Final Drive Gear Oil Change Yamaha Virago 1100 89

Yamaha XV 1100 Virago

Make Model	Yamaha XV 1100 Virago
Yr	1989 - 92
Engine	Four stroke, 75� V-twin cylinder,, SOHC. 2 valve per cylinder
Capacity	1063 cc / 64.9 cu-in
Bore x Stroke	95 ten 75 mm
Cooling System	Air cooled
Pinch Ratio	8.three:1
Induction	two x Mikuni BST40 carburetors
Ignition	Digital
Starting	Electric
Max Power	61.7 hp / 45.four kW @ 6000 rpm
Max Power Rear Tyre	57.9 hp @ 6000 rpm
Max Torque	8.vii kgf-m / 85.3 Nm @ 3000 rpm
Clutch	Wet multi-plate clutch
Transmission	v Speed
Final Drive	Shaft
Frame	Pressed steel backbone
Front end Break	38mm Telescopic fork
Front Wheel Travel	150 mm / 5.9 in
Rear Suspension	Dual shocks, 5-mode preload adjustment.
Rear Wheel Travel	97 mm / 3.8 in
Forepart Brakes	2x 282mm discs
Rear Brakes	Drum
Front Tyre	100/90-19 57H
Rear Tyre	140/90-15 Grand/C 70H
Rake	32�
Trail	129 mm / 5.one in
Dimensions	Length 2285 mm / 90.0 in Width 840 mm / 33 in Height 1190 mm / 47 in
Wheelbase	1525 mm / 60.0 in
Seat Height	715 mm / 28.1 in
Dry Weight	221 kg / 487.two lbs
Wet Weight	241 kg / 531.2 lbs
Fuel Capacity	xvi.viii Litres / iv.iv US gal
Consumption Average	17.0 km/lit
Braking 60 - 0 / 100 - 0	13.6 m / 40.7 m
Standing � Mile	13.2 sec / 156.iii km/h
Top Speed	187.9 km/h / 116.7 mph
Road Test	Bike World 1986

The Yamaha Virago was Yamaha's first 5-twin cruiser motorcycle, and ane of the earliest mass-produced motorcycles with a mono-shock rear suspension. Originally sold with a 750 cc (46 cu in) engine in 1981, Yamaha soon added 500 cc (31 cu in) and 900 cc (55 cu in) versions.

The bike was redesigned in 1984, switching from a rear mono-shock to a dual-shock pattern, and adding a tear-drib shaped gas tank. That year, Harley-Davidson, fearful of the inroads in the US marketplace made by the Virago and other new Japanese cruiser-mode motorcycles, pushed for a tariff on imported bikes over 700 cc.

Yamaha replaced the 750 cc engine with a 699 cc version to avert the tariff, while the 920 cc engine grew to 1000 cc, and later on 1100 cc.

In the late 1980s a 250 cc Virago was added. A short production of 125 cc was besides manufactured. Yamaha made an XV125, XV250, XV400, XV500, XV535, XV700, XV750, XV920R, XV1000/TR1, and an XV1100, with the XV400SCLX being the rarest.

The larger-displacement Viragos were eventually phased out of product, replaced past the V-Star and Road Star series of motorbikes. The last motorbike to bear the Virago name was the 2007 Virago 250. For 2008 it was renamed the 5-Star 250. According to Motorcyclist mag, the early Virago has a design flaw in the starter organization. This magazine states that the starter's defect exists in early on Virago models made in yr 1981, 1982 and 1983.

Road Test 1989

Before the first Virago hit U.S. shores in 1981, Japanese motorcycle companies had followed an unspoken agreement that the large V-twin niche was reserved for America's own manufacturer. Yamaha slyly skirted the unspeakable by making the Virago a different sort of auto�one that nicked rather than blew away the Milwaukee balderdash's-centre. It was an immediate success.

Only in one case Yamaha'south toe was in the door, there was no closing it. Other Japanese factories throbbed their way into America's garages with their own V-engined customs. By 1984, Yamaha marketing experts couldn't help noticing the success of Honda'due south Magna and Shadow 750s�far closer H-D clones than the Virago. Buyers responded to the additional flash, and to the more traditional Yankee look.

While the Japanese manufacturers were just showtime to open bespeak-blank fire at one another on the sport bike front, many American motorcyclists-58 percent of new wheel purchasers in 1983, to be precise�cared piddling about those machines. Of a total 400,000 street motorcycles sold in the U.Due south. that year, 233,000 were "cruisers."

In 1984 the Virago'southward loins were re-girded accordingly. Twin shocks replaced the original Monoshock rear end, footpegs were mounted way up front end on the engine cases, twin chrome pipes flowed from the exhaust ports, and a sissy bar sprouted aft of a more stepped seat. The more American Viragos moved like proverbial hotcakes, and a lesson was learned. Custom cruisers didn't need LCD instrument clusters and sophisticated on-board computers, like the '82 XV920 Virago had; they needed simplicity, and style, and big throbbing engines.

That 1984 Virago is all the same with us today with even more than throb. Its original 981 cc displacement was obtained by boring its 920cc predecessor 3mm larger; and in 1986, a stroke increase pushed displacement to its current 1063cc size. Though flywheel weight was also added with the stroke increase for smoother ability commitment, the air-cooled, two-valve, oversquare Yamaha nonetheless is the about gratuitous-revving of the big twins every bit well equally the smoothest.

Speaking of rpm, tables turn very fast in the international motorbike concern. In sobering dissimilarity to the 233,000 customs sold in 1983, the motorcycle industry sold just under 92,000 last year according a Yamaha official�and a third of those were Harley-Davidsons. The cost gap that once made Japanese customs impossible to ignore has all but evaporated. The Virago is still at the bottom of the price line at $5500, with Suzuki'due south big Intruder occupying the high end at $6500. But all big Japanese cruisers are at present priced dangerously close to 1200 Sportster territory, and Yamaha expects that Harleys volition account for fully one-half of the custom market in the 1990s.

Custom cruisers all the same accounted for 32 percent of Yamaha's total bicycle revenue concluding yr, and so there tin be no thought of discontinuing the line, but the sagging dollar likewise renders expensive upgrading unfeasible. This twelvemonth's Virago differs from last year'southward in colour only. In the Virago'south case, that's not a bad thing.

Sport-bicycle riders who sight along their noses at the Virago might be surprised at how well it works on unfamiliar two-lanes. The Virago has no intention or take chances of sucking headlights from GSXRs, only it'south no pooch either. Pumping 6 to 8 psi of air into the fork (one valve fills both tubes) cures its mushiness, and gives reasonable medium-speed Ground Clearance while yet allowing amateurs the stardom of peg-dragging and showing off planed heels. Y'all tin can normally just exit the transmission in fifth. What'due south this? Unexpected decreasing radius bend? Roll off the throttle and chassis attitude barely changes thanks to the stiff rear shocks and pumped-upwards fork; ringlet back on when the coast is clear and advance smoothly away. Virago brakes are the best in cruiserville, calorie-free and powerful.

The Virago is the lightest and quickest steering of its large-twin competitors, despite 32 degrees of rake and v inches trail. While rake and trail numbers similar those were last seen on a sport bicycle in the early seventies, they are relatively steep and short past current custom standards. At 537 pounds wet, the Virago undercuts the next lightest cruiser�the 1400 Intruder�by 36 pounds. It'southward as well the shortest, with a wheelbase of 60 inches in a class where the norm is 4 or 5 inches more. The smallness of the bike once cramped taller riders, but last yr's revisions included a handlebar bend that moved paw position frontwards i.6 inches and upward 1.3, and footpegs were pushed almost 2 inches forrad.

While Yamaha may have reacted to complaints about the cramped riding position, it even so has work to exercise on the rear shock absorbers. Set to the least pre- loaded position, the springs are too strong for riders nether 150 pounds, and the ride is worsened by unsophisticated compression damping. That can be painful on the Virago, which positions all the rider'southward weight squarely on his coccyx. The shocks are adjustable for rebound damping, but it's hard to tell if twisting the collars really has any effect other than to satisfy the rider'due south need to tinker. The Virago'southward rear finish spends a lot of time in the air over rough roads if you lot insist on speed.

As in the beginning Virago, the engine hangs from the pressed steel backbone via oversize cylinder head studs, and information technology is all the same one of the more polite large-displacement twins on the road. Vibration is no stranger to big twins, and the Virago is no exception, just its shivering never becomes bothersome until rpm exceeds about 4000. By 4500 rpm, the handlebar begins to experience like a loftier-voltage cable; footpegs and seat, and the rider's eyeballs join in around 5000. Redline is set at 7000 rpm, but there's no advantage at all for revving the engine that far. Any speed beyond about 75 mph or 4200 rpm is really not what this bike is well-nigh. The Virago would do good from taller gearing; in top gear its big engine spins nearly every bit fast as the 647cc Honda Militarist'due south.

Other than loftier-speed vibration, the Virago engine gives footling cause for complaint. While its 54.1-horsepower peak at 5500 rpm may non seem high, more telling is a torque curve that starts as low and stays as apartment as the Gulf Coast of Texas. The Virago engine pumps out fifty foot-pounds at 2000 rpm; information technology peaks at 54 foot-pounds at 3000 rpm; and it holds to a higher place l foot-pounds until past 5500 rpm. That'southward the kind of low-speed, short-shifting grunt that V-twins are famous for, but don't always deliver.

The bottom-weighted ability curve combines with the Virago'southward light weight to make it the quickest big V-twin cruiser: Information technology covers a quarter mile in 12.90 seconds at 98 mph. That's about the same performance as . our Harley FX projection bike after modification, and quicker than any of the Japanese contest.

If you lot're not bent on speeding, long distance travel on the Virago tin be surprisingly pleasant, provided you pack something soft on the pillion to provide dorsum back up�otherwise, as with most cruisers, hands and lower back fatigue early. The Virago places its passenger in a rearward list, and without something to lean on at speed, the job of staying on the bike falls entirely on the wrists and on the step in the seat. That seat is excellent, because its difficult task of supporting all the passenger'due south weight, but when butt-fire sets in, there aren't a lot of alternate positions available. The bike tracks corking over a long booty. Its long rake and trail figures issue in a chassis that ignores pelting grooves and goes directly.

Hacking a path through the urban jungle is the bike's real forte. It loves to cruise Brando-like through town in a quietly testicular way, and doesn't listen stopping at every intersection whatsoever more than than a domestic dog minds sniffing every bush on its daily rounds. Volvo-ingested urbanites, who wouldn't detect Squad Lucky Strike practicing nude, seldom fail to worriedly sideglance the Virago, while certain other denizens of the urban center frankly ogle information technology. The laid-back riding position works every bit intended at depression speeds, and the potent off-idle power lets the bicycle burble away from stops with ease; you lot couldn't kill the engine with a club unless it were a very big one. Clutch pull is calorie-free, and curt people accept no reason not to like the Virago. A little more character from the exhaust pipes would exist nice, but Yamaha can't help that. Even God's Harley has to satisfy the EPA.

Though the market share for Japanese community has dwindled in recent years, the demand shows no sign of vanishing and neither does the Virago. Information technology benefits from the same gradual refinement policy Yamaha so successfully applies to the other veterans in its lineup�a policy that has kept the Virago the near economical large V-twin on the market while making it the almost functional. If you subscribe to the theory that motorcyclists are mod cowboys and bikes their horses, so this particular steed is ol' Paint. A little long of molar, maybe, but an honest and reliable companion.

Source Cycle 1989