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2005 Project WR450 Supermoto

Monday, 15 August 2005

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Unmitigated selfishly motivated deeds by Mike Emery - Photos by Auntie Andrea

OK, so being a moto-journalist is not all bad - I get to ride some bitching motorcycles, brand new (of course) and I get to do more than my fair share of riding, street and track, usually at little or no expense to my good self. So when it comes to actually owning a bike, a bike to park up in my garage, and in particular, a bike that withstands all the distractions of coming and going '04 and '05 supermodels, what do I choose? This. The worlds most perfect (to me) bike, let me show you the how's and why.

This Yamaha WR450F started life as a leftover 03' - Pilfered (I kid you not) from Champions Yamaha in Florida. Champions CEO and former founder of 2Dub, Robert Mealey, was looking the other way when I wheeled away a perfectly sellable bike from his inventory. Me mumbling about an IOU on the back of a Wong Wednesday restaurant napkin probably didn't help, but hey... shit happens when you hang with journo's.

However, the thing is - it's a friggin' dirt bike!!. I mean look at it, it's got horribly big (and skinny) wheels on it. The tires are all knobbly and they handle terribly on asphalt. I hate to harp on but is that chrome on the wheels? What's that all about? It's over 9ft tall too and the front brake looks way too small. All my friends are laughing at me and people on the street are pointing my way - it's just not cool (or me).

Please somebody (MTV?) pimp my ride…

On the bikes arrival in CA, I proceeded to look up old friends for the appropriate Supermoto performance parts and made a few new ones in the process. First order of the day was suspension. I'd met Race Tech's Paul Thebe a few years ago and he'd mentioned more than a couple of times that some suspension help was mine to have, as and when I needed it. Being a Supermoto junkie himself he raved about some mod's that would help the Yamaha perform in this guise, so the forks and rear shock were delivered to his shop in Corona, CA. I think this is my biggest regret when building the original stock suspended XR650RR - because an equation quoted to me over the years is a $1000 worth of suspension is worth $3000 of engine tuning. True? I don't know, so we'll soon find out.

Next up was a search for wheels. I'd heard Aaron Holguins' name a long time before I actually met him. He was one of the original builders of Supermoto wheels and I felt confident he could deliver, especially with a shortage of Excel rims due to the massive growth currently being enjoyed both here in the US and worldwide. In short order Aaron supplied me with some nice Excel 17-inchers replete with gold (for the bling factor, natch) Talon hubs all held together with Aaron's very own choice of beefy spokes. The whole set-up came with spacers that spaced perfectly, and also replacement brake rotor and sprocket bolts, knowing full well that OEM bolts are sometimes casualties in the rules of Supermoto building wars. Pirelli mounted up some sticky Corsa rubbers fore and aft and all was good in the land of sun, silicon and traction.

Vortex stepped up to the proverbial plate with a couple or three sprockets. Knowing my penchant for road-racing perfectly good dirt-bikes they chipped in a 15/38-40 set-up for maximum forward velocity. Cyclemall.net managed to locate a Supermotard specific non O-ring race chain from AFAM that offered a little lighter weight and minimal rolling resistance. Sorted. By the way, while this bike was going through its metamorphic stage it lived quite happily on a Motorsport Supermoto stand. This stand is shorter than an MX stand, giving you an easier time bench pressing your 260lb bike onto it.

Performance-wise the stock WR comes with a couple of restrictions to satisfy the legal department at Yamaha. After a quick call to Yamaha's press guru and fellow Supermoto rider, Brad Banister, a list of "to-do's" was E-mailed to me. First off the snorkel was removed from the airbox, to let it breath a little better, the throttle stop was also adjusted to allow full throttle and a two-stage air filter was added to further enhance intake duties. A grey wire was also "snipped' on the CDI to promote a more aggressive ignition curve, ala YZ450 - race use only, of course, of course.

Courtesy of Uncle Wendell at Lockhart Phillips a full Ti Akrapovic exhaust found its way into the 2Dub garage and onto the project. The system dropped several pounds off of the stock unit, including a weight reduction from the stock Ti header! This goy-geous thing is topped off with a nice little carbon fiber exhaust bracket, because nothing's too good for my ride. This system is a little noisy, but to liberate ponies from little singles, sometimes there's a trade off. I must admit that sure it looks good, but it also produces the power and over-rev that I need for a proper thrashing technique.

For stopping duties I enlisted Jeff Gehrs help from BrakeTech USA, Inc. Jeff supplies top-notch Brembo equipment and it seemed only fair to have Brembo's finest added from top-to-bottom. I mean when was the last time you saw a serious race bike sans Brembo's? To compliment a GP series 4-piston caliper Jeff also supplied one of his self designed full floating 320mmm AXIS brake rotors. I also liberated a Brembo radial master cylinder, remembering how well it worked on the XR-RR project. To tie all this together Adrian of Ride Engineering supplied a set of stainless braided lines. The total effect is absolutely mad braking power, combined with an exquisite feel. This is turning into the six-million-dollar MTV budget bike, but I can't help myself.

With most of the performance issues catered, it was time to go shopping for bling. Why settle for Gordons jewelry when you can have Harry Winston? I pestered the living daylights out of GYT-R (Yamaha's performance parts division) and presented them with a dream shopping list. Bless 'em, 'because they came through with some trick bit and pieces. Like any sportbike you can't have too much carbon fiber. Whilst eating into Yamaha's profit margin for 04' I also opted for the front YZ number plate and a stock TTR125 fender. The former replacing the WR lighting and the latter offering a smaller replacement for the kite size stock front fender. The TTR piece needs no modification to fit too - Cake.

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