The subject of today’s dissection is the 2009 newly turned out Monster Yamaha Tech3 M1. Undoubtedly a state-of-the-art machine and the just slightly refined version (maybe the exact version) of the World Championship winning M1 ridden by Valentino Rossi in 2008. As Tech3 did their Livery rollout today at the GP Zero round in Valencia we though it might be cool take a look under the pretty new colors.

Front right wheel, not exactly like the one on your scooter! Fist you see the Ohlins GP front fork with Magnesium bottoms, fitted with the (god only knows what raw material) Brembo mono block radial caliper brakes and full carbon rotors. The forks are holding a ten spoke forged magnesium Marchesini wheel wrapped in a Bridgestone slick. Bolted on is a carbon fiber fender with some trick carbon brackets holding the front wheel speed sensor and the fork travel pot for the on board electronic telemetry. My focus here is on the really cool technology not the price but as we move back on the bike we move further into the real prototype bike, most of what we’re looking at here is actually acquirable (with some connections) and for sale to anyone with about $ 35 – $ 45,000.00 spare change. Why is there a wheel speed sensor on both sides of the front wheel? Can’t say for sure but it’s not likely that they’re both wheel speed sensors, it could be a rotor temp sensor or who knows what.

Front right lever and bar are somewhat anti climatic with the Brembo Radial (likely a 19 x 20) brake master with the trick flip-up lever and the roller bearing ¼ turn throttle (could be a 1/8 turn or a progressive rate depending on rider preference). The left side is quite a bit more interesting in my opinion because there are some recognizable things that are what you might call wolves in sheep’s clothing. The first thing is the radial (MotoGP seems to prefer straight) Ohlins Steering Damper. It may look like your grandma’s damper but it’s in fact a forged titanium body, high pressure nitrogen charged with a nitrite coated plunger rod, fully adjustable of course. You can also see the radial mount hydraulic clutch master cylinder and if you look real close just in front of it is the adjuster dial for the front break lever. To round it out you have the flip up lever and the steering deflection pot for the telemetry. Nice paint!

If we stick our heads into the countershaft area we find a virtual treasure trove of one off pieces. A simple but trick nine way adjustable rear set with a separate shifter mounted directly to the pivot on the lower engine case. I’m taking a bit of a guess here but I would bet that there are actually two shift rods coming off the shift lever, one that you can’t see running straight up to the shift shaft and the one that you can see going to the shifter control unit mounted on the frame. Hiding under there is an Ohlins TTX style rear Damper (shock) mounted to the lower linkage that includes an adjustable dog bone that you can just see right at the very bottom of the shot. Unlike their World Superbike cousins they don’t use active damping in MotoGP. Somehow I doubt they’re saving any money though. Another thing (as a suspension guy) I find interesting is that apparently the spring sits practically on the lower clevis on this shock. They have a very cool looking offset on the swingarm pivot and apparently like the pivot high. Generally speaking this position is used to increase the angle without raising the ride height in order to try to achieve more off corner grip. Those cables and the hose hanging around the countershaft sprocket are somewhat alarming. I’ll just assume it’s some kind of depth perception issue from the camera (but you might want to check that out).

The right side pivot area gives a better look at that adjustable swingarm pivot. I hate to be repetitive but that is very cool and very nicely done. The thing that jumps out at you though on this side is the dry clutch (slipper of course), familiar to our Ducati friends but never seen on production Japanese sport bikes. There are two primary advantages to the dry clutch, the first being that there is far less drag on the motor when the clutch isn’t dragging in the oil and the whole clutch assembly is lighter because it’s not wet. There are other advantages as well such as not putting all the waste created by the friction plates through the oil but on the down side if you smoke it ‘you smoke it,’ you’re done. It’s always good to make your rider as comfortable as possible and that couldn’t be demonstrated any better than in the heal kicker plate morphed into an all around MotoGP running board. Again this is a guess and I’m no metallurgist of course you can’t overlook that camera thing too but in my experience when you cut aluminum (referring to the whole for the sub-frame mount) it is dull, you see that high reflective finish when you work with magnesium. The only extraneous wire fond running around over here is likely the rear wheel speed sensor but it could be a rear break pressure sensor or even an engine speed sensor. It’s impossible to know without being able to see where it terminates.

When looking at the right side of the rear wheel there’s not much but I think it’s awesome that they nitrite the axle. I like the fact that the axle adjuster is basically the same piece as on our R6 and just FYI the adjuster isn’t bent; that’s the valve stem on the wheel, more of that camera voodoo. More forged magnesium wheels and a 520 chain wraps it up on this side but I would feel remiss not to point out the titanium stand. The right side brags on yet another cool and very small Brembo caliper, another wheel speed sensor and a multi piece full Titanium exhaust with an almost comically short ‘Shorty Can.’ In this case the carbon fiber hugger isn’t just for show nor is it to provide a place for the sponsor stickers but it is actually an integral part of the aerodynamics of the machine and helps to evacuate heat from the engine compartment.

That pretty much wraps up our tour of the M1 for today we hope you enjoyed it. As I’m amazed at all the amazing technology we covered keep in mind we didn’t say a word about the engine, what the electronics do and what they are capable of, or anything that you could consider in depth about chassis or geometry. It’s something to think about how many separately perfected components come together to create one truly state-of-the-art prototype race bike.

This was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 9:57 pm and is filed under the Category - Chassis Tuning. Thanks for visiting! Please feel free to Make Your Comments or trackback (right mouse click) from Your Site, Twitter or Facebook Page. Don't forget to follow the comments to this Post through our Comment Feed. Regards from all of us at TRS Media - Stay Metal....   |   Attributions and Credits