I took my V-Max on a road trip with some other folks on bikes - about 500mi. total. Our group was cruising pretty effortlessly at about 95 mph most of the way - everyone but me that is - my V-Max was turning about 6,000 rpm! I was too embarassed to ask everyone if we could slow down because I thought my engine was going to explode after a couple of hours. The bike never got hot, made any wierd noises, nothing. It just ran with everyone else. This has to be tearing up the engine over time, though, doesn't it? I guess Yamaha couldn't figure out after twenty years that this bike needs another gear. From what I've heard, the new one isn't any better. What a shame.
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naughtyG
Well-Known Member
On a bike redlining at 9,500rpm, 6000 is actually just about optimal engine speed. Should run pretty much forever like that as long as it's properly lubricated.
If you feel like you need lower cruise revs, you have 2 options on Max:
- get a Venture final drive pumpkin, reduces your revs by 10% (around 500rpm) across the range. Anything from $100-350 on fleaBay and the like.
- get a 5th gear overdrive from Sean Morley. Great as it cuts the revs only in 5th gear, leaving the other 4 unchanged. Way more expensive as you have to drop the motor and split the cases though.
Finally, I reckon you would find that most of your mates' bikes are running similar revs around 100mph, unless they are mile-eating tour bikes such as BMW RT, Goldwings etc
If you feel like you need lower cruise revs, you have 2 options on Max:
- get a Venture final drive pumpkin, reduces your revs by 10% (around 500rpm) across the range. Anything from $100-350 on fleaBay and the like.
- get a 5th gear overdrive from Sean Morley. Great as it cuts the revs only in 5th gear, leaving the other 4 unchanged. Way more expensive as you have to drop the motor and split the cases though.
Finally, I reckon you would find that most of your mates' bikes are running similar revs around 100mph, unless they are mile-eating tour bikes such as BMW RT, Goldwings etc
I've done some rides with The Patriot Guard and a Police Escort. Speeds have ranged from 90 to 100 on trips to The National Cemetery way North of me. The bike has run perfect at those speeds and I've never been overly concerned. True Crotch Rockets Redline much higher and I have some friends that consider 150 MPH Cruising Speed. As long as you are doing proper maintenance and using a good oil The VMax won't have any trouble running at 90 all day long...:biglaugh:
Rollie
Well-Known Member
With exceptions for the state patrol and local law cowboys , 90 is a good cruising speed for motorcycles , as it keeps you ahead of most cagers , and you can stay away from them on the super slabs. Try not to pass on the right side , Kerkers tend to scare 'em a bit ! :rofl_200:
That's only 55-60% of max rpm. Nothing to worry about. Light loads during cruise. Your car probably cruises at 3500-4K at those speeds and they only have a max limit of 6000-6500 rpm.
Sean
Sean
Awesome! Like I said, the bike ran great - the problem was in my head. 6,000 just seems like a lot of revs. I'm changing the oil every 1,500 mi. with a new Yamaha filter. I just won't worry about it and ride! Thanks.
mavgrab302
Well-Known Member
My two cents is this. the higher the revs the more wear. for example check boats out, I have a 78 Galaxie jet boat that I had to rebuild once I bought it, it had 328 hours when I bought it. In a drive reducing car with transmission going 70 miles an hour thats only around 22,000 miles. Not sure what the official hours are on boats these days but oil changes are alot more numerous as well.
v8s, any internal combustion engine and bike engines although different in size shape etc... they are mechanically simialar, unless your talking about turbines or even a pulse engine which has no moving parts. Back to internal combustion engines, higher revs equals more wear, over revving without a load, bad up keep, and just ragging all have their effects, of course bike engine are made to rev higher to stay in a powerband, you almost have to run 4,000rpm atleast on the max to even do some speed limits. The bike wasn't designed to cruise with big v twins at 90 all day long but rather run 1/4 miles at a drag strip. Out of all the bike I have ever run, keeping in mind I'm not talking about a kawasaki 454 two cylinder, the vmax transmission is geared low for just quick acceleration and not cruising, in my opinion.
Personally I try to cruise around 60-65, which is 3800 to 4300 rpm. Vmax should have been made like the V65 hondas in my view with a large OD gear, the gear is so tall it really doesn't pull like the fitfh gear but rather was designed to keep a steady low rpm cruise.
v8s, any internal combustion engine and bike engines although different in size shape etc... they are mechanically simialar, unless your talking about turbines or even a pulse engine which has no moving parts. Back to internal combustion engines, higher revs equals more wear, over revving without a load, bad up keep, and just ragging all have their effects, of course bike engine are made to rev higher to stay in a powerband, you almost have to run 4,000rpm atleast on the max to even do some speed limits. The bike wasn't designed to cruise with big v twins at 90 all day long but rather run 1/4 miles at a drag strip. Out of all the bike I have ever run, keeping in mind I'm not talking about a kawasaki 454 two cylinder, the vmax transmission is geared low for just quick acceleration and not cruising, in my opinion.
Personally I try to cruise around 60-65, which is 3800 to 4300 rpm. Vmax should have been made like the V65 hondas in my view with a large OD gear, the gear is so tall it really doesn't pull like the fitfh gear but rather was designed to keep a steady low rpm cruise.
Rusty McNeil
Well-Known Member
Boats, especially jet boats and inboard i/o arrangements, run almoot at full max load when cruising, since cruise speeds for these things are usually pretty close to the top speed most of the time. a jet boat running 60 is basically doing a dyno pull for the life of the motor.
I've put 45,000 on my max, mostly high way at 80-90 and it's still fine, that's in addition to a couple hundred passes at the strip. The load at 6000 rpm is pretty light, and as Sean said before, the true relevance is more likely the percentage of max RPM. I used to feel sorry for my Vmax turning so hard, but don't anymore. It's made for that shit....
The Vmax motor is incredibly durable, I've never heard of anyone breaking these engines unless it was a missed shift (valve float due to sending the engine spinning up past 10K-11K rpm) or a popped o-ring caused oiling system failure.
You aren't going to hurt it.
A Harley running 65 is prolly a lot closer to it's max rpm than a Vmax.
Yes, I wish it had another gear...but only for the mileage..
tugla
Well-Known Member
+1, dont worry man, 6grand is nothing for it. Its designed to run, lugging it around at low low rpm isnt the answer. Like others said its just purring around there.. Chg the oil maintain/tune it up regularly and enjoy the drive. Get a Tboost if you wanna shut the vboost off if you end up just above 6grand and dont want the valves opening.
The Vmax is a derivative of the Venture which is a road bike designed to do more miles then about any other motorcycle out there (just like the gold wing). The vmax gearing is 10% revvier then the venture and the final fifth gear is only slightly different (not including the tour deluxe which we get the OD fifth gear for). BUT, to offset that the Vmax used lighter rods/pistons and valvetrain. The lower end isn't going to care and even the venture valvetrain won't care at that RPM.
The higher revs will wear faster simply due to more passes the pison does up and down the bore. BUT, the rod stroke ratio is very good and much better then most car engines so the wear and tear on the sides of the piston bores isn't as bad. It's not pushing against the sides of the cylinder bore as hard in simple terms.
With proper care and maintenance 100K miles is well withing it's operating range.
Will a late model car engine out last the vmax engine? Probably. But that's going to be more related to it's driving habits. Each time you run the engine hard under load and to it's max rpm you accelerate the wear. Basically you can think each 1/4 mile pass is like 100miles of street driving. (they used to say 1000 miles but that's back to the car engines again).
Sean
The higher revs will wear faster simply due to more passes the pison does up and down the bore. BUT, the rod stroke ratio is very good and much better then most car engines so the wear and tear on the sides of the piston bores isn't as bad. It's not pushing against the sides of the cylinder bore as hard in simple terms.
With proper care and maintenance 100K miles is well withing it's operating range.
Will a late model car engine out last the vmax engine? Probably. But that's going to be more related to it's driving habits. Each time you run the engine hard under load and to it's max rpm you accelerate the wear. Basically you can think each 1/4 mile pass is like 100miles of street driving. (they used to say 1000 miles but that's back to the car engines again).
Sean
mavgrab302
Well-Known Member
it's undeniable the the faster anything moves agaisnt eachother the more friction or wear and those parts, which in effect causes heat. ....
I'm sure the vmax can take 6000 rpm cruise all day long but it is creating more wear and heat on rods, crank, rings, valves, etc, etc...
I agree the vmax is bullet proof, hell I cruise around 60 but when I get the chance I red line it on take offs probably more than I should...I have cruised around 80 just dont do it for hours on end.
Yeah in the case of a jetboat it is under full load only at high rpms just like anything else because of the way a jet pump creates force, the pump actually in a way controls how high you can rev, theres a point on a pump that no matter what horsepower your pushing to it it will not create more force and only way around that is buy a different pitch impellar or build your engine to the pump you want. Mine is balanced & blueprinted, and sent to Langcourt for piston sleeve matching, polished, it's built to run,, nothing spared for a natural aspiration engine, but even with all those precautions you cannot defeat wear at high rpms only help, it's just impossible. And just like the bike, I run my boat pretty hard knowing that eventually my heavy foot will lead to something bad, but hey it sure looks cool throwing a rooster tail...lol
<img src="http://usera.ImageCave.com/mavgrab/Boat/engppaint1.JPG">
<img src="http://usera.ImageCave.com/mavgrab/Boat/lakee.JPG">
<img src="http://usera.ImageCave.com/mavgrab/Boat/eengi.JPG">
I'm sure the vmax can take 6000 rpm cruise all day long but it is creating more wear and heat on rods, crank, rings, valves, etc, etc...
I agree the vmax is bullet proof, hell I cruise around 60 but when I get the chance I red line it on take offs probably more than I should...I have cruised around 80 just dont do it for hours on end.
Yeah in the case of a jetboat it is under full load only at high rpms just like anything else because of the way a jet pump creates force, the pump actually in a way controls how high you can rev, theres a point on a pump that no matter what horsepower your pushing to it it will not create more force and only way around that is buy a different pitch impellar or build your engine to the pump you want. Mine is balanced & blueprinted, and sent to Langcourt for piston sleeve matching, polished, it's built to run,, nothing spared for a natural aspiration engine, but even with all those precautions you cannot defeat wear at high rpms only help, it's just impossible. And just like the bike, I run my boat pretty hard knowing that eventually my heavy foot will lead to something bad, but hey it sure looks cool throwing a rooster tail...lol
<img src="http://usera.ImageCave.com/mavgrab/Boat/engppaint1.JPG">
<img src="http://usera.ImageCave.com/mavgrab/Boat/lakee.JPG">
<img src="http://usera.ImageCave.com/mavgrab/Boat/eengi.JPG">
mavgrab302
Well-Known Member
well said sean....
We rode my old 650 Maxim years ago 2 hours straight at 120+ on the interstate (even passed a few cops going the other way but they never did bother coming afterward). The only thing the bike suffered (with it's air cooled older design engine) is the exhaust went to shit. It was pretty rough to begin with and the extra heat killed it.
I've ridden the vmax at high rpm's for a very long time too and one big difference is the fact that this water cooled engine maintains it's cylinder temps far far better then those old air cooled engines.
There isn't going to be much heat generated through the bearings and with adequate oil pressure it's not going to be a problem there either.
The heat in the combustion chamber is sucked out by the water-cooled heads. The heat is also a coeffecient of HP and Torque created under a certain load and throttle position. That position is very low under a cruise condition so still well within it's normal operating realm.
Sean
I've ridden the vmax at high rpm's for a very long time too and one big difference is the fact that this water cooled engine maintains it's cylinder temps far far better then those old air cooled engines.
There isn't going to be much heat generated through the bearings and with adequate oil pressure it's not going to be a problem there either.
The heat in the combustion chamber is sucked out by the water-cooled heads. The heat is also a coeffecient of HP and Torque created under a certain load and throttle position. That position is very low under a cruise condition so still well within it's normal operating realm.
Sean
if 6k cruising rpm was bad for it youd have 5 or 6 people joining on here every day posting for help about their blown motors! lol
the bike will be wrecked/stolen long before the engine wears out
a honda 750 shadow at 85 mph on the interstate would literally be wide open throttle
the bike will be wrecked/stolen long before the engine wears out
a honda 750 shadow at 85 mph on the interstate would literally be wide open throttle
naughtyG
Well-Known Member
Talking about revvy - when I had my Kawi 454 LTD, that thing would cruise at 85mph near 8000rpm. Did it a lot for quite long time - no probs at all. That twin was half of a Ninja 908cc straight four engine, and it simply liked being revved.
