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By Paul Carruthers, Photos by Fran Kuhn
Article excerpts used by permission from Cycle News | 
Getting things just right on a 600cc Super-sport bike these days is a difficult task that usually involves compromise. If you go after more top-end power, you do so at the risk of losing bottom-end or midrange. Or both. And vice versa. The bottom line: You can’t eat your cake and have it too.
But Yamaha apparently likes cake, so its engineers went after it in a big way to try to figure out how to fix some of the things that ailed the previous R6. What they came up with is a new, updated version for 2008.
To show off exactly what they’d been able to accomplish with some 50 changes, including engine modifications (including a bumped-up compression ratio), chassis changes, suspension mods, a remapped ICU and even a bit of a change to the already popular look of the R6, Yamaha elected to take a handful of us to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for a wide-open day of riding on one of America’s great race tracks.
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| The changes to the Yamaha's look for 2008 are barely noticable, as it retains the popular R6 look. |
But since its lack of midrange was one of the main things we disliked about last year’s bike in our annual shootout, it was the midrange I concentrated on the most in those early laps. And the timing couldn’t have been better, as I was rarely in the right gear and not pushing hard enough to be running the bike at the top of the rpm range. Instead, I was right in the zone where last year’s bike would bog miserably. With this year’s bike making its maximum torque at 1000 rpm less than last year (at 10,500 rpm), according to Yamaha, riding it around in the wrong gear wasn’t nearly as painful as the same task would have been last year.
So, to what do we owe this change in the midrange and the fact that we can say adios to the dips and valleys in the torque curve? Well, Yamaha says that most of the credit should go to the YCC-I, which is not to be confused with the YCC-T. Last year’s R6 had Yamaha’s Chip Controlled Throttle (YCC-T) system (fly-by-wire), but not the Chip Controlled Intake (YCC-I) system that was featured on the R1.
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This year, however, it gets both, and thus the difference. The basis for the system is still the 41mm throttle bodies, but while the mapping system on those has been revised to improve throttle response, the R6 now gets the variable-length intake trumpets that switch from tall (66mm) to short (26mm) at 13,700 rpm, Yamaha says. So when the length of the trumpets is tall, midranges improve, and when the engine gets into the high rpms, the trumpets shrink, thus improving high-rpm performance. Voilà... a wider powerband and smoother delivery of that power through the rev range. And isn’t that every 600 rider’s fantasy?
Other changes to get more oomph out of the new R6 come via a bumped-up compression ratio (13.1:1 instead of 12.8:1), new domed pistons (slightly more convexed), a change in exhaust-valve timing (exhaust-camshaft angle has changed one degree while the intake camshaft is unchanged from last year), valves springs that are now constructed of an improved alloy, wider connecting rod bearings, and a new journal bearing with increased oil supply (the holes are 30-percent bigger). Remember, this bike was the horsepower king already last year, with our bike putting out 106 horsepower.
The slipper clutch on the Yamaha is top-notch, and it hasn’t changed from last year except that now the amount of slip can be adjusted. Whoever adjusted the slip-per clutch on our test bikes knew what they were doing, because you could bang downshifts like they were going out of style with nary a worry – even the two downshifts when things were a tad on the light side cresting the hill on the entrance to the Corkscrew required almost zero thought. The slipper clutch and the quality of the Yamaha’s transmission allow you to focus on one thing and one thing only – riding the bike.
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| The R6 retains its MotoGP look-alike stubby exhaust. |
The four-into-two-into-one exhaust system on the R6 now gets a crossover pipe between the center cylinders that is 83-percent larger than before. The EXUP and the silencer are both titanium and the system gets three 3-way catalyzers.
The chassis on the new R6 also gets a Mulligan, with a brand new frame, subframe, swingarm (more rigid in the pivot area, with ribs added in the casted area and the pivot section getting a thicker material), revised suspension, and slight changes to the brakes and completely new tires. The geometry of the R6’s chassis is unchanged and still sits at 24 degrees of rake with 3.8 inches of trail. And it still has the same 54.3-inch wheelbase.
The rigidity of the frame has been changed to improve front-end feel, and the changes have worked. Put it this way: Every time I lost the front, I felt it. But that was only in the wee hours of the morning, when things were chilly on the Monterey Peninsula. Otherwise, the R6 was its normal razor-sharp self. Tell it where you want it to be and it goes there. And stays there. It’s a quick-steering package that showed no twitchiness at all – at least on the billiard-table-like Laguna Seca Raceway.
Despite the fact that everyone loved the way the R6 handled last year, Yamaha still made some changes. The frame now has more rigid castings in the mounting areas (i.e., a thicker head pipe and motor mounts) and less elsewhere (the frame rails are half a millimeter thinner), and the cross member between the two main spars has been ditched completely. The magnesium die-cast subframe (a first for Yamaha!) is a pound lighter than the previous subframe, which Yamaha says improves mass centralization.
The triple-clamp area of the chassis gets more rigidity in an effort to reduce the amount of flex under heavy braking while also giving better feedback.
The R6 was both stable and nimble at Laguna, without compromise to either in order to obtain the other. As for the bike’s stability, the high-speed run over the hill that is turn one was only a test of courage – as there was absolutely no lingering doubts as to whether or not the bike would retain its stability while leaned over at speed. The same goes for when you needed to flick the bike from side to side in a hurry – such as in the Corkscrew. It did so without much effort and with confidence.
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| The fork's outer tubes are 10mm longer and the spring rates have been increased. | Suspension changes are also slight. The fork now features tubes that are 10mm longer, with the clamping surface of the bottom clamp increased 5 mm (35 mm to 40 mm), and the fork also gets a spring-rate increase of 2.5 percent to match the more rigid feel of the chassis. The big change, however, is to the fork’s adjustability, with the four-way adjustable fork now having a wider range of adjustment, offering more opportunity for fine-tuning.
Ditto on the back end, with the smaller and lighter shock also getting more clicks – and thus more adjustability. The new R6 also gets a new ride-height adjuster (7mm lower at the axle center), which makes the bike accommodate different-sized tires more readily – something last year’s model didn’t have, which made the fitment of some tires difficult.
The 2008 R6 also has a revised riding position with a more aggressive design, putting the rider further forward and lower (the handlebars are 5mm forward and dropped 5mm), thus putting more weight on the front wheel. The rear can also be dropped and the front raised –just in case someone has plans to use this bike as a commuter and not just a track-day bike.
On the track, the bike was comfortable with the relationship between handlebars and footpeg, seating position and footpegs and handlebars basically ideal, but it remains to be seen what it will be like on the street, when you’re not focused entirely on going as fast as humanly possible.
The styling changes on the new R6 are slight, with the bike retaining its popular identity. The headlight cowling has changed a twitch, mostly to smooth the airflow, and the side of the fairing has been redesigned a little on its upper edges. Ditto for the fuel tank and a new tail piece. But it’s still an R6, and why wouldn’t it be? After all, not many sportbikes can match the appeal of the R6 and its sibling R1. The bike will be available in Yamaha Blue and white, all-black Raven (with magnesium-colored wheels and “tuner”-inspired logos), Liquid Silver (also with the mag-colored wheels) and the Cadium Yellow with flames. The first three colors will carry an MSRP of $9599, with the fancy-shmancy, flamed-out yellow version costing $200 more.
Yamaha’s research shows that the average R6 rider is 30.9 years old and rides some 6300 miles a year. But it also shows that the normal R6 rider likes to take his bike to track days or go racing (a 42-percent increase in track miles from R6 owners) and will likely take the com-promise of a less-than-ideal street bike in order to have a track bike that makes his/her buddies drool.
But all that information didn’t stop Yamaha from trying to make the R6 appeal to everybody, and what they went about doing to the new bike can be summarized in one word – improvement. As in improved power in the mid- to high-rpm range, improved front-end feel, improved acceleration from the exit of the corners, and improved adjustability for both street and track.
Perhaps you can eat your cake and have it too.
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