I Think OCR Predicted This One at Bike Week

New Yamaha Sport Tourer coming



Yamaha Trademarks Design for Three-Cylinder Sport-Tourer » Motorcycle.com News

It's a nice looking bike. I'll give it that.

I like it. Won't get rid of my NC for it, though.

"The new model will likely be revealed at either the Intermot show in Cologne, Germany or at EICMA in Milan, Italy."

I bet this bike will be revealed at Milan, Italy. Italy is the big daddy of all the bike shows. I road the street necked version at Daytona. Some real horse power here, as must use twin front disk brakes. I don't believe we will see this bike until next summer. Like the NC7 this bike is the sports tourer, not an adventurer version with longer fork travel. Yamaha has an adventure version of this bike in production paper format, also. The adventure version has an under the seat gas tank set up like the BMW R800GS. The adventure version of this bike is what I want Yamaha to put into production. Not yet but getting closer. This bike has a cross plane crank! Unreal torque !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Can Ride said:

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Sorry OCR!!!

I rode one of those Yamaha Super Teneres back in March at a local dealer "Demo Days". It was a "DOG/POS". I thought I was starting out in "Second Gear" from a stop, in fact it was in "First Gear". The low-end on this bike is less than desirable. The mid and high end is decent to say the least. Put the Drive Mode into "Econo", then is transformed into a "3-LEGGED DOG" that has a "Flat" throttle response almost through the entire twist of the throttle. Guarantees to deliver on disappointment.

I give this bike "2 Thumbs Down"...

"Sorry OCR!!! "

If you road a bike, it had to be the Super Ténéré. This bike (3 jugs) has not even been made yet! So, you had to ride this bike (2 jugs).

Old Can Ride said:

"Sorry OCR!!! "

If you road a bike, it had to be the Super Ténéré. This bike (3 jugs) has not even been made yet! So, you had to ride this bike (2 jugs).

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Yes, that's the one. It was a "DOG!!!". Hope that the Tenere Triple was not follow down that "Dark Path of Boredom"...

At Daytona OCR rode the naked "nekkid" version of the FZ-09, a three cylinder bike that most definitely exists. The blog posting is of a possible upcoming adventure tourer version.

You have confused the twin cylinder Super Tenere with the new triple. The Super Ten has been out for 3 or 4 years now, the FZ-09 was released in the spring of 2014. I don't think it was even in dealerships in March (Bike Week).

dduelin said:

You have confused the twin cylinder Super Tenere with the new triple. The Super Ten has been out for 3 or 4 years now, the FZ-09 was released in the spring of 2014. I don't think it was even in dealerships in March (Bike Week).

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Yes, I see that now. I saw that image and it "Triggered" an oppressed memory that manifested itself. That bike had to rank up there and blast past the 750 Hondamatic that I had the displeasure of riding too.

Why are we talking about YAMAHAS???

I was not impressed with them when I started riding and to this day. I've been called a "Honda Snobb" by a Dirtbike Riding Jerk. WHATEVER!!!

I would be interested in a sport touring or adventure touring middleweight bike along these lines. Something with about 90 or 100 hp, decent wind management and sensible ergos. It doesn't look like Honda is going to build it.....the new refreshed VFR ticks the boxes for a sport tourer but it's priced like it is still 2002. Price point bikes are hot in this post recession period and Yamaha seems to understand that with the price of the street fighter versions of the new 900 and 700.

I could be swayed if it performs as good as it looks.

Cigar Mike said:

I could be swayed if it performs as good as it looks.

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Yamaha FZ-9 is 115 horsepower at 10,000 rpm with a 12,250 redline from the motor. The FZ-09 oozes torque, 64.5 ft-lb @ 8500 rpm. No other bike in its class has more. The cross plain crank gives this engine unreal torque at the rear tire that no other bike in the class even comes close to. This torque created by the cross plain crank is why this engine will be a great adventure bike. The FZ-9 only weights 414 lbs..

Cross plane crank is a marketing term when applied to a three cylinder engine, it means nothing.

By nature and required by physics to run smoothly the crank pins of a triple are 120 degrees apart. When Yamaha built their first cross plane crankshaft into an inline four cylinder the conventional engineering of the time was to use a 180 degree crankshaft with cylinders 1 & 4 in phase together with cylinders 2 & 3 also in phase but 180 degrees away from 1 & 4. Almost every inline four since the 1920s had this type of crankshaft. Two pistons rise and fall together exactly opposed to the other pair. Yamaha's cross plane crank arranged the four crank pins at 90 degrees to each other. This arrangement does smooth out the inertial forces created as pairs of pistons decelerate then accelerate at top and bottom dead center. No two pistons are in phase. A triple does the same thing but the pins are evenly spaced at 120 degree intervals because there is no other way a triple can run smoothly. To call it a cross plane engine is trading on the merits of Yamaha's GP racing bikes and the production inline four liter bike R1 that have authentic cross plane crankshafts.

It's interesting that crankshaft orientation falls into and out of favor. In the 1980s Honda built what was called the Long Bang engine for racing use with a long interval between firing of three cylinders then a long pause until the fourth. During the long pause between "bangs" as the cylinders fired in sequence the rear tire was allowed to hook up and regain traction and riders were able to tame powerful engines that totally overwhelmed tire technology of the era. The current wisdom is a cross plane crank smooths out the power pulses to the rear tire and the rider is better able to modulate the traction available but without today's electronic traction control a Long Bang motor would probably still rule GP racing.

With the FZ09 motor that bike would be a blast to ride but does yamaha offer ABS for the North Americain market. It's the thing that made me give up my Yamaha's.

Ruggybuggy said:

With the FZ09 motor that bike would be a blast to ride but does yamaha offer ABS for the North Americain market. It's the thing that made me give up my Yamaha's.

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I know it is available on the FJR, not sure about any of the lower models. I don't think it's an option on the FZ series.... which is a shame.

trey

dduelin said:

The current wisdom is a cross plane crank smooths out the power pulses to the rear tire...

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"Smooths out the power pulses" is purely marketing department hogwash. A cross-plane crankshaft in an inline-4-cylinder 4-stroke, such as the current R1, has uneven firing intervals. A standard 180-degree-throw crank has even firing intervals of 180 degrees in this application. In a 90-degree V-4, a cross-plane crank would even out the firing intervals.

Yamaha has to use a balance shaft in the current R1 engine to balance out the primary rocking couple inherent in a crossplane inline 4 (from the uneven firing intervals). This rocking couple is only tolerable where it is seen as an acceptable disadvantage vs. the advantage of reduced secondary imbalance. Yamaha is once again exploring this tradeoff, as well as giving marketing something impertinent to hype.

Yamaha Crossplane Crankshaft Explained:

Part 1: [video=youtube;R8VmFP6vGPc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8VmFP6vGPc[/video]

Part 2: [video=youtube;WUNaVoGgNwM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUNaVoGgNwM[/video]

There is a real reason to the crossplane crankshaft, puts the power (Torque) to the ground better than any other configuration now known. In the dirt this translates into the rear tire not braking loose so easy. Traditionally in motorcycling only the single cylinder was used in the dirt, because the rear tire broke loose with multi-cylinder engines. Now multi-cylinder engines can be used in the dirt without breaking lose the rear tire so easy. Why no one thought of this until recently, I do not know. I do know this technology translates to more powerful adventure motorcycles. I believe all the manufactures are now scrambling to use this technology in the adventure bikes of the future. So, Honda will have a crossplane adventure bike within a few years also!

You gotta love marketing garbage!

This _has_ been done. Many times. On the pavement and in the dirt. They even mention a couple previous instances in the video. The videos talk about smoothness, but they don't mention how much of this smoothness comes from the balance shaft and the additional inertia & weight it brings. They don't mention the additional, and more severe, vibration the uneven firing brings, either. That's why the balance shaft is necessary, which is where the 'smoothness' comes from.

Do tires grip better or last longer when there's an overload of force followed by a slightly longer 'rest' period, vs. even intervals of same-magnitude force? I don't know, but seriously doubt it. Do they grip better or last longer when the engine has a bit more rotational inertia (aka the balance shaft)? Absolutely. THAT'S the reason you get better 'hook-up' on dirt with a heavier, marginally slower-to-rev engine vs. an ultra-light, lightning-fast-revving, super-peaky two-stroke. It is NOT to do with how 'smooth' an uneven firing order is.

OTOH, all this nonsense out of marketing is highly dazzling, highly bamboozling, and it seems to sell bikes. Hooray for marketing! err... I mean, technology?

To phrase it slightly differently:

Perhaps the ultra-low-mass, ultra-low-inertia engines which are necessary to keep things together in ultra-high-rpm engines, need just a little mass/inertia added back in, for traction and/or tire life reasons(?).

Intuitively old dirt bike riders know it isn't the amount of power available it's the ability to put it to the ground without spinning the wheel. Chugging up hills in the low and mid range gets you to the top. Once the wheel spins it's all over. Low revving singles were and still are very good for this as are twins with irregular firing intervals. It is absolutely true the long pauses between power impulses allow the tire to regain traction but i don't pretend to know the physics behind it. Although square fours, inline fours and V-4s have dominated paved racing, singles and twins dominate dirt surfaces because of the power delivery characteristics. On pavement the principle is still the same but power is necessary to power out of the corners and outrun competitors to the next corner. The long bang motors dominated GP racing in their time because the power delivery blended dirt bike power delivery characteristics into high powered machines.