Great video mate, but would've been interesting to explain how they weren't sold by Honda here in Australia, about 90% of them were actually illegally imported as "parts" , basically there was a parts importer here in Australia called "southside dismantlers" who would go over to Japan and buy up all the mc19s and mc22s that had around 40,000kms, they would dismantle them into parts, roll back the odometers and sell them as "brand new bikes", there were about 300 mc22s that were actually sold by Honda here once they released the popularity of them here due to learner laws, however the Australian delivered version of the mc22 has much smaller inlet manifolds which restricted it to 45hp rather than the Japanese 60hp, again this was due to Australian learner laws restricting power to 45hp... I've specialised in these bikes for about 10 years now and My advice about buying either a mc19 or mc22 ( mc14,mc21s are extremely rare and hard to find like the gsx250r), especially if your intended to import it to another country, DO NOT buy something that is not running (the most common thing you will find is "just needs the carbs cleaned or needs carbs rebuilt"), as 99% of the time they will turn into a headache, most of the time the motor is either worn out or the ignition system is completely junk, these little 250 4 bangers need to be exactly correct in how much compression they have as any little amount of compression loss will cause it to not run at all, this is why you will find that heaps of them are for sale here in Australia for ridiculously cheap prices, as they usually need the motor completely gone through.... So again my advice if your interested in getting one is ONLY buy a running one with under 65,000kms if you don't want to have to deal with headache that they can turn into 99% of the time...
This was my learner bike, drove it up to redline 5 days a week to and from work for 3 years. Rain, hail, or shine. Never let me down or had any problems. Had 50,000km on it when I bought it. Loved that bike
Ditto, the MC19 250R was my first road bike. I still have it though it needs a lot of work. I wouldn't have considered it a difficult bike to ride for a beginner, very low torque and all the power up at the top of the rev range made it a very forgiving machine to ride. If you wanted to go fast you just had to learn how to use the gears to your advantage and hold corner speed, this was where the high revving nature of the engine was an advantage as well cause you didn't really have to worry about giving the bike too much throttle in a corner
I think half of Australian riders getting their licence in the 90s to 2010 or so when they started drying up got their licence on CBR250 R or RR. (MC19/MC22)
Same!, I seriously love the looks of these "older" motorcycles way better, their headlights, taillights had such a captivating style to them and even their exhausts looked great e.g the Honda NR750 has one of the best looking backs imo!
I had an mc22 cbr250rr back in the day. Tyga kit (the original one), custom metal CBR dash surround, rpm shift lights, custom heel guards, and a custom exhaust. When it was at the end of its life, we created a custom intake manifold and fuel injected the thing. Last I heard it had been left outside by it's new owner and water got into the cylinders and seized it. I've got fond memories of it and I learned a lot about fixing motorcycles from it.
I had a 1989 Yamaha FZR250RR Exup 25 years ago. My initial mechanical sympathy went out the window quite quickly as there wasn't much power below about 10,000 rpm. I fitted a race can & it sounded insane at near 20,000 rpm. Amazing engineering because they were production bikes with normal service intervals & yet remained reliable even with those insane revs.
Great video. As an older, vertically challenged woman, I ADORE my MC19. Hitting the quiet, country roads is just the best and throw in some twisties and it makes for the perfect, fun ride - every time. We have another we are setting up for the track. Our shed has many bikes (as my son and hubby ride too) and only one of them is mine. And I'm perfectly alright with that.
I was able to ride my brothers FZR400 back in, oh, 1990 or so. It “only” revved to 14k rpm, and that was pretty exhilarating for a kid who had never been over 100 MPH much less only been in vehicles that revved to maybe 6000 rip’ems.
Kawasaki kept the dream alive by producing zx25R in my country. It's around $7,600 USD and the zx4RR is base on it just bored up. The Yamaha R3 can keep up with it up to 140kph. Whats very hard to convey is the way it sounds. It's the most glorious thing you'll ever hear on 2 wheels. It's really high pitch like the Lexus LFA but better. The closest thing you can get to an f1 sound of the past.
Zx25r pretty cool but unfortunately super heavy for what it is. Mc22 was 150kgs while the zx25r is 182kgs so pretty good but heavy. Also mc22 had an actual frame
I rode most of those bikes! I lived in Bangkok for years and there was a motorcycle repair shop on the corner of the block that let me ride more than a few of these bikes (but never the CBR400 which was very rare). RGV250, NSR250, CBR250, VFR400, GSX400F, and more than I can't remember, but mostly 125cc 2-strokes. And Vespa's which I rode more than any other bike at the time and which to this day is a great urban bike. What I can say is that the inline four 250cc were unpleasant to ride especially in the city. They just weren't good at being bikes, and most riders who bought them quickly moved to 400cc bikes. It was the 400cc inline fours, not the 250's, that sold best, rode best, and had the bragging rights. So what I remember from riding the CBR250 was just that they were "front-heavy" bikes. With 400cc bikes, you can whack open the throttle and ride the bike off the rear tire but the CBR250 was so powerless and difficult to ride that it always felt like you had to enter each turn on the brakes. Most "balanced" bikes feel like you can exit the turn about as fast as you can enter them but the 250's were dog slow out of turns despite their soundtrack. Like their 125 cc 2-stroke counterparts, they were all front-end. Curiously, one of the most popular track/race bikes at the time was a bike that wasn't even intended to be raced. The Suzuki GSF400, known as the Bandit. I remember there were some races which the top 5 would all be the GSF400. I ended up buying two of those Bandit; more than any other bike I've owned before or since those bikes taught me how to ride. Now in the US we have/had 600cc bikes which are very closely related to the 400cc bikes of Asian (at the time). And I think the 400/600cc class is about the skill limit for most casual sportbike/trackday riders. At least it was for me.
@@CptSlow89 I never rode or ever saw a single ZXR400 in my life but I did ride several of the ZX7R's. I was this close to buying one but the seller couldn't agree on the price. Years later, I was with a group of bikers on the highway when a ZX7 rider messed up doing a wheelie, and just threw that bike down the highway at 80 mph. It just destroyed that bike. That instantly cured my desire to learn to wheelie, and to this day I still can't do a wheelie.
man, I miss 2 stroke dirt bikes. even 125s give you a taste of that 2 stroke instant power. my dad had a 500cc 2 stroke KTM dirt bike and it was absolutely terrifying. modern 4 stroke versions with similar displacement are probably faster overall but the feeling is just not as good. not to mention the exhaust note sounds like flatulence.
@@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski 2-strokes, when everyone had them, were just awful due to how loud they were and how much they polluted, even to the point that 2-stroke exhaust oil would coat the roads and make them slick. 3rd world countries don't have pollution controls and thus riders ended up with raccoon eyes...they were that dirty. I got a 4-stroke bike and never looked back. They're quiet, much easier to ride, so much cheaper to maintain, and pollute so much less.
I owned a 1985 GSXR 750 in 1986 (Canada). I wanted a GSXR in 1985, but none were available, so I settled’ for a 1985 Honda NS400R, loved that bike, but when a brand new 85 Gixxer became available I sold the Honda for the Gixxer. In 1990 I moved to Japan. I’ve done a bunch of motorcycle training with Honda affiliated riding schools, I’ve been to various tracks to help coordinate track days with US servicemen and Honda, and I’ve ridden a lot of Honda bikes. The Honda Hornet, CB250F, had the same motor as the CBR250RR, just ‘De-Tuned’ to only rev to 16,000 RPM. One of the Honda engineers at a track day event told me that with just a little re-wiring the Hornet could red to 21,000 RPM… I never did pursue this, now I wish I had. I enjoyed the video. Cheers.
A major reason that the new Kawasaki 400 four does not rev as high has to do with passing emissions at lower engine speeds. It would take variable valve timing to solve this. Getting power at high revs requires a large amount of valve overlap (when both the intake and exhaust valves are open). This overlap is a big problem at lower revs since a lot of unburned fuel exits the cylinder through the exhaust valve. When the overlap is reduced, power output at the top of the rev range is reduced dramatically, so there is little point in strengthening and lightening moving components for those higher revs.
no it isnt. do some calculations on injector flow rates. bear in mind that at 12000 rpm you have 5 milliseconds per revolution. most injectors have a minimum open time of 1.5mS. that sets your idle. too large an injector, you get top end but cant idle. too small, you can idle but top end is limited. twin injector setups are another level of complexity that costs money and manufacturers dont like spending money as it makes things expensive and noone wants to buy them... and its pretty well much the only way to get an idle whilst also getting a redline over 12k. can get a bit more up top by ignoring the 85% limit on duty cycle and holding them open. and that, as you say... raises emissions issues and defeats the whole purpose of EFI... you are no longer metering the delivery accurately. yes, valve timing and overlap and having it fixed and setup for screaming at 16k isnt ideal for low end grunt or economy...
a high revving engine can't keep the valves open with just have valve springs and need pneumatic valves like motogp bikes are now or ducatis desmodronic system which controls the valves directly with a chain.
@@jeremyrobertson7267 The bone-stock Yamaha R6 with valve springs ran at 16,000 rpm, so it depends upon what you mean by "high-revving". The R6 suffered from the problem of passing emission tests at Euro 5 levels which is why it is now not sold as a street-legal motorcycle, even in the US where it still meets emission regs. The problem is that the optimum valve lift and duration profile varies with engine speed. Very little overlap works best at lower engine speeds and high-lift, high-overlap works best at higher ones. Variable valve lift and timing can solve the problem, but the market currently won't pay for it in motorcycles in this power/size range. Honda has occasionally made VTEC motorcycles since its 1999 CB400SF, but sales were not enough for decent profits. It is just less expensive to add displacement. VVT currently makes more sense with more expensive bikes and it may become more popular. FWIW, some of the 125 and 149cc Yamahas use VVT, but that is largely because those displacements are heavily regulated in some countries and this gives Yamaha slightly higher performance in a crowded market of motorcycles and scooters with the exact same displacement.
When I saw this video I got so excited. I love those bikes. As a matter of fact I just got my first bike, which is a yamaha phazer fz250, its so cool seeing my own bike on here!! Now I just gotta restore it.
always wanted one since many years... because of the amazing craftsmanship they made back then.... im still fascinated by those high revving masterpieces
Both of my sons owned the same MC22 at different times. Amazing little bike, super reliable and fun to ride. Regularly saw 20,000rpm on the tacho and didn't care one bit 🙂👌 They sold it to a friend of theirs who still owns it. An odd thing about the engine is that cylinder one is on its own, then there's the gear train to the cams and then there's 2,3 & 4 after that.
Watching this video on the way to Suzuka 8hours 😂 One thing about the cbr250rr (mc22) that's always overlooked is the luggage capacity. It has 3 points on each side for tying bags to the pillion seats. A knob right by the seat, a hard plastic hook by the numberplate, and a metal hook formed into the fold away pillion footpegs. I use mine to go camping now and then with a big 60L bag strapped to back. Cruising along at a comfortable 6-8k rpm.
I live in Australia and granted, there are a handful available but not as many as you would think. The biggest issue with these older bikes is the question of whether they are worn out or not, and the problem of parts availability. I’ve been looking for oversized pistons and rings for my Suzuki GSX250FW for years now, to no avail.
No luck with Wiseco mate? I always liked my Suzukis, had a gf250 for my first road bike (basically JDM naked across), couple of rg250's, couple of gsxr400's and a nice 96 GSXR750. I have a friend whos a motorcycle mechanic and old bike enthusiast, i will ask him about oversize pistons, if anyone will know, he will! Check back in about 30hours.
Not as many as you would think? Can't go to a single group ride without seeing at least one, I once saw four of them in one place and that's in Canberra where classics are a rare sight.
Agreed, I have an mc22 track/ street bike and I feel sorry for half the 19/22 i see on the road, poor things are so neglected and the owners have no idea how to look after them
You know for talking about all these sport bikes and revving to 20K rpm... YOU DIDN'T PLAY ANY SOUNDS OF THESE BIKES! That sucked, so yes you were informative, but we ALSO want to hear them go!
My first road bike was a NSR250RR, while stationed in Okinawa. She was in horrible shape, and I used her to commit all of the "new rider" mistakes. My second bike was a 1989 Honda 250, from the beginning of the video. Rode it for a good year, then introduced my now wife of over 20 years to motorcycling. She had bad experiences in the past, but after getting over that, going through the MSF course on Kadena AFB(Thanks, Cookie!!), rode bikes for years, until after the birth of our twins. She got the Aero, and I found an immaculate 250RR off base, an rode the crap out of it until getting stationed back in the states in Las Vegas, being told you couldn't import them, and/or it would cost thousands of dollars to do it, and you couldn't ride it on the road, etc.. Flash forward 6 months after we got there: I'm at the DMV, registering my newly acquired 1982 CB650, and I hear a familiar sound come up behind me. Oh look, a 91 CBR250R. I ask the rider how did he get it here and all the questions with my mouth flapping in the wind. He was a Marine Ginny, just back from Japan. He slipped the movers 80 dollars and they packaged up his little girl and marked it as an end table, or something like that. "But, how did you register it, without importing it? Etc, etc..." He said he put new tires on it, swapped the headlights around so they shined to the right instead of left and added a 0 to the middle of the VIN number(16 instead of 17 in Japan at the time) and the DMV people were none the wiser. It was registered as a 600, which were sold in the states, thank you very much. Argh!! I could've..... I should've.... I didn't, but still remember zipping around Awase at 15k, with my wife not far behind, having a blast. Pulling into gas stations, having someone immediately greet you and ask you which fuel you wanted. "I'll take the 106 octane premium, paying a lot of yen for absolute quality fuel, and having them pump it for you, wiping off any spillage instainioualy. Then wiping the dead bugs from the windscreen and front of the bike. Great memories!!!
Kawasaki also made their own, the ZXR-250R, it was made until 2004, (Malaysian Market), it also revved to 20k rpm. Kudos for this kind of videos! I really like your channel, keep it up dude!
Nice video Bart ! You know, somewhere in the mid-70's (I am 67) I saw a Honda CB350-4, and I was blown away. I had seen the first models CB750-4 and the CB500=4 before, but......................a small 350-4? There was no internet to inform us, and we depended on Cycle World and Cycle Guide magazines to inform us in this little Caribbean island. I was always intrigued by multi-cylinder machines. I owned much later, a Suzuki GT550 and in 1980 a Honda CB750K. What I did find out during that time, is that 400cc was in Japan the hot class in 4-cylinder bikes, and much later, that there were 250cc 4-cylinder machines too ! While the general public in my country do not like motorcycles, the tiny bike community have had some interesting machines. In the early 90's a Japanese guy living here imported some used JDM bikes that were being bought by the young bikers. But soon they petered out for one reason or another mainly because of spare part issues. None available here, and JDM spec seals, bearings etc. are different from US spec parts..................our main source of bike spare parts ! But they were real eye-candy for a a starved bike-population. We come from a culture of "Fix-the-unfixable", as everything mechanical has to be imported in our country at great cost, when it comes to import taxes and duties. So we keep vehicles for very long times. ( My JDM Corolla wagon, imported as a 4-year-old vehicle is now 21 years old !) Up to now everything bike is super expensive. I have an Indian-made-and-market 2021 Yamaha FZ25. Earlier this year, I bought the two pairs of disc pads for the bike at the dealer............at the equivalent cost of US$132. !!! ( One US$ is $6.80 of ours) I still love the multi-cylinder machines. I am not impressed with traditional bikes now coming in single-cylinder iterations. Recently I was on the Japanese Honda website, and I could not find a 250-4, The bike I would love to have is the 400 Super Four. But as a pensioner, the high cost of motorcycles in Japan, and our high import taxes, it will be prohibitive to import it. I will be riding the FZ250 into the great beyond ! Nice going Bart ! Trinidad & Tobago. West Indies.
Whether you ride bikes or not you gotta appreciate the high reving F1 sound. And the fact that whatever ss you buy in the past 30 or so years will look amazing. Just like a hammer hasn't changed the ss bike was a perfect design for decades.
6:45 im constantly amazed at how modern my 75 CB360 really is........... . Honda just got all the LITTLE details right on that family of bikes......(plus, they just work.... a few design flaws like the cam chain guides and oil pickup tube.... but otherwise SOLID) like.... that CB360T feels like a modern bike to me . starts RIGHT up....... runs great..... very fun (wish it was a CB750, but.....LOL) easy to work on..... parts are still available..... relatively low maintenance...ETC ETC ETC
My first bike was CBR250RR and to this day it’s one of my favourite bikes I’ve owned unfortunately I had to sell it to pay legal fees/fines after getting caught doing 170km/pr in a 70 zone on my gixxer 750
first bike I ever owned and always regretted selling it. One popped up cheap a couple of years ago and I had to have it. 1991 Japanese import model with near 70xxx on the clock she still screamed to 20k on the regular and loved every minute of it. Great little bikes
I started watching in hopes of hearing some revs. However the amount of history I just learned almost made up for the fact there wasn’t a single sound track of any of the high rev bikes. And I still followed.
Disagree with not being able to be riden daily and comfortably on the street, my aus mc22 which is an ex p6 historic track bike and is still setup for track as it visits here and there runs great on the road. I had set it back to factory setup and tune at one point and it was very comfy to ride between the 5-10k rpm mark and made enough go above 7k rpm. When you compare it to modern 250 it makes nearly double the power so even down low its more then enough
i did courier work on a fzr for a year? mad max mobile, all the way. and really... most of the time its fine at 8. the 16k plus is just for the lights and when you couldnt be bothered shifting in a corner...
Exactly this. I have an 88 FZR250 (also have an FZR400, used to have an 88 ZX4 too) and totally agree that Bart lost the plot towards the end there. The FZR250 is amazing as a commuter, I regularly shift at about 8k and that's plenty to keep up with and even pass average traffic. You only use 10k+ for fun/when really needed to pass someone. This idea that beginners or commuters "need" a twin or single for torque is utter nonsense. The little 250 4s are just fine at pretty much any rpm, with the 400s being even more suited to low rpm.
@@Little19man 2kr i found was far more reliable. 3ln has this "issue". its a combination of extreme carbs, the exup being crucial for it to run properly, and whilst all the symptoms suggest carbs, all my dealings have proven it to be the valves, and nasty carbon buildup. 2kr has different carbs and it will run regardless of what exhaust its got. it definitely never does what the 3lns do. and nearly every 3ln does it! been making my own cutters and arbors, because no shop can deal with a 15mm exhaust valve... only gripes with teh 2kr is the bad rear geometry, had to redo that lower link pivot and its still crap, and the idea of coolant in the frame when the tube on the other side can be removed... replaced...? on that note, they also have a pocket of air in the frame that you cant bleed without throwing a tiny screw right in the top of it... damn mine had some rust when i got it!
Im from Ireland originally. Moved to Australia last year and I've bought one of these beauties. Absolutely incredible bike and a lot of fun. Thinking off shipping it home for when I do go back as they are gold dust in Europe 😎
I had a GSXR250RR, I remember the redline was set at 17,500 ,as It had to have a custom ECU made for it after the factory one died. You had to drop a gear sometimes two in order to get it to go. It was just too much hard work to ride it above the 12,000 mark where it came alive and stay somewhere near legal speeds! Round town and rural roads it was not as much fun, as my old two strokes. Also the parts were really hard to get. This was phoning round places in the days before the internet was a thing. After a year or so I sold it and got a CBR400RR
There are alot of us that wanted super-screaming 400s in the 80's, (like Japanese Gpz 400s), that were a blast to ride but couldn't be had in the states.
Hey mate would love to see a deep dive into Yamaha, their use of sound waves etc when designing heads and how Toyota were so impressed by their inline-4 twin cams that they had them design the heads for the 4A planned for the now famous AE86 and more!
omfg.... the fzr250 has this mysterious ailment... everyone thinks its carbs, as every symptom points to carbs... me? im on the path of carbon build up on the exhaust valves, no-one can deal with 15mm valves, and yeah. they sit in garages and never run properly again. an experiment on a mates one has proven we are on the right track at least. set the valves sloppy as and just run the thing in the hope the valves will hammer themselves clear. so far its doing the trick? 200km ride today, it actually started idling for the first time in ever. didnt die. didnt bog. didnt sit there chugging with full throttle yet barely cracking idle... where was i? oh! sound waves and crap... i got the old 2kr. ive ran it with no pipes, and at the moment, its a botched up set at the 4 in 1 after i mashed them... no issues either way. though it refused to start unless clutched when it was mashed? ran fine. wouldnt start... iunno! threw a noname can on, its fine. i got the 3ln3... took the EXUP off, just to see what happens. ITS FREAKING AWFUL! it is absolutely gutless. nothing until about 10k, then some spluttering (that could be the other issues as well...) and finally, 12k... takes off like it should as the exup is open around there. it is the first engine i have ever dealt with that is so fussy about the exhaust system to the point its a completely different machine... and unrideable! other than two strokes, dah. the only difference between the two engines is the carbs and that valve in the exhaust. they went mad on the 3ln series... way too big. 28s on a 65cc cylinder... maybe needed at 18k, but makes a nightmare down low... and so they have this strange issue, that feels like its the carbs, despite inspecting, running seal kits, rebuilding a hundred times... ive found a few peculiar things on these carbs, little notches in the slides, as if theyre meant to be assembled in one way, and one way only. issue is, noone knows what the right way is... seems im the only person that observant? and as theyre all from the 80s/90s, been through several owners... not much is "factory" anymore. but, all being done and said, it just seems that they went so freaking overboard, and the way that exup valve interacts with things, has me of the belief, with confirmation, that its the freaking valves that start leaking... check clearances? pointless. the things are riding on carbon. well, mine were. never seen anything like it actually. been making arbors and a toolpost grinder and some cutters and just getting to the point i can recut the seats and put the stinking thing back together! did i mention, noone can deal with 15mm valves? dammit, rego papers showed up today, its been dead for nearly a year now?
@@paradiselost9946I had a 3ln in NZ a couple of years ago, 36000kms or thereabouts. Ran a bit crap when I got it. Redid fuel system including tank seal and full carb clean & tune. Did the timing chain as well as she was a bit rattly. Ran like a champ afterwards, the throttle was responsive and the bike was quick for what it was.
@@izzy031096 the old 2kr had 55K, i put another 100k on top of that, no issues. was starting to puff a bit of smoke from what seemed to be inlet stem seals, otherwise... meh. tapped into some idiot that pulled out in an intersection then stopped for no reason whilst im too busy looking down the side road to see... broke my headlight mounts. grr. so the 3ln got a tub for work, and yeah... 3 months, it got to the point it was "chugging" every few minutes. as in... you give the WOT and they barely crack idle, for about five minutes or as long as it takes the carbs to drain as turning the fuel off is the only cure it seems. then riding is a nightmare of no throttle to excellent to crap to stalling to chugging at every set of lights... turning fuel on and off, wee... was the third tank of carb cleaner, peering down the inlets, seeing bubbles at the valves... hang on... compression check... vacuum check... hmmmm.... is leaky... sighed, tore it down, and yeah... over 1mm thick deposits of carbon on 3 of 8 exhaust valves. with clearances set to the carbon... everything had carbon but 3 were real bad. (do NOT run 98! waste of money and cokes stock engines up!) had OS pistons... its been apart before... and the head was just a black coked up oily mess. some searching for seat cutters and so forth... just finished my toolpost grinder last night and had a test run on some scrap... oh my... arbor time! i can actually get the finish required. 3.5mm valve stem. smallest commercial arbor i can find is 3.8. 15mm exhaust valve, with clearance for 18mm cutter shell... smallest is 22. my mates one that started doin it, we set the valves sloppy as, and its cleared up after a few tanks and hard runs, never even touched the carbs. mine? i put two different brands of kit in, another set of carbs off a spare one, had them apart maybe 100 times... nope. theories about rust as the tank had rusted out and everything was full of superfine powder... new plugs, same reason... rust dust... nope. so im adamant its valves, prove it 100% in a few days... the lack of tooling to deal with them, and faced with a shop quoting 1000 or more.... theres a lot of 3lns go cheap. they come in waves, just gotta keep an eye out... had plenty of big bikes, lost my license more than enough times... these will break the speed limit quite happily and sound hilarious doing it! and keep me from being TOO stupid. still, my second fastest bike at 220 was an nsr150... really gotta resurrect one of them... sigh. i like em small and squitty so i can throw them around. ring dinging is even better. two smokes for ever! until they seize at 130 or more! in corners! weeeee! lo, i got one 3ln with a supercharger sitting in there waiting for some belts and brackets... ideal engine, the alternator/flywheel has enough room to squeeze a 16mm toothed belt in behind it, and sticks out like an overlooked afterthought... nice and neat. plenty of space in the deltabox... cbr needs the cases chopped apart...
I feel so blessed to own my 1991 suzuki bandit 400, everything you said in this video reminds me of my bike. Only, the gsf400 is a naked superbike, and revs to about 15k
Great video Bart. And, yes we should all consider moving to Aussieland or at least visiting. The Phazer 250 was unreal when it came out. Not surprisingly even Tamiya made a plastic model kit of the bike. The Phazer was the genesis of the genesis of the FZ 750. Great to see you focused on that 1FM bike early on in the video.
I own an mc14 cbr250f and it looks so cool, it doesn't run at the moment as it sat outside for 9 years before I bought it, but when it runs, you know I'm hitting that 17.5k redline!
In various motorcycle shops, I was a mechanic from the sixties to 90s. Worked mostly on Japanese bikes. Honda had the highest quality Kawasaki. It always had the most horsepower. Suzuki always had the best handling and Yamaha's were all around good. These bikes were not so re-buildable and we're more like disposable. I have owned dozens of them. Now I ride an old triumphs and an old BMW just for fun
I had a FZX250 Zeal. She was a screaming 4Cyl with redline of 15k RPM. Other than a spongy front end for my 120kg rear end it was kinda fun to run around on. We also had laws in Australia that restricted learners to a 250 for their learning and provisional periods. This has been bumped up to 650CC but they have power to weight restrictions instead.
We used to have the same rule here in NZ, 250cc limit. No power to weight rules though. So you could get an Aprilia RS 250 at 15 with a learners. Thankfully I couldn't afford one, I probably wouldn't have survived. 😂
Ive heard we cant get many 4cyl bikes under 650cc or even 1000cc because of emissions. The heat causes more emissions and based on the way regs are written its difficult, at least in the west/US, tho Kawi just released that ZX4rr so it is possible to some degree, but yeah. I just love their sound even at 10k RPM, and would love to have one as a beginner bike just to rev out, then tune it once I got better. (I love bikes but havent owned one, just love engineering and crap lol) And im not alone, which is why I think Kawi made rhat one and others want to depending on region released in, people want to just rev high cyl counts without breaking all speed limits in 1st gear lol
I do miss my old ZXR250C. RIding through tunnels and multi storey car parks in London during my teens was absolute gold. It's a shame I had to get rid of it, because spare parts were getting stupidly rare and had to be sourced from Australia. The NC22 was slowing down production just as the ZXR250C was probably at its peak. Tech-wise, the Honda had a lot more desirable features in the engine (gear driven cams, like you say), but there's no denying the looks of the ZXR250/400/750 family in the early to mid 90s.
Definitely appreciate that, I had a 1990 zxr750H1 with a J2 engine back in the day , that bike was crazy. Got hit by a car so removed the fairing, put some risers and drag bars, polished the frame and wheels and loved it even more. They were fantastic bikes.
ZXr250c when tuned was slightly faster than the CBR though, it's a better bike aside the cam chain. But just change it when you hear the tick before the cove rgets eaten up. Parts is a pain though. They make a new one though I'd love it but they are same price as a 600 cc sportsbike.
I still use my firs bike, I'm from hungary, and it's a grey import gsf250, and I was noob, I shouldn't buy it, I'm still struggling to get parts, but I never regret it, with custom exhaust it sound like an f1 car from the v10 era, and I love it.
Always appreciate the credit. If you want to see more on my bike, let me know. Great video! Guy I bought my bike from also had one of those Kawasaki 250s with the ram air. He had a nice collection.
It's emission as to why the current batch of 250cc bikes don't rev past 14/15k rpm, I think it was a fortnine video where he explained and showed the amount of ignition pulses per minute and the new Kawasaki inline 4 250 screamer has a laughably low amount of ignition pulses per minute so it complies with emissions, any more rpm and it wouldn't pass, remapping them brings out a lot as they run very lean as well.
I owned the 1988 Kawasaki ZX4 4cylinder (same motor as the later ZXR ) superb bike and very light 144kg dry ! Back in the mid 90s U.K. grey importers were getting loads of very interesting light weight Japanese market only bikes (I owned 3 400cc bikes VFR 400 NC21 ! Yamaha FZ400N with 20 valves!)
When I was 18 I moved to the big city of my country and took up being a motor cycle courier full time. I started on my old GSX 450 then bought a VFR400, which I loved. My insurance company found out I was on a learner license and they made me drop down to a 250. To keep them happy I bought a FZR250 - I liked it for the job I was doing but I remember being sad trying to get the front wheel off the ground. I remember it revved quite high but it was a 4 cylinder 4 stroke, so …. My friend had a NSR250 (that right?) two stroke bullet. It was smokey, light and so fast. You could get the front wheel up easily and it was truly a bike that was impossible to keep under the speed limit. It was a terrifying bike to me. I spent 40 hours per week on the bike for 2 years and enjoyed most of it. I quit to save my life. I’d had two accidents and a colleague was killed. The money was not good and I made a decision to live. I then didn’t ride from aged 20 until recently at 47 when I bought an electric Surron. I was so happy to find out that my brain had stored the muscle memory and I can still ride :)
Seeing that Yamaha Phazer, I think I know what KeithinAsia’s unobtainium Asian Cycle EX250F Ninja 250 flushmounts were originally intended for. A quick search and it seems replacement Phazer signal housings may be just as unobtainium. :(
I still have my mc22. I used it as a daily with a gutted Yoshimura sport exhaust from my learner license. Yes you need experience, yes it needs to scream to get around. I'll always tell people the same, do not ride these bikes if you didn't grow up riding high power bikes, but if you have... my God, I ran a flat 12 second 1/4 mile on my mc22 when I was 17. This bike is the best purchase of my life & you'll never experience anything like riding a 4 piston bike screaming at 20k rpm right under your chest.
Emissions are why these bikes aren't made anymore. Its extremely difficult to build a compliant bike with current restrictions. Unfortunately I think it's only gonna get worse. Ryan at Fortnine made video discussing this in-depth. I've got a 954rr and its simply exquisite. A "Baby Blade" is definitely on my wishlist once finances permit.
i still have my honda cb-1. 400cc i four 13.5k redline. i love em since you can rev them out through the gears and not be going straight to jail speeds. gear whine from the cam gear train and exhaust note is intoxicating
Hi Bart, after watching quite few of your vids, I have convinced myself to finally subscribe. You have a very awesome way of documenting your videos that makes me excited for every new thing I learn about motorcycling from your videos. Thanks for these videos, really grateful you got me more on motorcycling (especially on two stroke motorcycles :))
@@giggiddy do you subscribe to every channel you watch to? That's the problem, I initially didn't want motorcycling content in my page as I thought it will be annoying and I didn't want my page to be involved in local motorcycle culture that I find annoying (im from asia). That's why it took me a while to subscribe
These bikes revved high because that is how you pump more air through any engine of a given displacement, and make more power. Unfortunately this also means the crankshaft must have a short stroke to keep max piston speed manageable, and that results in gutless low and midrange.
I bought an MC22 at the end of last year. I need to recommission it (tyres, brakes, carbs). Fancied one for decades due to the red line. Not expecting it to be quick, but just occasional fun. I expect my tzr250 will leave it for dead! They are not common in the Uk. The Japanese market 400s were fairly common 20 years ago, but not the 250s . Think quite a lot of the import 250 4 strokes landed up in Ireland.
I used to race with a RGV250, without crazy tune they aren't really any faster than a tuned ZXR250C, they have narrower power band (both are narrow) but the RPM of the IL4 really helped at higher speeds. Of course a heavily tuned NSR/RGV etc will cream it, I rode an NSR bored out to 300, no power valves, when it came on power it pulled hard as a 600cc sportsbike, was crazy and I was used to riding ZX10Rs at that point. It pulled hard.
I’d love to find an old ‘80s VFR700/750. IDC about the revs on that, just lope around on a badass V4 motorcycle. I’d settle for a similar vintage Kawasaki Eliminator 600. 😃
The VFR400 is a great bike… if you are short. I’m 6’ tall and the bike was too small for me, my knees were above the top of my tank. Sold the bike to a Japanese buddy who was about 5’8” and he loved it. FYI
I imagine the reason why these high revving bikes aren’t made anymore, is because of noise regulation. That ninja 400rr, is neutered in North America due to noise regulation and is pointless to buy here. But in Europe, it’s awesome
13:23 I hate to say it but unfortunately this segment of the vid is incorrect. The direct air intake was all marketing. The air guides are blanked off and seperate to the airbox - they do nothing. Source: I own both a 22 and 19. Other than that, loved the vid, keep em coming!
Correct. Took me a while to find someone pointing this out. It's easy to understand how false myth and legend are created when videos like this become popular.
"Soh-each-ee-roh ("So" + "Ichiro," [just like Ichiro the baseball player]) Ir-ee-muh-jeer-ee" (8:13 & afterward). Because Japan has an entirely different written alphabet, English spellings of Japanese words are usually spelled nearly phonetically - they're written specifically to help us sound out the words, step by step, just like in school, to get the reader pretty close to the right sounds. Two bonus things I learned about Japanese, that can make it easier: first, there's no accented/emphasized bits of words (Nagano, for example, isn't "na-GA-no;" it's just a flat, evenly-paced "naga-no"). Second, Japanese words are made using a basic set of sounds. These individual sounds are always pronounced exactly the same way. Any time you see "ir," "ta" or "ka," for example, each of those always represent one single sound, no matter where you find it in a word. It's way easier than English, at least in these areas. Combine the stuff above with a basic idea of how spoken Japanese usually sounds, and you're already most of the way there. If you listen to what common Japanese names typically sound like, you'll probably be able to tell why the way you said "Ear-muh-jeer-eey" was so noticeably off-kilter to my ears. I don't speak Japanese, nor do I consume Japanese media. Still, before even seeing the spelling (Irimajiri), I would have bet my life that "Ear-muh-jeer-eey" was not right. Maybe somebody in the Middle East has that name, but not a Japanese dude. Just take a few extra seconds, and slowly sound out the letters of unfamiliar words (and/or just find the pronunciation on the internet) before you just decide you've got it, and you go on to repeat something that tells viewers that you don't care if the information in your video is accurate. If you're interested in Japanese manufacturers, and you're going to be making more content about them, perhaps you might just look at some Japanese names and compare their spelling with the way they're pronounced. Watch a few videos of people talking to or about Nintendo's Japanese game designers, for example; usually peoples' names are shown on screen, as well as spoken by the narrator or interviewer. Also, camhaft drive gears can be stronger, and hold accuracy well, but gears are decidedly _more_ friction than a chain setup, particularly as RPM goes up. Just the axial (with helical-cut gear teeth) or transverse (w/straight-cut teeth) thrust load involved with gears creates way more heavily-loaded bearing surfaces (and more of them). Compared to what's needed to support a chain- or belt-driven OHC setup, a gear-drive arrangement often requires a substantially redesigned, heavier, more rigid, stable crankcase, to keep the gears from pushing away fom each other far enough for something to fail. While a geared cam drive is fewer moving parts, especially considering the individual moving pieces in a chain, a hydraulically-tensioned chain drive is less friction at high RPM, and absolutely accurate enough to keep timing in check. Perhaps in the '60s it was harder to keep a chain drive from coming apart or losing accuracy at insane revs, given the metallurgical inconsistencies and manufacturing tolerance limits of the time, but there are plenty of examples of gear drives a-'splodin' at speed in high-RPM race engines back then, as well.
I still have a holed piston on the shelf from my old FZR250R. One of the carb inlet rubbers had split and that piston ran hot as a result.. which just made me realise that all of those 250 screamers just missed out on the fuel injection era. If Japan had stayed the course on its regulations if the time i wager there would have been some even more amazing high revving small capacity race reps developed. It is a bit of a shame really as screwing performance out of small capacity engines is a marvelous direction to strive in
Hey man great video, just wrote off my 1996 Honda Hornet 250 last Friday because some muppet pulled out Infront of me. Looking at a 1991 Yamaha FZR250 this Sunday love the 250 screamers and yes in order to properly ride the Hornet you had to shift above 10k otherwise coming out of some corners you get terrible throttle roll on.
At least Kawasaki have reset the micro high revving 4 cylinder bikes, ZX2R and ZX4R, surprised Honda does not join in again with its CB400 Vtec Engine to create the CBR400rr. The RVF400rr and CBR400rr was the ultimate bikes of this era IMO. One thing you did not mention, the micro 250s especially for learners was a extremely frustrating to learn on, riding in the hills on tight twisty roads meant a thousand gear changes. My girlfriend at the time had a Kawasaki ZZR250, it was so easy to ride, could be in the completely wrong gear but the bike would still pull you out of the corner. The ZZR suspension was crap, was heavy and a very upright riding position but easy to ride at a good pace.
The MC22 "direct air intakes" are actually faux intakes. Entirely for aesthetics only, and not connected in any way to the airbox. The airbox has an intake in the traditional spot, behind the steering stem part of the frame. I own an MC22 with my footage at 16:15
My dream bike, my learner bike, and the bike i kept way into my full license. I'll buy another one, one day. The 05 CBR600RR I have, revving to 17,000 RPM isnt such a bad thing either though ;)
I have a 250 twin ninja. It's a 90s bike which is exactly the same as the 80s bikes were... It's useless under 9K. It's fun as hell over that! It'll do 110 in fifth and 105 in sixth. Lol! I had a guy ride it and he said it was pretty fun I yelled at him about not reving it enough and made him go out again. This time he got up to and stayed over 9K. You wouldn't believe the grin when he came back from that ride! It's better to ride a small bike fast than a big bike slow.
In our garage are my wife's (slightly dented - I was riding it in rain, a lorry pulled out right in front of me & I could have kicked its back wheels as I slid up the road on my back) NC 30 & her OK NC 35 We were thinking to sell both This has me reconsidering because the tech that made the 250s went into the 400s as well as the 750s
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Great video mate, but would've been interesting to explain how they weren't sold by Honda here in Australia, about 90% of them were actually illegally imported as "parts" , basically there was a parts importer here in Australia called "southside dismantlers" who would go over to Japan and buy up all the mc19s and mc22s that had around 40,000kms, they would dismantle them into parts, roll back the odometers and sell them as "brand new bikes", there were about 300 mc22s that were actually sold by Honda here once they released the popularity of them here due to learner laws, however the Australian delivered version of the mc22 has much smaller inlet manifolds which restricted it to 45hp rather than the Japanese 60hp, again this was due to Australian learner laws restricting power to 45hp...
I've specialised in these bikes for about 10 years now and My advice about buying either a mc19 or mc22 ( mc14,mc21s are extremely rare and hard to find like the gsx250r), especially if your intended to import it to another country, DO NOT buy something that is not running (the most common thing you will find is "just needs the carbs cleaned or needs carbs rebuilt"), as 99% of the time they will turn into a headache, most of the time the motor is either worn out or the ignition system is completely junk, these little 250 4 bangers need to be exactly correct in how much compression they have as any little amount of compression loss will cause it to not run at all, this is why you will find that heaps of them are for sale here in Australia for ridiculously cheap prices, as they usually need the motor completely gone through.... So again my advice if your interested in getting one is ONLY buy a running one with under 65,000kms if you don't want to have to deal with headache that they can turn into 99% of the time...
pls make video about 150cc bike
Why not put real units as a text graphic overlay when talking about weight?
20% off of $500 is still too much for boots in my opinion. How much does the US Military spend on boots?
Respectfully I can get like 2 or 3 pairs of doc Martin's for that price.
This was my learner bike, drove it up to redline 5 days a week to and from work for 3 years. Rain, hail, or shine. Never let me down or had any problems. Had 50,000km on it when I bought it. Loved that bike
Ditto, the MC19 250R was my first road bike. I still have it though it needs a lot of work.
I wouldn't have considered it a difficult bike to ride for a beginner, very low torque and all the power up at the top of the rev range made it a very forgiving machine to ride. If you wanted to go fast you just had to learn how to use the gears to your advantage and hold corner speed, this was where the high revving nature of the engine was an advantage as well cause you didn't really have to worry about giving the bike too much throttle in a corner
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I think half of Australian riders getting their licence in the 90s to 2010 or so when they started drying up got their licence on CBR250 R or RR. (MC19/MC22)
It's satisfying hitting redline.
I absolutely miss the look of double round headlights on sport bikes they are basically the popup headlights of the bike world.
Same!, I seriously love the looks of these "older" motorcycles way better, their headlights, taillights had such a captivating style to them and even their exhausts looked great e.g the Honda NR750 has one of the best looking backs imo!
There goes my chance at getting one at a normal price.
They're back... Not with the same RPM, but zx25r is a new 250cc i4.
I'm pretty sure that ship sailed years ago.
Allegedly a new CBR250RR-R inline 4 is coming in 2024.
Don’t worry, the mc22 it might be very expensive from now on BUT it’s early generations (mc19...) also rev up to 20k rpms and are cheaper
Fort9 already drove the price up but the production was phenomenal again.
If I had 9 thousand years and an infinite supply of coffee I couldn't begin to describe how upset I am that there are no sound clips in this video D:
I had an mc22 cbr250rr back in the day. Tyga kit (the original one), custom metal CBR dash surround, rpm shift lights, custom heel guards, and a custom exhaust. When it was at the end of its life, we created a custom intake manifold and fuel injected the thing. Last I heard it had been left outside by it's new owner and water got into the cylinders and seized it. I've got fond memories of it and I learned a lot about fixing motorcycles from it.
Tyga kits are hidious
I had a 1989 Yamaha FZR250RR Exup 25 years ago. My initial mechanical sympathy went out the window quite quickly as there wasn't much power below about 10,000 rpm. I fitted a race can & it sounded insane at near 20,000 rpm. Amazing engineering because they were production bikes with normal service intervals & yet remained reliable even with those insane revs.
Great video. As an older, vertically challenged woman, I ADORE my MC19. Hitting the quiet, country roads is just the best and throw in some twisties and it makes for the perfect, fun ride - every time. We have another we are setting up for the track. Our shed has many bikes (as my son and hubby ride too) and only one of them is mine. And I'm perfectly alright with that.
I was able to ride my brothers FZR400 back in, oh, 1990 or so. It “only” revved to 14k rpm, and that was pretty exhilarating for a kid who had never been over 100 MPH much less only been in vehicles that revved to maybe 6000 rip’ems.
Only lol
I remember the FZR400, yeah it only redlines at 14K 😂😂😂
I’ve got an unhealthy addiction with these bikes. I own two mc22’s and a mc19. So much fun and so cool looking
Kawasaki kept the dream alive by producing zx25R in my country. It's around $7,600 USD and the zx4RR is base on it just bored up. The Yamaha R3 can keep up with it up to 140kph. Whats very hard to convey is the way it sounds. It's the most glorious thing you'll ever hear on 2 wheels. It's really high pitch like the Lexus LFA but better. The closest thing you can get to an f1 sound of the past.
You just have to get them reflashed. They are heavily restricted for emissions. You'll nearly double the power.
@@HandSolitudeit should be 51 hp but the reason its down to 41 hp is euro 4
Zx25r pretty cool but unfortunately super heavy for what it is. Mc22 was 150kgs while the zx25r is 182kgs so pretty good but heavy. Also mc22 had an actual frame
I rode most of those bikes! I lived in Bangkok for years and there was a motorcycle repair shop on the corner of the block that let me ride more than a few of these bikes (but never the CBR400 which was very rare). RGV250, NSR250, CBR250, VFR400, GSX400F, and more than I can't remember, but mostly 125cc 2-strokes. And Vespa's which I rode more than any other bike at the time and which to this day is a great urban bike.
What I can say is that the inline four 250cc were unpleasant to ride especially in the city. They just weren't good at being bikes, and most riders who bought them quickly moved to 400cc bikes. It was the 400cc inline fours, not the 250's, that sold best, rode best, and had the bragging rights.
So what I remember from riding the CBR250 was just that they were "front-heavy" bikes. With 400cc bikes, you can whack open the throttle and ride the bike off the rear tire but the CBR250 was so powerless and difficult to ride that it always felt like you had to enter each turn on the brakes. Most "balanced" bikes feel like you can exit the turn about as fast as you can enter them but the 250's were dog slow out of turns despite their soundtrack. Like their 125 cc 2-stroke counterparts, they were all front-end.
Curiously, one of the most popular track/race bikes at the time was a bike that wasn't even intended to be raced. The Suzuki GSF400, known as the Bandit. I remember there were some races which the top 5 would all be the GSF400. I ended up buying two of those Bandit; more than any other bike I've owned before or since those bikes taught me how to ride.
Now in the US we have/had 600cc bikes which are very closely related to the 400cc bikes of Asian (at the time). And I think the 400/600cc class is about the skill limit for most casual sportbike/trackday riders. At least it was for me.
I heard that ZXR400 was the best of all 400cc japanese back in the day. Best track oriented bike.
@@CptSlow89 I never rode or ever saw a single ZXR400 in my life but I did ride several of the ZX7R's. I was this close to buying one but the seller couldn't agree on the price.
Years later, I was with a group of bikers on the highway when a ZX7 rider messed up doing a wheelie, and just threw that bike down the highway at 80 mph. It just destroyed that bike. That instantly cured my desire to learn to wheelie, and to this day I still can't do a wheelie.
man, I miss 2 stroke dirt bikes. even 125s give you a taste of that 2 stroke instant power.
my dad had a 500cc 2 stroke KTM dirt bike and it was absolutely terrifying. modern 4 stroke versions with similar displacement are probably faster overall but the feeling is just not as good. not to mention the exhaust note sounds like flatulence.
@@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski 2-strokes, when everyone had them, were just awful due to how loud they were and how much they polluted, even to the point that 2-stroke exhaust oil would coat the roads and make them slick. 3rd world countries don't have pollution controls and thus riders ended up with raccoon eyes...they were that dirty.
I got a 4-stroke bike and never looked back. They're quiet, much easier to ride, so much cheaper to maintain, and pollute so much less.
where is that bike shop mate, do you think it's still there?
I owned a 1985 GSXR 750 in 1986 (Canada).
I wanted a GSXR in 1985, but none were available, so I settled’ for a 1985 Honda NS400R, loved that bike, but when a brand new 85 Gixxer became available I sold the Honda for the Gixxer.
In 1990 I moved to Japan.
I’ve done a bunch of motorcycle training with Honda affiliated riding schools, I’ve been to various tracks to help coordinate track days with US servicemen and Honda, and I’ve ridden a lot of Honda bikes. The Honda Hornet, CB250F, had the same motor as the CBR250RR, just ‘De-Tuned’ to only rev to 16,000 RPM. One of the Honda engineers at a track day event told me that with just a little re-wiring the Hornet could red to 21,000 RPM… I never did pursue this, now I wish I had.
I enjoyed the video.
Cheers.
A major reason that the new Kawasaki 400 four does not rev as high has to do with passing emissions at lower engine speeds. It would take variable valve timing to solve this. Getting power at high revs requires a large amount of valve overlap (when both the intake and exhaust valves are open). This overlap is a big problem at lower revs since a lot of unburned fuel exits the cylinder through the exhaust valve. When the overlap is reduced, power output at the top of the rev range is reduced dramatically, so there is little point in strengthening and lightening moving components for those higher revs.
no it isnt.
do some calculations on injector flow rates. bear in mind that at 12000 rpm you have 5 milliseconds per revolution.
most injectors have a minimum open time of 1.5mS. that sets your idle. too large an injector, you get top end but cant idle. too small, you can idle but top end is limited.
twin injector setups are another level of complexity that costs money and manufacturers dont like spending money as it makes things expensive and noone wants to buy them... and its pretty well much the only way to get an idle whilst also getting a redline over 12k. can get a bit more up top by ignoring the 85% limit on duty cycle and holding them open.
and that, as you say... raises emissions issues and defeats the whole purpose of EFI... you are no longer metering the delivery accurately.
yes, valve timing and overlap and having it fixed and setup for screaming at 16k isnt ideal for low end grunt or economy...
a high revving engine can't keep the valves open with just have valve springs and need pneumatic valves like motogp bikes are now or ducatis desmodronic system which controls the valves directly with a chain.
@@jeremyrobertson7267 The bone-stock Yamaha R6 with valve springs ran at 16,000 rpm, so it depends upon what you mean by "high-revving". The R6 suffered from the problem of passing emission tests at Euro 5 levels which is why it is now not sold as a street-legal motorcycle, even in the US where it still meets emission regs.
The problem is that the optimum valve lift and duration profile varies with engine speed. Very little overlap works best at lower engine speeds and high-lift, high-overlap works best at higher ones. Variable valve lift and timing can solve the problem, but the market currently won't pay for it in motorcycles in this power/size range.
Honda has occasionally made VTEC motorcycles since its 1999 CB400SF, but sales were not enough for decent profits. It is just less expensive to add displacement. VVT currently makes more sense with more expensive bikes and it may become more popular.
FWIW, some of the 125 and 149cc Yamahas use VVT, but that is largely because those displacements are heavily regulated in some countries and this gives Yamaha slightly higher performance in a crowded market of motorcycles and scooters with the exact same displacement.
@@jfess1911 the last Suzuki motogp bike had some kinda variable valve timing and I’m pretty sure the bmw does as well!?
@@jfess1911 didn’t the r6 have 20v at one point too, 5 valves a cylinder!?
The dual headlights that this bike has got is iconic
When I saw this video I got so excited. I love those bikes. As a matter of fact I just got my first bike, which is a yamaha phazer fz250, its so cool seeing my own bike on here!! Now I just gotta restore it.
always wanted one since many years... because of the amazing craftsmanship they made back then.... im still fascinated by those high revving masterpieces
Kawasaki got it reborn. Zx25rr and zx4rr
Both of my sons owned the same MC22 at different times.
Amazing little bike, super reliable and fun to ride.
Regularly saw 20,000rpm on the tacho and didn't care one bit
🙂👌
They sold it to a friend of theirs who still owns it.
An odd thing about the engine is that cylinder one is on its own, then there's the gear train to the cams and then there's 2,3 & 4 after that.
U mean mc22 the mc21 is the nsr250 2 stroke
@@MrB590 Yep, edited 👍
@@Danger_mouse mc22 are gr8, miss mine dearly
Watching this video on the way to Suzuka 8hours 😂
One thing about the cbr250rr (mc22) that's always overlooked is the luggage capacity. It has 3 points on each side for tying bags to the pillion seats. A knob right by the seat, a hard plastic hook by the numberplate, and a metal hook formed into the fold away pillion footpegs. I use mine to go camping now and then with a big 60L bag strapped to back. Cruising along at a comfortable 6-8k rpm.
I live in Australia and granted, there are a handful available but not as many as you would think. The biggest issue with these older bikes is the question of whether they are worn out or not, and the problem of parts availability. I’ve been looking for oversized pistons and rings for my Suzuki GSX250FW for years now, to no avail.
No luck with Wiseco mate? I always liked my Suzukis, had a gf250 for my first road bike (basically JDM naked across), couple of rg250's, couple of gsxr400's and a nice 96 GSXR750. I have a friend whos a motorcycle mechanic and old bike enthusiast, i will ask him about oversize pistons, if anyone will know, he will! Check back in about 30hours.
@@dunxy that would be a stroke of luck! Ta
Not as many as you would think? Can't go to a single group ride without seeing at least one, I once saw four of them in one place and that's in Canberra where classics are a rare sight.
@@QuakeGamerROTMG in the vid the reference was for sale not who owns one.
Agreed, I have an mc22 track/ street bike and I feel sorry for half the 19/22 i see on the road, poor things are so neglected and the owners have no idea how to look after them
You know for talking about all these sport bikes and revving to 20K rpm... YOU DIDN'T PLAY ANY SOUNDS OF THESE BIKES! That sucked, so yes you were informative, but we ALSO want to hear them go!
My first road bike was a NSR250RR, while stationed in Okinawa. She was in horrible shape, and I used her to commit all of the "new rider" mistakes. My second bike was a 1989 Honda 250, from the beginning of the video. Rode it for a good year, then introduced my now wife of over 20 years to motorcycling. She had bad experiences in the past, but after getting over that, going through the MSF course on Kadena AFB(Thanks, Cookie!!), rode bikes for years, until after the birth of our twins. She got the Aero, and I found an immaculate 250RR off base, an rode the crap out of it until getting stationed back in the states in Las Vegas, being told you couldn't import them, and/or it would cost thousands of dollars to do it, and you couldn't ride it on the road, etc..
Flash forward 6 months after we got there: I'm at the DMV, registering my newly acquired 1982 CB650, and I hear a familiar sound come up behind me. Oh look, a 91 CBR250R. I ask the rider how did he get it here and all the questions with my mouth flapping in the wind. He was a Marine Ginny, just back from Japan. He slipped the movers 80 dollars and they packaged up his little girl and marked it as an end table, or something like that. "But, how did you register it, without importing it? Etc, etc..." He said he put new tires on it, swapped the headlights around so they shined to the right instead of left and added a 0 to the middle of the VIN number(16 instead of 17 in Japan at the time) and the DMV people were none the wiser. It was registered as a 600, which were sold in the states, thank you very much.
Argh!! I could've..... I should've.... I didn't, but still remember zipping around Awase at 15k, with my wife not far behind, having a blast. Pulling into gas stations, having someone immediately greet you and ask you which fuel you wanted. "I'll take the 106 octane premium, paying a lot of yen for absolute quality fuel, and having them pump it for you, wiping off any spillage instainioualy. Then wiping the dead bugs from the windscreen and front of the bike.
Great memories!!!
Kawasaki also made their own, the ZXR-250R, it was made until 2004, (Malaysian Market), it also revved to 20k rpm. Kudos for this kind of videos! I really like your channel, keep it up dude!
All four of the big Japanese companies did. Yamaha had their FZR250 and Suzuki the GSXR250 (not to be confused with the modern GSX250R)
That was my first bike here in Australia u
Nice video Bart !
You know, somewhere in the mid-70's (I am 67) I saw a Honda CB350-4, and I was blown away. I had seen the first models CB750-4 and the CB500=4 before, but......................a small 350-4?
There was no internet to inform us, and we depended on Cycle World and Cycle Guide magazines to inform us in this little Caribbean island.
I was always intrigued by multi-cylinder machines. I owned much later, a Suzuki GT550 and in 1980 a Honda CB750K.
What I did find out during that time, is that 400cc was in Japan the hot class in 4-cylinder bikes, and much later, that there were 250cc 4-cylinder machines too !
While the general public in my country do not like motorcycles, the tiny bike community have had some interesting machines.
In the early 90's a Japanese guy living here imported some used JDM bikes that were being bought by the young bikers. But soon they petered out for one reason or another mainly because of spare part issues. None available here, and JDM spec seals, bearings etc. are different from US spec parts..................our main source of bike spare parts !
But they were real eye-candy for a a starved bike-population.
We come from a culture of "Fix-the-unfixable", as everything mechanical has to be imported in our country at great cost, when it comes to import taxes and duties. So we keep vehicles for very long times. ( My JDM Corolla wagon, imported as a 4-year-old vehicle is now 21 years old !)
Up to now everything bike is super expensive. I have an Indian-made-and-market 2021 Yamaha FZ25. Earlier this year, I bought the two pairs of disc pads for the bike at the dealer............at the equivalent cost of US$132. !!! ( One US$ is $6.80 of ours)
I still love the multi-cylinder machines. I am not impressed with traditional bikes now coming in single-cylinder iterations. Recently I was on the Japanese Honda website, and I could not find a 250-4, The bike I would love to have is the 400 Super Four. But as a pensioner, the high cost of motorcycles in Japan, and our high import taxes, it will be prohibitive to import it. I will be riding the FZ250 into the great beyond !
Nice going Bart !
Trinidad & Tobago.
West Indies.
These bikes reeeeally dug up my memories of road rash
Whether you ride bikes or not you gotta appreciate the high reving F1 sound. And the fact that whatever ss you buy in the past 30 or so years will look amazing. Just like a hammer hasn't changed the ss bike was a perfect design for decades.
My mate had a ZX250r it was so much fun to ride, the sound was awesome sounded like you were doing 200kph but really doing 50 haha
I owned a 250 rr fireblade back in the early 2000s. Great little bikes and gave many a 900 a run for their money through the mountains.
6:45 im constantly amazed at how modern my 75 CB360 really is...........
.
Honda just got all the LITTLE details right on that family of bikes......(plus, they just work.... a few design flaws like the cam chain guides and oil pickup tube.... but otherwise SOLID)
like.... that CB360T feels like a modern bike to me
.
starts RIGHT up....... runs great..... very fun (wish it was a CB750, but.....LOL)
easy to work on..... parts are still available..... relatively low maintenance...ETC ETC ETC
My first bike was CBR250RR and to this day it’s one of my favourite bikes I’ve owned unfortunately I had to sell it to pay legal fees/fines after getting caught doing 170km/pr in a 70 zone on my gixxer 750
Preordered the new ZX-4RR with 400cc and almost 80 HP here in the EU... Cant wait to get my little 16000 rpm Screamer 🤗
love when you post these on early weekends takes me back to the my classic car offroad tv hotrod tv etc days
Not mentioned was Hondas oval piston four stroke V4 NR750 that turned 20,000 RPM.
first bike I ever owned and always regretted selling it. One popped up cheap a couple of years ago and I had to have it. 1991 Japanese import model with near 70xxx on the clock she still screamed to 20k on the regular and loved every minute of it. Great little bikes
I started watching in hopes of hearing some revs. However the amount of history I just learned almost made up for the fact there wasn’t a single sound track of any of the high rev bikes. And I still followed.
Disagree with not being able to be riden daily and comfortably on the street, my aus mc22 which is an ex p6 historic track bike and is still setup for track as it visits here and there runs great on the road. I had set it back to factory setup and tune at one point and it was very comfy to ride between the 5-10k rpm mark and made enough go above 7k rpm. When you compare it to modern 250 it makes nearly double the power so even down low its more then enough
i did courier work on a fzr for a year? mad max mobile, all the way.
and really... most of the time its fine at 8. the 16k plus is just for the lights and when you couldnt be bothered shifting in a corner...
Exactly this. I have an 88 FZR250 (also have an FZR400, used to have an 88 ZX4 too) and totally agree that Bart lost the plot towards the end there. The FZR250 is amazing as a commuter, I regularly shift at about 8k and that's plenty to keep up with and even pass average traffic. You only use 10k+ for fun/when really needed to pass someone. This idea that beginners or commuters "need" a twin or single for torque is utter nonsense. The little 250 4s are just fine at pretty much any rpm, with the 400s being even more suited to low rpm.
@@Little19man 2kr i found was far more reliable. 3ln has this "issue". its a combination of extreme carbs, the exup being crucial for it to run properly, and whilst all the symptoms suggest carbs, all my dealings have proven it to be the valves, and nasty carbon buildup.
2kr has different carbs and it will run regardless of what exhaust its got. it definitely never does what the 3lns do.
and nearly every 3ln does it!
been making my own cutters and arbors, because no shop can deal with a 15mm exhaust valve...
only gripes with teh 2kr is the bad rear geometry, had to redo that lower link pivot and its still crap, and the idea of coolant in the frame when the tube on the other side can be removed... replaced...?
on that note, they also have a pocket of air in the frame that you cant bleed without throwing a tiny screw right in the top of it... damn mine had some rust when i got it!
I love small displacement bikes. Id love to zip around on the new 250rr or the kawi. Its exciting times.
Im from Ireland originally. Moved to Australia last year and I've bought one of these beauties. Absolutely incredible bike and a lot of fun. Thinking off shipping it home for when I do go back as they are gold dust in Europe 😎
I had a GSXR250RR, I remember the redline was set at 17,500 ,as It had to have a custom ECU made for it after the factory one died. You had to drop a gear sometimes two in order to get it to go. It was just too much hard work to ride it above the 12,000 mark where it came alive and stay somewhere near legal speeds! Round town and rural roads it was not as much fun, as my old two strokes. Also the parts were really hard to get. This was phoning round places in the days before the internet was a thing. After a year or so I sold it and got a CBR400RR
There are alot of us that wanted super-screaming 400s in the 80's, (like Japanese Gpz 400s), that were a blast to ride but couldn't be had in the states.
Hey mate would love to see a deep dive into Yamaha, their use of sound waves etc when designing heads and how Toyota were so impressed by their inline-4 twin cams that they had them design the heads for the 4A planned for the now famous AE86 and more!
omfg....
the fzr250 has this mysterious ailment... everyone thinks its carbs, as every symptom points to carbs...
me? im on the path of carbon build up on the exhaust valves, no-one can deal with 15mm valves, and yeah. they sit in garages and never run properly again. an experiment on a mates one has proven we are on the right track at least. set the valves sloppy as and just run the thing in the hope the valves will hammer themselves clear.
so far its doing the trick? 200km ride today, it actually started idling for the first time in ever. didnt die. didnt bog. didnt sit there chugging with full throttle yet barely cracking idle...
where was i?
oh! sound waves and crap...
i got the old 2kr. ive ran it with no pipes, and at the moment, its a botched up set at the 4 in 1 after i mashed them... no issues either way. though it refused to start unless clutched when it was mashed? ran fine. wouldnt start... iunno! threw a noname can on, its fine.
i got the 3ln3...
took the EXUP off, just to see what happens.
ITS FREAKING AWFUL! it is absolutely gutless. nothing until about 10k, then some spluttering (that could be the other issues as well...) and finally, 12k... takes off like it should as the exup is open around there.
it is the first engine i have ever dealt with that is so fussy about the exhaust system to the point its a completely different machine... and unrideable! other than two strokes, dah.
the only difference between the two engines is the carbs and that valve in the exhaust. they went mad on the 3ln series... way too big. 28s on a 65cc cylinder... maybe needed at 18k, but makes a nightmare down low... and so they have this strange issue, that feels like its the carbs, despite inspecting, running seal kits, rebuilding a hundred times...
ive found a few peculiar things on these carbs, little notches in the slides, as if theyre meant to be assembled in one way, and one way only.
issue is, noone knows what the right way is... seems im the only person that observant? and as theyre all from the 80s/90s, been through several owners... not much is "factory" anymore.
but, all being done and said, it just seems that they went so freaking overboard, and the way that exup valve interacts with things, has me of the belief, with confirmation, that its the freaking valves that start leaking... check clearances? pointless. the things are riding on carbon.
well, mine were. never seen anything like it actually. been making arbors and a toolpost grinder and some cutters and just getting to the point i can recut the seats and put the stinking thing back together! did i mention, noone can deal with 15mm valves?
dammit, rego papers showed up today, its been dead for nearly a year now?
@@paradiselost9946I had a 3ln in NZ a couple of years ago, 36000kms or thereabouts.
Ran a bit crap when I got it.
Redid fuel system including tank seal and full carb clean & tune. Did the timing chain as well as she was a bit rattly.
Ran like a champ afterwards, the throttle was responsive and the bike was quick for what it was.
@@izzy031096 the old 2kr had 55K, i put another 100k on top of that, no issues. was starting to puff a bit of smoke from what seemed to be inlet stem seals, otherwise... meh. tapped into some idiot that pulled out in an intersection then stopped for no reason whilst im too busy looking down the side road to see... broke my headlight mounts. grr.
so the 3ln got a tub for work, and yeah... 3 months, it got to the point it was "chugging" every few minutes.
as in... you give the WOT and they barely crack idle, for about five minutes or as long as it takes the carbs to drain as turning the fuel off is the only cure it seems. then riding is a nightmare of no throttle to excellent to crap to stalling to chugging at every set of lights... turning fuel on and off, wee...
was the third tank of carb cleaner, peering down the inlets, seeing bubbles at the valves... hang on... compression check... vacuum check... hmmmm.... is leaky...
sighed, tore it down, and yeah... over 1mm thick deposits of carbon on 3 of 8 exhaust valves. with clearances set to the carbon... everything had carbon but 3 were real bad. (do NOT run 98! waste of money and cokes stock engines up!)
had OS pistons... its been apart before... and the head was just a black coked up oily mess. some searching for seat cutters and so forth...
just finished my toolpost grinder last night and had a test run on some scrap... oh my... arbor time! i can actually get the finish required.
3.5mm valve stem. smallest commercial arbor i can find is 3.8. 15mm exhaust valve, with clearance for 18mm cutter shell... smallest is 22.
my mates one that started doin it, we set the valves sloppy as, and its cleared up after a few tanks and hard runs, never even touched the carbs. mine? i put two different brands of kit in, another set of carbs off a spare one, had them apart maybe 100 times... nope. theories about rust as the tank had rusted out and everything was full of superfine powder... new plugs, same reason... rust dust... nope.
so im adamant its valves, prove it 100% in a few days...
the lack of tooling to deal with them, and faced with a shop quoting 1000 or more.... theres a lot of 3lns go cheap. they come in waves, just gotta keep an eye out...
had plenty of big bikes, lost my license more than enough times... these will break the speed limit quite happily and sound hilarious doing it! and keep me from being TOO stupid.
still, my second fastest bike at 220 was an nsr150... really gotta resurrect one of them... sigh. i like em small and squitty so i can throw them around. ring dinging is even better. two smokes for ever! until they seize at 130 or more! in corners! weeeee!
lo, i got one 3ln with a supercharger sitting in there waiting for some belts and brackets... ideal engine, the alternator/flywheel has enough room to squeeze a 16mm toothed belt in behind it, and sticks out like an overlooked afterthought... nice and neat. plenty of space in the deltabox...
cbr needs the cases chopped apart...
Honda will always be my favourite company. Ever since my first little 50cc Honda dirtbike to my first car (92 Honda Prelude) ❤❤❤
Had a VFR400...Great fun bike. Sounded lovely and handled sweet.
Loved my vfr 400 and so did my mates when they had a rip.
But didn't like me beating em up in the twisties.
I feel so blessed to own my 1991 suzuki bandit 400, everything you said in this video reminds me of my bike. Only, the gsf400 is a naked superbike, and revs to about 15k
Great video Bart.
And, yes we should all consider moving to Aussieland or at least visiting.
The Phazer 250 was unreal when it came out. Not surprisingly even Tamiya made a plastic model kit of the bike. The Phazer was the genesis of the genesis of the FZ 750. Great to see you focused on that 1FM bike early on in the video.
I don't go anywhere my guns can't go, and if by chance I find myself somewhere my gun cannot go rest assured it's there anyways.
I own an mc14 cbr250f and it looks so cool, it doesn't run at the moment as it sat outside for 9 years before I bought it, but when it runs, you know I'm hitting that 17.5k redline!
Still enjoying my '88 Yamaha FZR 400 GENESIS. The engine is literally immortal!
In various motorcycle shops, I was a mechanic from the sixties to 90s. Worked mostly on Japanese bikes. Honda had the highest quality Kawasaki. It always had the most horsepower. Suzuki always had the best handling and Yamaha's were all around good. These bikes were not so re-buildable and we're more like disposable. I have owned dozens of them. Now I ride an old triumphs and an old BMW just for fun
i had a toy model of this bike growing up and it was what got me into motorcycles, so nostalgic seeing this again after many years lol
I had a FZX250 Zeal. She was a screaming 4Cyl with redline of 15k RPM. Other than a spongy front end for my 120kg rear end it was kinda fun to run around on.
We also had laws in Australia that restricted learners to a 250 for their learning and provisional periods. This has been bumped up to 650CC but they have power to weight restrictions instead.
Not in QLD, still 250cc for learner (pre-RE) licenses.
We used to have the same rule here in NZ, 250cc limit. No power to weight rules though. So you could get an Aprilia RS 250 at 15 with a learners. Thankfully I couldn't afford one, I probably wouldn't have survived. 😂
I really appreciate the effort put into these videos! Superb! I learned so much from this video! Thanks!
I have a CBR250R(J), great video on them. Forgot to mention that the RR has double front disc brakes. But otherwise wonderful video.
Now that is a slick ad to sell me boots. I'll never watch this channel again because of it but congrats on making me watch it once.
When Yamaha was developing the FZ750, the prototype had a 20,000 rpm redline. The problem was that it idled at 5000 rpm.
Ive heard we cant get many 4cyl bikes under 650cc or even 1000cc because of emissions. The heat causes more emissions and based on the way regs are written its difficult, at least in the west/US, tho Kawi just released that ZX4rr so it is possible to some degree, but yeah. I just love their sound even at 10k RPM, and would love to have one as a beginner bike just to rev out, then tune it once I got better. (I love bikes but havent owned one, just love engineering and crap lol) And im not alone, which is why I think Kawi made rhat one and others want to depending on region released in, people want to just rev high cyl counts without breaking all speed limits in 1st gear lol
I have a 1989 CBR250r MC19. It's beautiful to ride, especially when it's out past 12k rpm it sounds amazing.
Got this bike as my 20th birthday present, and it's an absolute dream to ride on. ❤
I do miss my old ZXR250C. RIding through tunnels and multi storey car parks in London during my teens was absolute gold. It's a shame I had to get rid of it, because spare parts were getting stupidly rare and had to be sourced from Australia. The NC22 was slowing down production just as the ZXR250C was probably at its peak. Tech-wise, the Honda had a lot more desirable features in the engine (gear driven cams, like you say), but there's no denying the looks of the ZXR250/400/750 family in the early to mid 90s.
Definitely appreciate that, I had a 1990 zxr750H1 with a J2 engine back in the day , that bike was crazy. Got hit by a car so removed the fairing, put some risers and drag bars, polished the frame and wheels and loved it even more. They were fantastic bikes.
ZXr250c when tuned was slightly faster than the CBR though, it's a better bike aside the cam chain. But just change it when you hear the tick before the cove rgets eaten up. Parts is a pain though. They make a new one though I'd love it but they are same price as a 600 cc sportsbike.
I still use my firs bike, I'm from hungary, and it's a grey import gsf250, and I was noob, I shouldn't buy it, I'm still struggling to get parts, but I never regret it, with custom exhaust it sound like an f1 car from the v10 era, and I love it.
Always appreciate the credit. If you want to see more on my bike, let me know. Great video! Guy I bought my bike from also had one of those Kawasaki 250s with the ram air. He had a nice collection.
It's emission as to why the current batch of 250cc bikes don't rev past 14/15k rpm, I think it was a fortnine video where he explained and showed the amount of ignition pulses per minute and the new Kawasaki inline 4 250 screamer has a laughably low amount of ignition pulses per minute so it complies with emissions, any more rpm and it wouldn't pass, remapping them brings out a lot as they run very lean as well.
I owned the 1988 Kawasaki ZX4 4cylinder (same motor as the later ZXR ) superb bike and very light 144kg dry ! Back in the mid 90s U.K. grey importers were getting loads of very interesting light weight Japanese market only bikes (I owned 3 400cc bikes VFR 400 NC21 ! Yamaha FZ400N with 20 valves!)
Honda was the force those days. I always loved them because of the excellent engineering which lead to performance and reliability.
When I was 18 I moved to the big city of my country and took up being a motor cycle courier full time. I started on my old GSX 450 then bought a VFR400, which I loved. My insurance company found out I was on a learner license and they made me drop down to a 250. To keep them happy I bought a FZR250 - I liked it for the job I was doing but I remember being sad trying to get the front wheel off the ground. I remember it revved quite high but it was a 4 cylinder 4 stroke, so ….
My friend had a NSR250 (that right?) two stroke bullet. It was smokey, light and so fast. You could get the front wheel up easily and it was truly a bike that was impossible to keep under the speed limit. It was a terrifying bike to me.
I spent 40 hours per week on the bike for 2 years and enjoyed most of it. I quit to save my life. I’d had two accidents and a colleague was killed. The money was not good and I made a decision to live. I then didn’t ride from aged 20 until recently at 47 when I bought an electric Surron. I was so happy to find out that my brain had stored the muscle memory and I can still ride :)
Another awesome video Bart! This channel is very underated. I would love a video on the Suzuki GS bikes and Kawi KE100s
The 400s were fun...used to love my NC29
The CBR400 was actually the first CBR in the Honda product range.!
I used to get to ride a homie's 97 CBR 250 RR. Crazy riding experience. Fun.
Seeing that Yamaha Phazer, I think I know what KeithinAsia’s unobtainium Asian Cycle EX250F Ninja 250 flushmounts were originally intended for. A quick search and it seems replacement Phazer signal housings may be just as unobtainium. :(
I had the pleasure of owning an RVF400 what a gem V4 18,500 RPM after HRC upgrades and put out 65hp linear delivery 3500 up and up Joy
Had 1 of these for a couple of years, disagree with Bart about not a good daily it’s perfectly ok, best fun on 2 wheels
I still have my mc22. I used it as a daily with a gutted Yoshimura sport exhaust from my learner license. Yes you need experience, yes it needs to scream to get around. I'll always tell people the same, do not ride these bikes if you didn't grow up riding high power bikes, but if you have... my God, I ran a flat 12 second 1/4 mile on my mc22 when I was 17. This bike is the best purchase of my life & you'll never experience anything like riding a 4 piston bike screaming at 20k rpm right under your chest.
Bart - Your material is consistently excellent! Your delivery style/tone is top caliber young man... Cheers from British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦
Emissions are why these bikes aren't made anymore. Its extremely difficult to build a compliant bike with current restrictions. Unfortunately I think it's only gonna get worse. Ryan at Fortnine made video discussing this in-depth. I've got a 954rr and its simply exquisite. A "Baby Blade" is definitely on my wishlist once finances permit.
Moving to Australia.
You like fat chicks?
i still have my honda cb-1. 400cc i four 13.5k redline. i love em since you can rev them out through the gears and not be going straight to jail speeds. gear whine from the cam gear train and exhaust note is intoxicating
Was lucky enough to have a ZXR250R, a CBR250rr, an FZR250R and a couple of VFR400Rs. Those bikes were just epic!!
I have the 1992 cbr250rr mc22. I love it. And it still go's so hard. And it black and yellow
Hi Bart, after watching quite few of your vids, I have convinced myself to finally subscribe. You have a very awesome way of documenting your videos that makes me excited for every new thing I learn about motorcycling from your videos. Thanks for these videos, really grateful you got me more on motorcycling (especially on two stroke motorcycles :))
Do you often struggle with such simple decisions such as a free subscription?
@@giggiddy do you subscribe to every channel you watch to? That's the problem, I initially didn't want motorcycling content in my page as I thought it will be annoying and I didn't want my page to be involved in local motorcycle culture that I find annoying (im from asia). That's why it took me a while to subscribe
These bikes revved high because that is how you pump more air through any engine of a given displacement, and make more power. Unfortunately this also means the crankshaft must have a short stroke to keep max piston speed manageable, and that results in gutless low and midrange.
When you said you’re choosing American sponsors that make products in America, I subscribed immediately
I rode a few of these and was left unimpressed compared to my 2 stroke rgv. It revs and revs but there's no hit of power, just a higher exhaust note.
I bought an MC22 at the end of last year. I need to recommission it (tyres, brakes, carbs). Fancied one for decades due to the red line.
Not expecting it to be quick, but just occasional fun. I expect my tzr250 will leave it for dead!
They are not common in the Uk. The Japanese market 400s were fairly common 20 years ago, but not the 250s . Think quite a lot of the import 250 4 strokes landed up in Ireland.
I used to race with a RGV250, without crazy tune they aren't really any faster than a tuned ZXR250C, they have narrower power band (both are narrow) but the RPM of the IL4 really helped at higher speeds. Of course a heavily tuned NSR/RGV etc will cream it, I rode an NSR bored out to 300, no power valves, when it came on power it pulled hard as a 600cc sportsbike, was crazy and I was used to riding ZX10Rs at that point. It pulled hard.
This or a VFR 400 is my dream bike. Small, high rev and able to actually be *ran* on roads
I’d love to find an old ‘80s VFR700/750. IDC about the revs on that, just lope around on a badass V4 motorcycle.
I’d settle for a similar vintage Kawasaki Eliminator 600. 😃
@@vincedibona4687 pre VTEC VFRs are amazing machines, my dad had a 90s VFR 800. Honda made great bikes
RVF400 is very similar but with upside down forks. Check it out. It's one of my dream bikes.
The VFR400 is a great bike… if you are short. I’m 6’ tall and the bike was too small for me, my knees were above the top of my tank. Sold the bike to a Japanese buddy who was about 5’8” and he loved it.
FYI
They are amazing and the RVF 400 is probably the best looking 400 ever made but they sound terrible compared to a ZXR, GSXR, CBR, FZR 400 imo
well made video lacking only one thing. THE SOUND
I imagine the reason why these high revving bikes aren’t made anymore, is because of noise regulation. That ninja 400rr, is neutered in North America due to noise regulation and is pointless to buy here. But in Europe, it’s awesome
I'd have thought it was because of emissions but noise wow
13:23 I hate to say it but unfortunately this segment of the vid is incorrect. The direct air intake was all marketing. The air guides are blanked off and seperate to the airbox - they do nothing.
Source: I own both a 22 and 19.
Other than that, loved the vid, keep em coming!
Correct. Took me a while to find someone pointing this out. It's easy to understand how false myth and legend are created when videos like this become popular.
"Soh-each-ee-roh ("So" + "Ichiro," [just like Ichiro the baseball player]) Ir-ee-muh-jeer-ee" (8:13 & afterward). Because Japan has an entirely different written alphabet, English spellings of Japanese words are usually spelled nearly phonetically - they're written specifically to help us sound out the words, step by step, just like in school, to get the reader pretty close to the right sounds. Two bonus things I learned about Japanese, that can make it easier: first, there's no accented/emphasized bits of words (Nagano, for example, isn't "na-GA-no;" it's just a flat, evenly-paced "naga-no"). Second, Japanese words are made using a basic set of sounds. These individual sounds are always pronounced exactly the same way. Any time you see "ir," "ta" or "ka," for example, each of those always represent one single sound, no matter where you find it in a word. It's way easier than English, at least in these areas.
Combine the stuff above with a basic idea of how spoken Japanese usually sounds, and you're already most of the way there. If you listen to what common Japanese names typically sound like, you'll probably be able to tell why the way you said "Ear-muh-jeer-eey" was so noticeably off-kilter to my ears. I don't speak Japanese, nor do I consume Japanese media. Still, before even seeing the spelling (Irimajiri), I would have bet my life that "Ear-muh-jeer-eey" was not right. Maybe somebody in the Middle East has that name, but not a Japanese dude.
Just take a few extra seconds, and slowly sound out the letters of unfamiliar words (and/or just find the pronunciation on the internet) before you just decide you've got it, and you go on to repeat something that tells viewers that you don't care if the information in your video is accurate. If you're interested in Japanese manufacturers, and you're going to be making more content about them, perhaps you might just look at some Japanese names and compare their spelling with the way they're pronounced. Watch a few videos of people talking to or about Nintendo's Japanese game designers, for example; usually peoples' names are shown on screen, as well as spoken by the narrator or interviewer.
Also, camhaft drive gears can be stronger, and hold accuracy well, but gears are decidedly _more_ friction than a chain setup, particularly as RPM goes up. Just the axial (with helical-cut gear teeth) or transverse (w/straight-cut teeth) thrust load involved with gears creates way more heavily-loaded bearing surfaces (and more of them). Compared to what's needed to support a chain- or belt-driven OHC setup, a gear-drive arrangement often requires a substantially redesigned, heavier, more rigid, stable crankcase, to keep the gears from pushing away fom each other far enough for something to fail. While a geared cam drive is fewer moving parts, especially considering the individual moving pieces in a chain, a hydraulically-tensioned chain drive is less friction at high RPM, and absolutely accurate enough to keep timing in check. Perhaps in the '60s it was harder to keep a chain drive from coming apart or losing accuracy at insane revs, given the metallurgical inconsistencies and manufacturing tolerance limits of the time, but there are plenty of examples of gear drives a-'splodin' at speed in high-RPM race engines back then, as well.
My first bigger bike was a 93 cbr400rr and I'll never forget the first time I took it over 9000 rpm
I still have a holed piston on the shelf from my old FZR250R. One of the carb inlet rubbers had split and that piston ran hot as a result.. which just made me realise that all of those 250 screamers just missed out on the fuel injection era. If Japan had stayed the course on its regulations if the time i wager there would have been some even more amazing high revving small capacity race reps developed. It is a bit of a shame really as screwing performance out of small capacity engines is a marvelous direction to strive in
In New Zealand the old learner’s license was limited to 250cc i think Japan loved New Zealand back in the day cuz we got all the kool stuff from there
Hey man great video, just wrote off my 1996 Honda Hornet 250 last Friday because some muppet pulled out Infront of me. Looking at a 1991 Yamaha FZR250 this Sunday love the 250 screamers and yes in order to properly ride the Hornet you had to shift above 10k otherwise coming out of some corners you get terrible throttle roll on.
Hey i ride my cbr250rr everyday into the city for work. And its awesome i love sitting at the lights with its chopy idel 🙋♂️🇦🇺
At least Kawasaki have reset the micro high revving 4 cylinder bikes, ZX2R and ZX4R, surprised Honda does not join in again with its CB400 Vtec Engine to create the CBR400rr. The RVF400rr and CBR400rr was the ultimate bikes of this era IMO.
One thing you did not mention, the micro 250s especially for learners was a extremely frustrating to learn on, riding in the hills on tight twisty roads meant a thousand gear changes. My girlfriend at the time had a Kawasaki ZZR250, it was so easy to ride, could be in the completely wrong gear but the bike would still pull you out of the corner.
The ZZR suspension was crap, was heavy and a very upright riding position but easy to ride at a good pace.
thanks god u made this video i was waiting for it
How long have you been waiting?
The MC22 "direct air intakes" are actually faux intakes. Entirely for aesthetics only, and not connected in any way to the airbox.
The airbox has an intake in the traditional spot, behind the steering stem part of the frame.
I own an MC22 with my footage at 16:15
I'm not a bike guy but I've been wanting this bike for a while now
Well that was trippy, looking at those pics of these honda 250's I could smell mine when I first got it, the brain is weird
My dream bike, my learner bike, and the bike i kept way into my full license. I'll buy another one, one day. The 05 CBR600RR I have, revving to 17,000 RPM isnt such a bad thing either though ;)
I have a 250 twin ninja. It's a 90s bike which is exactly the same as the 80s bikes were... It's useless under 9K. It's fun as hell over that! It'll do 110 in fifth and 105 in sixth. Lol! I had a guy ride it and he said it was pretty fun I yelled at him about not reving it enough and made him go out again. This time he got up to and stayed over 9K. You wouldn't believe the grin when he came back from that ride! It's better to ride a small bike fast than a big bike slow.
In our garage are my wife's (slightly dented - I was riding it in rain, a lorry pulled out right in front of me & I could have kicked its back wheels as I slid up the road on my back) NC 30 & her OK NC 35
We were thinking to sell both
This has me reconsidering because the tech that made the 250s went into the 400s as well as the 750s