Comments on: Yamaha YZR500 OW35K

By: really?

really? — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:19:04 +0000

Part of this wasn’t due to the machine. Although brutal the OW was no where as ridable as the square 4 suzuki RG’s. Kenny, nay anyone who tasted the the OW during 78-79 said you could not open the throttle more than half way below 8000 revs or it would stall. I still can’t imagine how he won on tracks he’d never been on, on a bike so hard to control in his first year.

By: Squizza

Squizza — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:53:48 +0000

Long live King Kenny. For my money he was the greatest of all time. He had an unmatched hunger to win.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:08:40 +0000

Takes me back to my youf! Classic lines. Surely the peak of this era was the ’79 British GP at Silverstone, where the whole of the UK (Sunday afternoon peak viewing on BBC1) saw the finish come down to a tyre width, with Sheene almost on the grass.

I believe the Yellow & Black was Yamaha US colours, presume Yamaha Co. used yellow for maximum returns in the US market? (as Red & White was used by Ago & Read in the mid Seventies, and later on by Sheene)

By: Davo

Davo — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:34:50 +0000

What year did Yamaha start running the bumblebee yellow and black?

By: Sportal

Sportal — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:02:38 +0000

Fantastic machine.

By: Tin Man 2

Tin Man 2 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:37:36 +0000

Great Bike, Those were the days of unlimited race R+D funding. It worked good on the street also in the RZ 350s, until Envo Regs shut it down. Im still waiting for the return of the 2 strokes, With modern Fuel management, decent Fuel Economy and Cleaner Emmissions should be possible.

By: Brooks Moses

Brooks Moses — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:16:26 +0000

The Wikipedia description of the YPVS is sadly lacking in providing enlightenment for those of us who don't already know how the system works and what it looks like, or at least I found it so. This page, unfortunately not in English, has a good diagram about how the valve works; it's the second picture on the page. Once you've seen that, this page has some nice photographs of the valves themselves and the ports, and between those and the general idea of "a cylindrical servo-actuated valve" and "an oval-shaped port", you should be able to see how it works.