rpm.

Here's what's really amazing...
His friend has the same year C14, but had tons of mods done...(full Area P exhaust, secondary flies pulled, PCV w/ autotuner...) his dyno'd around 162 RWHP and 121 ft.lbs. torque (@10,000 rpm.)

When Steve did roll-on comparisons with him (in stock form) the modded bike would pull away every time from Steve. After his flash (and even though the top numbers are far less by the dyno,) Steve's bike would walk away from the modded one. It wasn't until the modded bike would pass the 7000 rpm band in 5th gear that he would catch and pass Steve. So, they traded bikes... with the same results. So, it wasn't rider skill.

What it does show, is how proper tuning can make a huge difference, not only in performance, but smoothness, and mpg's, as well.

Kawasaki set these bikes up really rich from the factory, and it's amazing just how much performance was left on the table.
Bob

[XJOK2PLAY]

Guys,
I'm not sure what's going on with PB these days, but pics are clear as a bell in my picture gallery, but after I post them to PB, then send them here they get blurry???

Sorry about that. Not sure what I can do to fix it, or if it's something on my end I'm doing wrong?

Anyways... if you're interested, I can email the chart to you. Clearer that way.

The red line is the previous version flash. Blue is Evo flash.
Correction to previous post: stock form was 92 ft. lbs torque, not 98. (Tried to correct, but wouldn't let me.)
Bob