{"id":716,"date":"2009-03-25T14:04:10","date_gmt":"2009-03-25T14:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=716"},"modified":"2022-06-21T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T14:14:07","slug":"yamaha-r1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/yamaha-r1\/","title":{"rendered":"Cranky Genius: 2009 Yamaha R1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese invention of the year: Yamaha\u2019s cross-plane crankshaft
\nBang 270\u00ba bang 180\u00ba bang 90\u00ba bang 180\u00ba<\/p>\n

\"yamaha_r_1-500x3751\"<\/figure>\n

If Japan has been known for one thing when it comes to cars and motorbikes, it is innovation. This year, Yamaha\u2019s cross-plane crank engine, which appears in their R1 Superbike is sure to make some (asymmetrical) waves.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a good year for Japanese inventiveness. We\u2019ve got Showa\u2019s Big Piston Fork (fitted to the Suzuki GSX-R1000K9 and Kawasaki ZX-6R); Honda\u2019s electronic braking for the CBR6 and Blade; and Yamaha\u2019s \u2018just like Rossi\u2019 cross-plane crank. If you want useful, the Honda brakes are the easy winner. Trouble is, they\u2019re so clever you don\u2019t know they\u2019re working. Same goes for the new Showa forks, unless you\u2019re braking hard into a bend.<\/p>\n

But you can\u2019t ignore the R1\u2019s new crank. It looks different, it feels different, and boy does it sound different. Although Yamaha patented a cross-plane crank in the 1960s, this one dates back to 2003. They\u2019d just tempted Valentino Rossi away from Honda, and they needed something special to turn their dog of an M1 into a MotoGP winner. Of four experimental \u2018growler\u2019 engines at the Sepang winter test, one stood out.<\/p>\n

At the time most commentators called it the \u2018Big Bang\u2019 engine. We now know that a better description might be \u2018Big Grip\u2019. That\u2019s what Yamaha are claiming, at any rate.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s so great about uneven firing pulses? They are certainly nothing new. For more than 100 years singles, V-twins and some parallel twins and triples have delivered uneven pulses to the rear wheel, while fours have stayed regular. But the last 20 years have seen a growing consensus (first in 500s, now in MotoGP) that uneven firing intervals are superior.<\/p>\n

The traditional explanation is that an engine with an irregular beat gives the rear tyre more time to recover between pulses, so the rider can use more throttle before it spins up. But if you cluster all the pulses together, who\u2019s to say they won\u2019t make the tyre let go more easily? With the new R1, Yamaha offer a more credible reason. They say their system creates a more direct feel for the rider between throttle and rear tyre. And it does that by stripping out the undesirable \u2018momentum effect\u2019 of a traditional four-cylinder crankshaft.<\/p>\n

To get your head around this idea, think about what an engine actually deals out to the rear wheel. Firstly, it transmits the combustion force. Open the throttle, the engine gulps more fuel and air, the burn does its thing, and you get a bigger \u2018whomp\u2019 acting on the tops of the pistons. Simple and controllable. But there\u2019s also a secondary effect. As a conventional four-cylinder crankshaft rotates, it creates a stop-start signature. All four pistons (and their crank web balancing weights) reach their highest and lowest speeds at the same time. Yamaha call this \u2018inertial torque\u2019, and describe it rising and falling in a sine wave.<\/p>\n

This fluttering, say Yamaha, gets in the way of you feeling what\u2019s going on. And there\u2019s nothing you can do about it. Enter the crossplane crankshaft. Viewed from one end, there\u2019s a crankpin every 90 degrees (north, south, east and west). So as the crank spins there are always two pistons going flat out when the other two are stopped. The inherent architecture of Ducatis creates the same effect.<\/p>\n

Is it really any use? In MotoGP, it\u2019s contributed to three world titles in five years. On the road, the advantage isn\u2019t so clear, unless you yearn to own a straight four that sounds like a Vee. The 2009 R1 is a peaky beast, and low-speed running is \u2013 well, lumpy. The Suzuki and Honda rivals are tough competition, too. We\u2019ll have to wait for hot summer tarmac to know for sure.<\/p>\n

\"flat_crank\"<\/figure>\n

Doh. What is a crankshaft again? A crankshaft is just a device that turns up-and-down motion into round-and-round \u2013 for example, the pedals on a bicycle. Naturally, the pedals are spaced opposite each other, so that one of your legs is pushing when the other one can\u2019t. Most four-cylinder engines use the same principle: the pistons (the things that transmit the \u2018shove\u2019 derived from burning fuel and air in a confined space) rise and fall in pairs. Because an individual cylinder only fires once every two revolutions, the crankshaft as a whole receives a one-cylinder pulse of power once every half revolution, or 180 degrees. Yamaha\u2019s new crossplane crankshaft is different. There\u2019s no direct comparison with a bicycle because the bike has four pistons, and you\u2019ve only got two legs. But imagine the angle between your pedal cranks being something like 100 degrees, rather than 180. It would feel horrible. But the R1 revs 200 times faster than your legs, so it\u2019s not bothered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You have to admire the new Yamaha R1’s crossplane crank<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[332,6],"tags":[251,2077,2815,247],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-features","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-japanese-bikes","tag-yamaha","manufacturers-yamaha-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCranky Genius: 2009 Yamaha R1 - Influx<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You have to admire the new Yamaha R1's crossplane crank\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/yamaha-r1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cranky Genius: 2009 Yamaha R1 - 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