Working-Class Hero

WORKING-CLASS HERO

YAMAHA SHOOTS A $7990 BULLET INTO THE HEART OF BORING BARGAIN BIKES WITH ITS NEW 847cc TRIPLE

KEVIN CAMERON

2014 YAMAHA FZ-09

YAMAHA'S NEW FZ-09 IS A class-breaking motorcycle designed to get motorcycling going again. For $900 less than the price of an FZ8 and $491 more than a 2013 Honda NC700X, this new 847cc three-cylinder naked puts a ton of the trickle-down technology of MotoGP into a sit-up standard for the first time. Its engineering is aimed not at staying within the narrow boundaries of a class but at delivering strong perform ance where riders actually use it-in the midrange and from the bottom.

4 Just before the eco nomic downturn hit in 2008, sportbikes had be come so tightly focused on performance that their true purpose had become to win the World Superbike Champion ship. Their specialization hurt broad sales appeal.

What about the average rider? Doesn't he/she need and want the rideability advan tages brought by a controlled-flex chassis, ride-by-wire fueling and a multi-mode engine? The tooling costs of these advanced racing/ sportbike features have now been paid, and it's time to offer them to all riders. This is the future of motorcycling.

Yamaha's press release is loaded with a hefty dose of key phrases and brand-specific words designed to aid Search Engine Optimization. Ignore them. The mes sage here is simple: The FZ-o9 is engineered to deliver the kind of ride most people want-a responsive, punchy engine, an all-day riding position, a distinctive engine sound and a chassis that embodies the advances of the past 10 years of MotoGP. "We want to help all riders, not just Jorge {Lorenzo]," says Yamaha Senior Executive Officer Kuni hiko Miwa, who served as project leader for the YZF-Ri and R6.

This is how technol ogy evolves-from the top down. Digital flight control technology from the Apollo program was adapted to combat aircraft, then to commercial jets, then cars. Arid now it's widening the perfomlance envelope of motorcycling. Controlled flex? Note that the front of the FZ-o9's chassis attaches to the forward-inclined cylinder head via four "spider legs?' The lateral flex of this kind of struc ture gives MotoGP bikes superior front-end feel, handy for warning when the front tire is nearing its limit.

The FZ-o9's chassis is purposely made nar rower at the knees and footpegs. And its bars are higher (and pegs lower) than the FZ8's to fit North American people better. Steering geometry (25-degree rake, 4.1-in, trail) is chosen for lightness and agility at low speeds, giv ing confidence in traffic and underscoring the point that the FZ-o9 is designed for daily use.

Yamaha has greatly simplified manufacture of the FZ-o9 chassis by making it in just two pieces that are bolted together. The steering head splits down a vertical central plane, half in the right frame element, half in the left. Cost control!

Continuing the trend toward mass centraliza tion for more responsive handling, the muffler is located under the gear box and forward part of the swingarm, which is made in "banana" form to provide clearance.

Suspension preload and rebound damping are adjustable, which Ya maha says will help the FZ-o9 adapt to "different riding conditions and rider preferences?'

Styling? My first impression was "V-Max meets Transformers Ro bot?' Another viewer said, "Looks like a Supermono?' To sum up? The FZ-o9 is an up-to-the-minute streetfighter, no bland revival of a 1970s' UJM. Call it a new synthesis.

120 DEGREES

Decades after the XS750, Yamaha is back in the Triple game. When the company showed its Project P3 at Cologne in 2012, much was made of "crossplane crankshaft technology?' All this means is that its crank pins are not in a single plane like those of a conventional inline-fouL Like any sensible three cylinder, the FZ-o9's engine has its crankpins evenly spaced at 120 degrees from pin to pin, giving even firing intervals and delivering the musical “triple sound” that everyone likes. This fuel-injected Triple, with a 78.0mm bore and a 59.1mm stroke, stands out from the world of flat-crank (i.e. singleplane) four-cylinder engines that power so many bikes from 600 to looocc.

THE NUMBERS

$7990

Any other reasons for choosing three cylinders? You bet—cost. The lower the parts count, the lower the price. If you want to sell into a shrunken but finally recovering market, there’s no better incentive than price. And there’s width—the FZ-09 team wanted an engine significantly narrower than a traditional Four as part of its fresh focus on rideability. Current sportbikes have a bore/stroke ratio of around 1.5:1, but the new FZ backs that down to 1.32—about where sportbikes were in 1990. This is not backsliding. It is moving toward a more open, faster burning combustion chamber. The only reason for giant sportbike bores is to make room for valves that flow best on topend. If the goal is solid rideability in the midrange, you need smaller valves that flow best at lower crank speeds. The FZ-09 engine’s high but not extreme 11.5:1 compression ratio does its part in boosting torque and responsiveness.

Ride-by-wire means that when the rider grabs a handful of throttle, the instruction goes to the computer, where stored information and signals from other sensors are processed. A stepper motor then opens the throttles to give the desired engine response. This is YCC-T, or “Yamaha Chip-Controlled Throttle,” first used on the 2006 YZF-R6.

Such a system makes it possible to provide three-mode engine performance. First is Standard. Then A-Mode gives “sharper throttle response in the low-to-midrpm range.” B-Mode “lets the rider enjoy milder throttle response than the STD-Mode.” When BMW was developing its S1000RR superbike inhouse, the testers loved its “rain mode” because it made everyone feel like a better rider. Pick the response that suits your preference.

Each of the FZ-09’s three fuel-injection throttle bodies carries an intake horn of different length (82.8mm, 102.8mm and 122.8mm)—a clever and much less expensive way to distribute the approximately 10 percent torque boost of intake resonance over a range of rpm than providing motor-driven, computercontrolled intakes of variable length.

A 120-degree Triple has no net up-and-down crank-speed shaking force, but it does rock from side-to-side. For this reason, there is a “primary coupled-force balancer” just ahead of the crank that spins in the opposite direction at crank speed. This creates an equal and opposite rocking couple to cancel that of the crank, leaving the engine smooth.

At $7990, Yamaha’s new FZ-09, which goes on sale in September, is a marketbreaker, priced well below its competitors.

As a high-tech bike that combines sit-up comfort with carefully planned rideability, this Yamaha may prove irresistible to enthusiasts, regardless of their budget.