Comments on: Calspeed FZR-R4 (Bike Reports) (News)

By: rusbravo

rusbravo — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:08:06 +0000

um… a friend of mine built this: http://www.fzrarchives.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=40087

he won a lot of races with it at BIR, he had motor on most of the SV650s (all of the ones that didn’t asplode during the race season) he has some fun stories about yamaha engineers asking him what he was up to and why he needed parts for a 20 year old bike.

I have one of his a FZR400 rolling chassis in my garage, i need to get on that project.

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By: RRocket

RRocket — Wed, 11 May 2011 03:34:05 +0000

I’ve owned 2 FZR400s. But compared to modern bikes, I don’t see what the point is in making this FZR-R4. An R1 has nearly an identical wheelbase and dry weight as an original FZR400, let alone an R6.

If you must have a 400cc bike, the best and most exotic of the crop is the VFR400 NC30. A mini version (down to the single sided swing arm) of the luscious RC30. And the v4 400cc engine is a gem.

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By: Slob

Slob — Sat, 07 May 2011 20:54:41 +0000

“If you’ve ridden one, you’ll remember it as one of the best-handling sportbikes you’ve ridden.”

Hell yes! It wasn’t even so much that it was the best handling bike that I’ve owned, but it certainly was the one that I “clicked” with the best until now! Dragging knee was dead easy, bouncing off bumps with the handlebars flapping madly, burying myself behind the tiny fairing to try and get a bit more speed, and the cherry on the cake: overtaking and R1s, R6s, Fireblades and even a Bimota SB5 on tight, twisty roads!

The charm of the FZR400 (and other race-replica 400s and 250s) is that you can ride them and feel like a riding god: unlike bigger, modern bikes you get plenty of entertainment at relatively low speeds.

As for the American readers out there: the 250 and 400cc class was created mainly to satisfy the restrictions in the various bike licence classes in Japan. New Zealanders and Australians had the good fortune to get plenty of these as unofficial imports (“grey bikes”). I suspect these classes still exist, but perhaps not in the race-replica category any more.

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By: mxs

mxs — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:04:24 +0000

Forgot to say, I love my FZR250. Will take it over any 600 any given day. Easier on tires, easier on gas, more fun in the twisties and harder to get in trouble with every stricter getting traffic laws.

60 less horses than 600 ss? I cannot really say, accept for pulling the pin on a straight piece of highway. But who likes to ride that? OK, maybe Florida, but other than that? Not me.

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By: mxs

mxs — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:59:58 +0000

Sadly, North America doesn’t get small cc bikes (nor they did have undertsanding for small cars … try to buy 1.6L 4 cylinder car; finally we are getting some, but that’s only thanks to the oil prices) and never will.

Bigger is better ….. screw the handling and factor ….

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By: ROXX

ROXX — Fri, 06 May 2011 13:43:24 +0000

Memories here;
I used to race one of these at Willow Springs 89-91 in the formula III class.
Nabbed my share of trophies too, except when Nick Inatcshe would show up on his fZR400.

Had a blast harassing the large bikes in open practice sessions.

Without a doubt, one of the funnest bikes I’ve ever owned.

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By: Ruefus

Ruefus — Fri, 06 May 2011 08:10:25 +0000

“I just don’t understand why the 600+ sports bikes are getting lighter/faster/better, and the 250-400 bikes are either dying or becoming slow sports-tourers. Is there something I don’t get?”

It’s very, very simple – no one will buy the bikes you suggest. Not in America anyway.

It’s been tried and failed repeatedly. Motorcycles in America are thought of mostly as toys not tools. Wanted but not required.

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By: kpaul

kpaul — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:08:19 +0000

kawajez makes a great point. If I was the moto God I would have a tiered license system and I would mandate manufacturers to make 250 cc, 400 cc, 600cc, 800cc, and 1000cc bikes. V-Twins cruisers would be outlawed just kidding.

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By: Matto

Matto — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:04:37 +0000

The CBR250RR’s aren’t exactly what you’d call a fast bike, but they’re great fun. They don’t have huge power, they are peaky, and if you’re big or heavy, then you add a lot of weight (percentage-wise) to the bike. As Tok and Kawajez say, up until recently they were the weapon of choice for “normal” riders trying to get their MC license over here in Aus. The “insane” ones went straight for the 250 2-smokers (and, for the most part, promptly killed themselves) – there was no power-to-weight restrictions, only the rule that if you’d never ridden before, 250cc was your max capacity, and go for it.

Since the new rules have come in (max 600cc, power to weight restrictions – much more sensible) the bottom has fallen out of the old 250cc sportsbike market. As the others have said, it wasn’t uncommon for people to pay $8k for a freshly imported (but 10yr old, second-hand Ex-Japan) and resprayed grey-market CBR250 or Ninja 250. They looked pretty, which, when you’re 17, is the most important thing anyway. The upside was that a year later when you qualified for your open license, you would be able to sell it for that same money to someone else. These days, well, here’s a bikepoint link that will either make you very happy or very sad : http://tinyurl.com/62owapn

Having learnt to ride on a CBR250RR with cams and other such niceties, would I go back to a small capacity bike? Probably not. I’m a tall, lanky beggar, so bigger bikes fit me a lot better. The CBR (and a friend’s VFR400 that I spent some time with) were more comfortable for me to ride whilst sitting on the pillion pad. Tuned up and running right though (it rarely was), that little VFR was every bit as quick through the corners as a mate’s much heavier but more powerful CBR1000. On the whole though, I’m less of a corner-carver and more a lazy, long distance rider, so a big capacity motor to make the gearbox semi-redundant has always been my poison. It’s just a better “all-rounder” for me.

I think Tok nailed it though – “Yesterday’s big is tomorrow’s small” – you only have to look how big the current crop of “small” cars are compared to 10 yrs ago – people equate value to size and are happy with bigger things. Add in emissions and noise regs, and I doubt we’ll see a return to small capacity bikes in any meaningful way any time soon, as sad as that may be. I miss the smell of 2-stroke on a Sunday morning…

Thanks!
Matto

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By: Mark P.

Mark P. — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:57:07 +0000

A lot of the cost associated with current sport bikes are due to R&D costs that are amortized over increasingly shorter model lives. Since there is nothing equivalent to it these days, they could just dust off the tooling from the previous CBR250rr and CBR400rr, de-restrict them (they were restricted in the Japan market), update the emissions, and sell them as is with virtually no R&D investment…the R&D investment costs were probably amortized on these bikes a long time ago. The cost should then be way lower than what you are thinking. The only thing providing upward pressure on price now would be how strong the yen is vs. the dollar right now, since Japan stupidly refuses to devalue its currency.

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