Single cylinder interest...

[leadfootedfool]

I've been looking at acquiring a Yamaha wr450 directly through Yamaha with very little success. Trying the wrecked bike route isn't proving very successful either due to the bike being relatively new and dirt bike guys fixing their bikes when they wreck them.

If any other teams would be interested in possibly buying a wr450 engine in some type of group buy, maybe yamaha would be more willing to sell 5 or 10 engines instead of just one.

Or if anyone has a magic contact in Yamaha North America that would be appreciated as well.

[jonno]

Yamaha makes 1 WR450 for each bike that pops off the production line. Therefore there are only enough engines for bikes they intend to sell. Therefore you can't just get a single direct from Yamaha easily. I believe the manufacture of the engines is in a one month or so stint late in the year (October / November time). If enough teams show enough interest and give yamaha a very convincing presentation as to why it is beneficial they might consider sticking a few additional engines through (this is basically what Geoff at RMIT explained to me at last years Formula Student). The route we took was buying a complete bike then selling all the unwanted bits (shocks, pannels, wheels etc) as spares. I doubt you will ever find one in a breakers (the bike is basically the engine and being a dirt bike doesn't need to be road legal so can just be bent back into shape after a big prang)