Yamaha going to triple

BDazzler said:
Triple, V4, I4, parallel twin, just not a V-twin. I've never liked V-twins, especially for sport bikes. I know Ducatti and Buell try V-twins in sport bikes, but it never really works. I'm not much of a fan of twins at all, unless it's a specific purpose bike that just needs gobs of torque at the expense of anything else. (pulling stumps, etc.) :box: And if you need that, I like the singles. Good ol' thumpers. I guess it just reflects my subtle dislike for cruisers. Not that I hold anything against people that own or like cruisers or V-twins, I'm just saying they are not for me and the others just don't make much difference to me (I lean toward the 4's, inline mostly, but V-4's can be awesome, just ask Aprilla). :hook2:

I think the only thing that could really excite me in the engine department is to see street-able 2-strokes again! The tree huggers have killed that dream. I'm afraid even if they somehow make a comeback, they just won't be the same without the blue smoke mosquito fogging effect. :rant: :stirpot: :cowboy:
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Don't sugar coat it, tell me how you really feel about V Twins :)


Perhaps you just have not ridden the right v twin. I have to say my 990 KTM v twin is the most fun bike I have ridden- not the fastest or most practical but by far the most FUN!
Plus with a nice set of Akrapovic pipes nothing sounds better :cowboy:
 
BDazzler said:
Unfortunately, you are totally correct. Nothing like a 15 minute fill up... AT BEST! Who would tolerate a 5 min fill up? I don't think your employer will (or should) put charging stations in every parking spot (tree huggers seem to think this will happen and some how be free to them) : owned:

I walked straight past the HD and electric booths at the motorcycle show. No interest in either for me.

I have high hopes for the triple (at least for street bikes and more usable lower end), but low expectations.
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I unfortunately tend to lean toward tree huggerish ideals, because eventually we'll hit the limit on non-renewable limited resources. But you are exactly right on the ridiculousness of putting in plug in stations everywhere and allowing 5 minutes for a fill.

My answer has been to put the microthin solar panels that they are starting to use on parking strucure roofs on to the car. If they could figure out a way to use the hood/roof of the car as a solar panel, then it would constantly be recharging and full.
 
Lentech said:
I couldn't agree more. Lower cost, broader power band, and a narrower packaging are probibly top reasons.........I love triples myself having had a 02 955 daytona an 01 Sprint RS and still have good ooooold Speedy a 96 900 Speed triple....what a tank. It is becoming a collectors bike so I'm not going to let it go. Triples have a really nice ballance of torque an HP and the Daytona had respectable top end rush........Personally I would love Yamaha to build a 750 triple. There is so much more technology than when the old xs 750 was released back in 76. Ford's New 1.0L 3 cylinder in the Festiva uses NO ballance shaft. They acomplished better secondary ballance by strategicly locating the counter weights and is reported to have very smooth operation. Ford has worked with Yamaha before when Yamaha built the SHO engine in the Taurus so it will be interesting to see what the outcome is.
Click to expand...

A little engineer speak here - so forgive me...

A three cylinder engine has a completely different crankshaft-throw layout than an in-line four. It's secondary shake characteristics are completely different.
The in-line four layout has an inherent secondary out-of-balance characteristic. It is rough - doesn't hurt anything mechanically to be rough - but people don't like rough "feeling" engines. So ... It's either rough without a balance shaft or designed with a balance shaft who's whole purpose is to counter the engine's inherent secondary shake. This - so the the engine operator - whether car, motorcycle, tractor, whatever, .. doesn't feel the shake. The balance shaft does nothing to the dynamics of the engine except extract a small amount of power for it's own turning.
But they have been doing this for many decades - to sell more vehicles. It's not bad - it just is. A triple... different secondary situation - completely. So it can be smoother without balance shafts.

One thing I don't understand about Yamaha's in-line four designs, in the F series anyway, is why are they so noisy? They are one of the mechanically noisiest motorcycles I have come across. You would think they would be short lived - due to all the mechanical crap going on internally to create such noise. But they are not! We have riders with huge mileage on their machines - FZ1grl as a prime example with well over 200,000 miles and no major work to the engine.
Other manufacturers have much smoother sounding engines.

I don't understand their design - by accident, noisier? - and don't care enough to fix it?? This gets into bearing designs, bearing support designs, wall castings, gear teeth profiles, ...
I just don't know what they did to make such a noisy engine that is not actually grinding itself up. It's kind of amazing!
 
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Ssky0078 said:
I unfortunately tend to lean toward tree huggerish ideals, because eventually we'll hit the limit on non-renewable limited resources. But you are exactly right on the ridiculousness of putting in plug in stations everywhere and allowing 5 minutes for a fill.

My answer has been to put the microthin solar panels that they are starting to use on parking strucure roofs on to the car. If they could figure out a way to use the hood/roof of the car as a solar panel, then it would constantly be recharging and full.
Click to expand...

Hey, don't get me wrong, I did my undergrad BS in Environmental Biology and Botany, but the truth is we are not going to hurt the planet, just our ability to live here. The worst thing we, as a population are doing is overpopulating. We run out of resources, land, water, food and energy. This is when wars break out and help reduce population. I realize what a cold look that appears to be, but you have to remain objective about these problems.

I'm a huge proponent of solar power, but the truth is the technology is so far behind what some would have you believe that it's not practical. The worst part is battery technology. I'm sick of these companies (and government) trying to play the "green" card (hehehe) and guilt everyone into buying their over hyped tech as though it was saving the world. Electricity is not clean. It is produced by burning coal in most cases, or worse, creating nuclear waste or other horrible ways, with the exception of the Hoover Dam and a few wind and solar farms that take up way too much space. Then you have to look at the cost and the pollution of the spent batteries and the resources to produce the batteries in the necessary quantities for everyone to have them.

This topic, on the surface, seems like people should be proactive and bring this to market ASAP, and in an ideal world, that would be great. I believe the more realistic way and most efficient way is to allow the free market to point us in the direction of timing for this tech. Someone will keep researching with high ideals, but also the dream of getting rich from it. That's not really a bad thing. Supply and demand will dictate when we MUST switch.

Solar cars are an awesome concept and I dearly hope they exist some day, but this isn't it. (Now i can't travel on a cloudy day or at night without extremely efficient batteries). Bieber driving a chrome Fisker isn't saving anyone. Nope, not a sole!

OK, stepping down now. On a realistic note, the lack of infrastructure and lack of convince will force the current electric movement to totally fail. Ideals will only go so far with out a strong touch of reality. Hey, V-twins are sounding better and better :p

I hope all of this rant is taken at face value as an opinion and not an attack on anyone or any other opinions. Now back to the triples! Something somewhat new from Yamaha other then the FJR's tweaks (as good as they are) and the Super Tenere. (I want both of those bikes)


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lindy said:
I just don't know what they did to make such a noisy engine that is not actually grinding itself up. It's kind of amazing!
Click to expand...

Just gonna throw this out there but my thought is that Yamaha coming from their magical three tuning forks has a higher understanding of vibration and harmonics.

Maybe they can throw the 3 tuning forks into the idea of the 3 cylinders well tuned.
 
lindy said:
lentech said:
I couldn't agree more. Lower cost, broader power band, and a narrower packaging are probibly top reasons.........I love triples myself having had a 02 955 daytona an 01 Sprint RS and still have good ooooold Speedy a 96 900 Speed triple....what a tank. It is becoming a collectors bike so I'm not going to let it go. Triples have a really nice ballance of torque an HP and the Daytona had respectable top end rush........Personally I would love Yamaha to build a 750 triple. There is so much more technology than when the old xs 750 was released back in 76. Ford's New 1.0L 3 cylinder in the Festiva uses NO ballance shaft. They acomplished better secondary ballance by strategicly locating the counter weights and is reported to have very smooth operation. Ford has worked with Yamaha before when Yamaha built the SHO engine in the Taurus so it will be interesting to see what the outcome is.
Click to expand...
A little engineer speak here - so forgive me...

A three cylinder engine has a completely different crankshaft-throw layout than an in-line four. It's secondary shake characteristics are completely different.
The in-line four layout has an inherent secondary out-of-balance characteristic. It is rough - doesn't hurt anything mechanically to be rough - but people don't like rough "feeling" engines. So ... It's either rough without a balance shaft or designed with a balance shaft who's whole purpose is to counter the engine's inherent secondary shake. This - so the the engine operator - whether car, motorcycle, tractor, whatever, .. doesn't feel the shake. The balance shaft does nothing to the dynamics of the engine except extract a small amount of power for it's own turning.
But they have been doing this for many decades - to sell more vehicles. It's not bad - it just is. A triple... different secondary situation - completely. So it can be smoother without balance shafts.

One thing I don't understand about Yamaha's in-line four designs, in the F series anyway, is why are they so noisy? They are one of the mechanically noisiest motorcycles I have come across. You would think they would be short lived - due to all the mechanical crap going on internally to create such noise. But they are not! We have riders with huge mileage on their machines - FZ1grl as a prime example with well over 200,000 miles and no major work to the engine.
Other manufacturers have much smoother sounding engines.

I don't understand their design - by accident, noisier? - and don't care enough to fix it?? This gets into bearing designs, bearing support designs, wall castings, gear teeth profiles, ...
I just don't know what they did to make such a noisy engine that is not actually grinding itself up. It's kind of amazing!
Click to expand...

Plus, the balance shaft takes space that could be otherwise used for higher oil capacity, and adds weight. I think they were introduced so that they could increase the size and rev limit of the I4, especially considering how the NVH increases with size and exponentially with engine speed, making them more competitive with the I6s of the time (which are inherently perfectly balanced). Originally, they allowed I4s to be more refined, or have higher performance with acceptable NVH. Nowadays, I think they're less useful because of the other improvements in engine tech. I'll be removing the balance shaft in my MS6 pretty soon because the NVH difference is negligible to me for a free performance/efficiency/reliability bump.

As for noise, I don't care as long as it works well. I think when engines are designed specifically to be quiet, they may have sacrificed other things (power, performance, maybe even efficiency) to get that quietness. Most things in engineering are a compromise. By making one thing better, you generally make other things worse.
 
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OneSizeFitsAll said:
Don't sugar coat it, tell me how you really feel about V Twins :)


Perhaps you just have not ridden the right v twin. I have to say my 990 KTM v twin is the most fun bike I have ridden- not the fastest or most practical but by far the most FUN!
Plus with a nice set of Akrapovic pipes nothing sounds better :cowboy:
Click to expand...

I may have to go with the RC51 as best sounding twin with a set of pipes, but hey they all sound good.

I like the sound of triples too... the howl of a daytona 675 is very nice.
 
BDazzler said:
Hey, don't get me wrong, I did my undergrad BS in Environmental Biology and Botany, but the truth is we are not going to hurt the planet, just our ability to live here. The worst thing we, as a population are doing is overpopulating. We run out of resources, land, water, food and energy. This is when wars break out and help reduce population. I realize what a cold look that appears to be, but you have to remain objective about these problems.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's cold. It's pragmatic or observationalistic (Ayn Rand-ism). I've been saying this for years and am just waiting. It's not just war that will reduce the population but famine and disease as well that will strike. I just got done watching the TV series Jericho for the second time. When there is a collapse of infrastructure so that food and other resources become scarce then the lesser qualities of human nature come forth.



BDazzler said:
I'm a huge proponent of solar power, but the truth is the technology is so far behind what some would have you believe that it's not practical. The worst part is battery technology. I'm sick of these companies (and government) trying to play the "green" card (hehehe) and guilt everyone into buying their over hyped tech as though it was saving the world. Electricity is not clean. It is produced by burning coal in most cases, or worse, creating nuclear waste or other horrible ways, with the exception of the Hoover Dam and a few wind and solar farms that take up way too much space. Then you have to look at the cost and the pollution of the spent batteries and the resources to produce the batteries in the necessary quantities for everyone to have them.
Click to expand...

I live in AZ where we have 300-330 days of sunshine a year. We have some solar energy producing facilities. There is legislation in place that limits the total amount of energy output from these plants to 5% of the energy used in the state. The plants themselves can produce over 30-50% of the required energy but don't due to this legislation. The legislation forces us to use the coal burning power plants instead or even buy energy from Nevada and the Hoover dam.

On top of that the SRP (Salt River Project) is one of the main energy providers here in AZ. They ran a program back in the mid 00's that allowed home owners to purchase solar cells and place them on their homes. Any extra power that they produced then they could sell it back to the grid. Well these homes produced so much energy that they shut down the program I think even before the first year of what was planned a 3 year deal. The amount of energy was so much that SRP figured it out that they would not make any money if the program lived. Some people speculated that there could have been enough energy brought in by these homes with solar power that they could have sold power to other states, like California.

BDazzler said:
This topic, on the surface, seems like people should be proactive and bring this to market ASAP, and in an ideal world, that would be great. I believe the more realistic way and most efficient way is to allow the free market to point us in the direction of timing for this tech. Someone will keep researching with high ideals, but also the dream of getting rich from it. That's not really a bad thing. Supply and demand will dictate when we MUST switch.
Click to expand...

With legislation and pressures from competing energy providers coal and oil to prevent mass change it will be a continued slow change.

BDazzler said:
Solar cars are an awesome concept and I dearly hope they exist some day, but this isn't it. (Now i can't travel on a cloudy day or at night without extremely efficient batteries). Bieber driving a chrome Fisker isn't saving anyone. Nope, not a sole!
Click to expand...

I guess some of the solar cells they use in Norway and Finland are capable of still capturing energy during cloudy days.
 
Ssky0078 said:
I live in AZ where we have 300-330 days of sunshine a year. We have some solar energy producing facilities. There is legislation in place that limits the total amount of energy output from these plants to 5% of the energy used in the state. The plants themselves can produce over 30-50% of the required energy but don't due to this legislation. The legislation forces us to use the coal burning power plants instead or even buy energy from Nevada and the Hoover dam.

On top of that the SRP (Salt River Project) is one of the main energy providers here in AZ. They ran a program back in the mid 00's that allowed home owners to purchase solar cells and place them on their homes. Any extra power that they produced then they could sell it back to the grid. Well these homes produced so much energy that they shut down the program I think even before the first year of what was planned a 3 year deal. The amount of energy was so much that SRP figured it out that they would not make any money if the program lived. Some people speculated that there could have been enough energy brought in by these homes with solar power that they could have sold power to other states, like California.
Click to expand...

That's a shame :\ I mean, there's two sides to every story, so who knows what was going on at the other end. But it's kind of disgusting the couldn't figure out how to work it.
 
counter balancers

Aero said:
Plus, the balance shaft takes space that could be otherwise used for higher oil capacity, and adds weight. I think they were introduced so that they could increase the size and rev limit of the I4, especially considering how the NVH increases with size and exponentially with engine speed, making them more competitive with the I6s of the time (which are inherently perfectly balanced). Originally, they allowed I4s to be more refined, or have higher performance with acceptable NVH. Nowadays, I think they're less useful because of the other improvements in engine tech. I'll be removing the balance shaft in my MS6 pretty soon because the NVH difference is negligible to me for a free performance/efficiency/reliability bump.

As for noise, I don't care as long as it works well. I think when engines are designed specifically to be quiet, they may have sacrificed other things (power, performance, maybe even efficiency) to get that quietness. Most things in engineering are a compromise. By making one thing better, you generally make other things worse.
Click to expand...

You are off the tracks a bit regarding balancers. First order (primary) denotes vibration at engine speed. Second order is twice engine speed. All reciprocating engines have both primary and secondary vibration that cannot completely be cancelled by rotating balance weights or shafts. They are always a compromise and generally work well up to about 5000RPM. Only additional cylinders situated appropriately can cancel vibration at all speeds. An I4 engine has good primary balance but substantial second order vibration that increases as RPM rises and typically has one (or preferably two) balance shafts running at twice engine speed. A triple has less secondary vibration but has substantial coning motion of the crankshaft (like bicycle pedals) so it needs a balancer running at engine speed. An in-line six has its engine speed coning cancelled out by the second set of three cylinders set to mirror image the first 3 cylinders. They do have secondary vibration, as all in-line reciprocating engines do, but it is less than 1/6 of an inline 4. Inline sixes do not have perfect primary balance in spite of the case that many people say they do. What they do have is very low primary imbalance but not perfect. Boxer sixes like a Gold Wing are better yet because the primary and secondary vibes of the opposing cylinders cancel each other out. It has also been said that 90 degree v-twins have perfect primary balance - again very good primary balance but not perfect. They also have moderate secondary imbalance. As these V-twins get bigger, they vibrate more. Given all this, the smoothest bikes I have ridden - Honda Gold Wings (six and 4 cyl), Honda CBX, Ducati 750GT, Ducati 851, Suzuki 1000 V-twin, Honda 1000 V-twin, Honda VFR800. I have ridden at least 30 different I4 bikes with single or dual counter balancers and they all vibrate at higher RPM, some worse than others.
 
Hope for a new FZ1

I currently own a Tuono V4. It is fast, handles, has good brakes, sounds great, etcetera but it also has very stiff suspension, a brick for a seat, buzzes a bit and I wish it was a bit more comfortable like a gen1 FZ1. I have owned two speed triples, a Super Duke, two Monsters, a VFR800 and about 20 other bikes in the past 45 years. At 65 years old, I still like speed, power, handling, great brakes etc. but please give me a dollop of comfort too and please kill the vibes. Gen II FZ1's are better than most I4 engines but could be better yet. Most two piece seats suck compared to seats in the 70's and 80's and the gen1 FZ1. All I4 engines have buzz, even with counter balancers unless rubber mounted. I rode a blackbird a month ago with two counter balancers and it was still buzzy. I give Yamaha credit for rubber mounting the bars and footpegs - it helps. My year 2000 speed triple was smoother than the 1050 versions. Back to the original ideas for a new FZ1. Make it light and smooth with a decent seat and wind screen. Make it handle and give it decent gas mileage. Make it sound good and look good. That might be easiest to do with a triple and some rubber mounted bars and pegs. Make mine red - my favorite color!
 
I just got rid of my Gen II FZ1 but really loved it. Great power , speed, handling (when set up correctly) and a nice "cross-over" between ture Sport and Cruising. I also have a Harley Softail Bagger for real distance riding.

I put a Top Sellerie seat on it, a set of ASV levers, Satan 666 highway pegs, and large , very cushioned grips. (All this stuff is for sale now that the bike is no longer mine). These mods made it an ideal Sport/Tourer for me and I am also 65 years old.

At this age, i certainly want my comfort but love the acceleration and speed the liter I4 gives you.

D
 
I like the specs of the motor, and the low weight, however I really don't care for the looks. Kinda has a Buell XB rear end to it. The overall profile reminds me of Duc's Dribble.

I'm looking forward to the first reviews of the motor. I hope it's a star as this could be the game changer that Yamaha needs.

On a side note; the Yamaha Bolt is totally on fire, flying out the door.
 
Sounds great but I do not like the lamp and mask looks kinda cheap as well as the exhaust but that would have to be seen live.

Let's see if there is promo tour to get a test ride :sinister:.
 
Well, they didn't convince me to run to the dealership to put a cash down on one... not a big notch over the FZ8, if any and mught end up more expansive than a FZ1. Being a Yamaha that would be a bullet proof ride for sure but did Yamaha sort the bike out right out the box or it will need another 2K of update like the other ones? I'll wait for few review... still hope for a Xplane FZ1.

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I like it ! ................... but think I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for a version over 1000cc's .

Think I'd be real happy with a Japanese version of the Triumph speed triple.

Give me a lighter Yamaha version of the speed triple with Japanese pricing, parts availability, reliability ,fit and finish............and I hope 15-20 more hp up top.

Do I expect too much ? :smokin2:
 
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