most advanced bike Yamaha sold in 1982?

[don_vanecek]

Do you know that in the 1982 Yamaha street bike line up, The Vision was ....

The only model that was water cooled

The only model with four valve heads

The only model with an internal balancer shaft

All common items on new bikes sold today with the exception.....you can't get one with shaft drive anymore!

The Yamaha Vision, as advanced in today's world as it was the new state of the art in 1982, 

1982 Yamaha street line-up attached, am I correct?

[HarryTakeuchi]

I think you can say it was, although in non-US markets the RZ250/350 (RD250/350LC) was liquid cooled since 1980. Not quite sure how the US market was at the time, but in Japan the early 80s was a time when Yamaha went all out to beat Honda to try to reign as the number one motorcycle manufacturer in the Japanese market. The speed and the amount of development that went on was crazy. Honda was not about to give up and Suz and Kaw kept pace (although Suzuki asked both Yamaha and Honda to cool down) so you had someone releasing a new model every month.

I remember being surprised by the liquid cooled DOHC 4 valve shaft drive and the futuristic style but a few months later the XZ was history. Honda's CBX400F released a few month earlier was a 16 vavle dohc four which was lighter with more rated power and equipped with a linked suspension and anti-nose dive. So the XZ was in somewhat of a handicap from the start.

Then a few months later, Honda released the VT250F which was a liquid cooled DOHC 8valve vee that will rev up to 13,000 rpm, which slashed away the RZ250 as the king of the 250 class.It also influenced the sales of the XZ because it had the same mechanism, almost similar performance (VT: 165km/h top speed, XZ400:175kmh and the 250 considerably cheaper)

The market then was directed at younger riders whose purchase decision was heavily influenced by magazine shootouts and road tests so it was always the bikes that had the highest top speed, quarter mile, and circuit time that sold.

So while the XZ was in fact the most advanced and futuristic motorcycle in Japan, the status was very short lived, and the sales figures even more short lived.

[Rikugun]

The only model with an internal balancer shaft

I think the Seca 400 did as well but no doubt the V was ahead of it's time.  :)

Speaking of innovations, the little Seca also used a remote alternator which would soon be common place. With all the stator changes made by Vision owners over the years it's a shame it wasn't also equipped with one. Even if it didn't cure the fried stator syndrone, maybe it would have been easier to change?  :D

[George R. Young]

My '69 Bridgestone 350 GTR had a remote alternator with brushes, slip rings and a demand regulator. Solid a s a rock.

The '72 R5 and '73 RD350 I had also had demand regulators.

Unfortunately the Vision 'improved' things, i.e. sloughed in a cheaper permanent-magnet design which only lasted beyond the warranty. Shame on you Yamaha, you knew how to do things right and went ahead and did things wrong.

[Jimustanguitar]

The only model with an internal balancer shaft

I think the Seca 400 did as well but no doubt the V was ahead of it's time.  :)

Speaking of innovations, the little Seca also used a remote alternator which would soon be common place. With all the stator changes made by Vision owners over the years it's a shame it wasn't also equipped with one. Even if it didn't cure the fried stator syndrone, maybe it would have been easier to change?  :D

You're correct, the 1982 XS400RJ Seca does have a balance shaft. I remember putting one of those back in the crankcase :)

[VisionMeister]

The downdraft design of the intake tract coupled with the extreme oversquare bore stroke ratio was the real innovation of the Vision engine.

Four valve heads were common features of motorcyle design at the time, but were leading to overheating due to the tall cam towers blocking airflow to rear mounted sidedraft carburetors.
My friends GS1100e frequently vapor locked on rides in 100 degree temperatures common here in California in summer. Water cooling was required.

The counterbalancer was a required feature for the narrow angle vee and had been used by Yamaha in the early 70's.

Shaft drives were common to Yamaha's since the 1976 xs750.

These items all added to the complexity and cost of the vision as well as the two cam drives, four camshafts, etc., so Yamaha skimped in many areas to control costs, which still ended up being too high for a 550 of the era.
High cost, compromised chassis, 1982-82 recession, faster cheaper GPZ500's all led to the demise of the Vision.

[Rikugun]

You're correct, the 1982 XS400RJ Seca does have a balance shaft. I remember putting one of those back in the crankcase :)

How's that going - any movement on that project?

[don_vanecek]

Quote from a cycle world test in 1982 "Yamaha Unleashes the engineers on a Super New Do-Everything Mid-Size Bike"  Perhaps the word "Super" is not correct, but  think of your Vision as a very nice do everything bike-in the content of only having 552 cc's, it was a superior bike to all the mid size bikes before it, even if only for  short time.  And now if you think of it as a sort of Japanese BMW, it's a darn nice and useful machine. 

[HarryTakeuchi]

The downdraft design of the intake tract coupled with the extreme oversquare bore stroke ratio was the real innovation of the Vision engine.

Would it be an overstatement to say that this downdraft design eventually led to the "Genesis" design of the FZ/FZR series? Or is that unrelated.

[fret not]

Yamaha should have maintained standard displacement sizes (250, 350, 500, 750, etc.)and should have offered the XZ first as a 750.  A 550 is neither a 500 nor a 750.  That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

[Rick G]

Yamahas 1973  TX 500 had a balance shaft , as did the 750 that same year.  I really liked the 500 , I have heard reports of problems with it , but saw nothing  much when I worked on the bike.

[Jimustanguitar]

You're correct, the 1982 XS400RJ Seca does have a balance shaft. I remember putting one of those back in the crankcase :)

How's that going - any movement on that project?

Collecting dust. I've been fixing up the house in order to sell it and move to a larger place. Organizing a few community events, transitioning to a new job, and my recent addiction to 3D printing have all gotten in the way lately.

[VisionMeister]

re. the fz multi-valve design: allegedly Yamaha did some studies on breathing efficiencies with a mule motor with 3,4,5,6,and 7 valve designs. This may have happened at the time of development of the four stroke v-4 endurance race motor (which was never raced) in the late 70's.This motor would have had downdraft intakes.
Supposedly they settled on five valves as a compromise in cost and complexity for performance.
What they didn't study was burn efficiency of the large multi-valved chamber. This appears to be the overiding factor of performance. The breathing efficiency was better with multi-valves but, as revs rose, the burn efficiency was not adequate to produce more power. Yamaha provided 5 valve heads for Formula One engines in the late 80's early 90's, but F1 is all four valve now.
Yamaha finaly ditched the 5 valve design on the R1  and FZ1. They held on to it primarily for brand marketing identity.
I just watched the 1986 Daytona 200 superbike race on Youtube. Lawson on the FZ vs Rainey on the VFR Honda. Eventually won by Lawson. An inline four vs a vee four. I also just watched the opening round of MotoGP with Lorenzo and Rossi vs Marquez and Pedrosa. Inline fours vs vee fours, still, all these years later

[jefferson]

I just thought I would throw out that there is a guy on our local craigslist that is parting out what looked like a very clean 400 Seca. It had a 2 into 1 header on it too. Looks kind of like the one I had on my Seca. I think I am going to get the handlebars from him for the xs 750 project.

Jeff

[Jimustanguitar]

I just thought I would throw out that there is a guy on our local craigslist that is parting out what looked like a very clean 400 Seca. It had a 2 into 1 header on it too. Looks kind of like the one I had on my Seca. I think I am going to get the handlebars from him for the xs 750 project.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll look for it!

Jim

[artbone]

Yamaha should have maintained standard displacement sizes (250, 350, 500, 750, etc.)and should have offered the XZ first as a 750.  A 550 is neither a 500 nor a 750.  That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

Actually, there was a 550 racing class in WERA and other racing organizations in the 80s. I raced a Suzuki GS550 ES in 550 Production and I think all the manufacturers made a 550. I raced against Team GoodTimes from Texas on a 550 Vision and they beat us like stepchildren every time we showed up.

It started raining at the start of the 24 Hours of Nelson Ledges and they led the race for the first 8 hours. Course they had this blond kid from Texas named Kevin Schwantz riding for them who had only been racing about six months.

[Rikugun]

Kevin Schwantz (w/Scott Russell) gave a talk and Q&A session at the International Bike Show in NYC. He talked about his experiences, his contemporaries and his idols as well. He had some great stories and it was very interesting. He comes across as being very down to earth and a nice guy in general.  :)

Further to the displacement discussion.... 500's begot 550's which begot 600's. Blame it on progress.  :D There are those periods where there is overlap - much like the period you described. Confusing matters further was the oddball KZ650's. I raced WERA 550 class in 1984 and the venerable 650 Kawasaki was allowed in the 550 class. I guess they figured it's performance was comparable to the latest batch of 550's? Then there was Yamaha's FJ600 released in '84. With it's 4 valve head and large carbs it's performance was closer to that of 750's. My memory is a little fuzzy on this but IIRC it was lumped into the B class with 750's. Didn't last for long though. Soon 600's were all the rage and a new class of racing was born.

Another interesting thing about 1984 and the progression of displacement was the VF500 Interceptor. The rest of the big four had 550's except Honda. Although it had the modern frame/suspension, 4 valve heads and liquid cooling, it's displacement was a bit of a throw back and subsequently was not terribly competitive. There were a few brave souls who ran heavily modified air cooled SOHC CB550's in the "superbike" class, but generally they couldn't compete with the more modern equipment.

[artbone]

Kevin Schwantz (w/Scott Russell) gave a talk and Q&A session at the International Bike Show in NYC. He talked about his experiences, his contemporaries and his idols as well. He had some great stories and it was very interesting. He comes across as being very down to earth and a nice guy in general.  :)

He is a very nice guy. He and his parents have a house about 2 miles from me. Kevin doesn't come very often but Jim and Shirley usually come several times a year and Jim and I always try to get in a ride while they're here. I interviewed Kevin for our local English language newspaper when I first met him. I called it "A World Champion Visits San Miguel."

Scott is from Atlanta, where I lived before I moved to Mexico and the guy I used to race with, Lee Carroll bought and wrenched on several Suzuki GSXRs for Scott when he first started racing. They ran the GSXR Cup series and actually made some money racing which is almost unheard of.