2015 Yamaha Yzf-R1

2015 YAMAHA YZF-R1

LONG-TERM

INTRODUCTION

CAN WE MAKE THIS TEN BEST WINNER BETTER?

When we first got a chance to throw a leg over the 2015 Yamaha R1 at the bike's press launch at Sydney Motorsports Park in Australia, it was pretty much love at first ride. This was only reinforced when the “M” won the track portion of our September Turn & Burn shootout and then backed it up with a Ten Best award.

So the Ri was an ideal candidate for a long-term evaluation. Instead of choosing the $5,500 more expensive RiM, we decided the standard Ri would offer more aftermarket opportunities.

At the top of our list, we wanted to increase power to compete with the BMW S1000RR and clean up the mapping a bit. So far, we’ve tried out a CARBlegal Yoshimura slip-on exhaust from Yamaha, but while this $699 accessory might look trick, it offers little in the way of performance improvement. Then we tried Yosh’s closed-course-only Race Series Alpha 3/4 system stainless-steel/carbon ($799) that eliminates the Ri’s catalytic converter; while it didn’t improve power much, it drastically reduced the weight by 9 pounds.

We’d heard great things about Flash Tune’s (ftecu.com) mail-in flash service ($200) for the stock ECU. But we wanted to be hands on, so we ordered the company’s Bench ($460) and Data-Link ($380) ECU flashing kits and did it ourselves. The results were very impressive; with the flash and Yoshimura Alpha pipe, we picked up 8.3 peak horsepower (for 175.7 at the wheel) and about 2 pound-feet of peak torque. More impressive are the massive gains between 4,200 and 8,200 rpm. We’ll talk more about the rideability in our next update, but fueling has been cleaned up dramatically, especially in the formerly herky-jerky Power 1 mode.

Since we had Flash Tune on the horn, we also requested its Auto-Blipper Clutchless Downshifting kit ($800), which provides a feature the 2015 Ri should have stock, in our opinion.

Thus far, the system is the equal of, if not better than, BMW’s.

After 2,700 miles, our rear Bridgestone RS10R tire was smoked, but the front was in great shape. To be fair, the rear tire had a hearty battle with our Dynojet dyno, and the drum won—our fault, as we didn’t tie the rear of the bike down adequately. Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsa ($323) tires in the stock sizes were fitted. Even better, we ordered two sets of Michelin Power Slick Evo tires (see your Michelin race distributor for pricing) to mount to our spare set of wheels for trackdays.

Also with trackdays in mind, we ordered Yosh’s case savers ($299), rear axle blocks ($74.95), Works Oil Filler Plug ($29.95), and Race Stand Stoppers ($33.95).

The fun has just begun.

Blake Conner

YAMAHA YZF-R1

Total miles 0 1959 Next service 0 4000 miles Maintenance costs 0 $445.94 (including tires) Repair costs 0 $0 Average fuel mileage 0 32 mpg Price as tested (2014) 0 $15,490