The Motorbike Archives

The subject was the new Yamaha XS 1100E, a phenomenal motorcycled which Yamaha has chosen to call the "Eleven." It is a lot of motorcycle with a lot of attractions, and if you are a seasoned big-bike rider with the experience to direct and appreciate them, those attractions are exciting and impressive. The speaker was describing the Eleven's most exciting, heart-pounding quality: It's astonishing, relentless horsepower.

Take this new four out on the street… and rearrange the street if you wish. Get away for a weekend trip on the Eleven and discover new meanings for the terms "torquey" and "mid-range power." Ride through the valley of the Kawasaki KZ1000 and fear not, for the Eleven is, as the saying goes, the meanest sonofabitch in the valley.

We hasten to point out, though, that the XS Eleven is more than just a device for warping time and shriveling pavement. It's a complete, refined motorcycle. Yamaha's bike-shapers saw the unrestrained super-bikes built by other companies a few years ago arrive with a lot of fanfare, then quickly and quietly disappear, so they learned the lesson without having to pay for it: pure speed is not enough to make a motorcycle successful. Power and speed draw buyers to showrooms. But comfort, styling, reliability, detail features, handling and ease of maintenance are the considerations that, over the long haul, open more checkbooks.

So the bike Yamaha built was to have the biggest motorcycle engine ever to cross the Pacific East-to-West. The 1100 was to be a motorcycle big enough to bruise egos in any crowd of motorcyclists, but able to accept the compromises necessary for the realities of day-to-day riding. The finished product is truly an astounding motorcycle.

THE BIKE

Although very contemporary, the construction of the Yamaha XS1100E Eleven holds few surprises. But one is the rubber-mounting of the entire engine unit to provide the rest of the chassis with an effective isolation from engine vibration. The 1101.6-cc four-stroke looks very much like Yamaha's dual-overhead-camshaft XS750E triple, but with a 3.5-mm increase in bore diameter and an additional cylinder. Both engines have 68.6-mm strokes, although the 1100 has a 71.5-mm bore, and both use 36-mm intake valves and 31-mm exhaust valves with shim-type adjusters. The Eleven's compression ratio is 9.2:1.

Like the XS750E, the XS 1100 is fed by a bank of 34-mm Mikuni constant-velocity carburetors. All four of the Eleven's carbs are controlled by a single throttle cable. Unlike most Japanese multis, the Eleven has no cable to pull the throttles shut. The carbs plug into an airbox which includes internal velocity-stack-type intake tubes, so changing the air cleaner arrangement may have an adverse effect on intake tuning.

The Eleven's lower end follows the pattern of the "universal Japanese four." The crankshaft rides on plain bearings, and a single-row chain loops around the center of the crank and up through the cylinder head to drive the camshafts. A Morse Hyvo primary chain, driven by a sprocket next to the cam chain's drive sprocket, takes power to a jackshaft which delivers power to the wet clutch and mainshaft through straight-cut gears. This primary drive jack-shaft contains a large cush-drive to cushion the clutch and transmission from sudden changes in engine speed. And the clutch is not the inverted type used on the XS750 Yamahas.

Aside from the primary drive system, the XS1100's power train is laid out just like the XS750's. After passing through the two usual gearbox shafts, the Eleven's power goes to a jackshaft via another pair of straight-cut gears. Two spiral-bevel gears at the jackshaft's left end turn the power 90 degrees and introduce it into the final-drive shaft, which carries the power to the ring-and-pinion gears to make the final 90-degree turn into the rear wheel. All these shafts and gears absorb more power than a chain, but a chain drive requires more maintenance than a shaft. Anyway, the XS Eleven certainly doesn't need more power.

The 325-watt AC generator is located on the right end of the crankshaft. On the left end is the electronic triggering system which Yamaha uses instead of points with the battery-coil ignition system. Like other fours, the Eleven uses two coils, each of which sparks two cylinders simultaneously. (Each cylinder gets a waste spark on its exhaust stroke.)

There is an innovation—as far as motorcycles are concerned—in the spark advance system: in addition to the normal centrifugal advance, the XS1100E has a vacuum advance system. A hose from the No. 2 cylinder's intake tract operates a diaphragm which rotates the ignition's pickup plate via a short linkage. This allows the ignition timing to vary with throttle opening (which means engine load) as well as with engine speed.

An emergency kill switch is also a new feature in the ignition system. This switch simply turns off the ignition system if the bike falls 60 degrees from vertical. We can assure you that it won't kill the engine while cornering but it might keep the engine from destroying itself if the bike falls on the right handgrip and sticks the throttle wide open.

The XS1100's four-into-two exhaust system has a familiar configuration. The two cylinders on both sides share a common collector and muffler, and the mufflers are joined by a large balance tube.

The double-backbone, double-downtube frame uses tapered roller bearings at both the steering head and the swingarm pivot. This is a long-overdue design feature because big road bikes frequently have steering head bearing problems in the first 5000 miles.

As with the XS750E, the XS 1100 fork includes a three-stage spring preload cam in each leg. Using just a flat-bladed screwdriver, the rider can adjust for road, load or riding conditions. The Kayaba rear shocks are filled—but not pressurized with nitrogen and have five preload positions.

Like Yamaha's other streeters, the Eleven has cast alloy wheels and disc brakes, with dual discs up front. Unlike other Yamahas, but like the Honda Gold Wing, the 1100 uses a 17-inch rear wheel with a 4.50-section rear tire. With the XS1100's power and 573-pound weight, the 17-inch tire will have longer life than an 18-incher.

In an effort to make the bike stand out, Yamaha designers used a square motif on many of the Eleven's pieces. Both the speedometer and the electric tachometer have square faces. A small fuel level gauge, which reads empty when it's time to switch the dual vacuum petcocks to the 1.3-gallon reserve tank, is included in the tack. The rectangular headlight and the running lights in the front turn signals (also rectangular) come on when the ignition is turned on. A switch on the right handlebar gives the impression that the lights may be turned off while running, but flipping this switch to "Off" allows just the headlight to turn off if the engine is killed while the ignition is on.

Despite all of Yamaha's attention to lighting in other areas (there's also a dual-bulb taillight), the sealed-beam headlight is not a quartz-halogen unit as found on the Honda GL-1000 and Kawasaki Z1-R, and the 1100 can outrun its light in second gear. The silly little unauthoritative horn also isn't suitable for a bike which Yamaha is calling "The King."

Worthwhile features include Yamaha's self-canceling turn signal system, a 50-watt, 20-amp fused electrical terminal for accessories, a fork lock incorporated into the ignition lock (like Honda and Suzuki use), comfortable Magura-like dog-leg handlebar levers with rubber hoots, and a lock on the left side panel which covers the tool kit.

It's also worth noting what the Eleven doesn't have: There is no storage compartment, since the seat doesn't fold up. (The lock adjacent to the seat is only- for a helmet hook.) Even if the seat was hinged, there's no room to store anything because the ignition's black box fills the cavity in the seatback. You may also notice that no kickstart lever is installed. The lever is stored behind the engine and may be retrieved for emergency use by loosening a wing nut.

Yamaha has a special name for the color applied to the four's 5.8-gallon fuel tank. side panels and seatback: "macho maroon.''

No price had been released for the XS Eleven when we went to press, but we're told that it will probably be just under $3000 -which is somewhere between the Kawasaki KZ 1000 and the Honda G L-

ENGINE AND GEARBOX

The power of the Eleven is nothing short of awesome. This bike is far and away the fastest street machine we've ever tested. And the XS1100's power and speed aren't just the kind that produce fast quarter-mile times. The 1100 has fantastic low-rpm power, amazing mid-range punch and even plenty of acceleration above redline.

At 11.75 seconds and 114.5 mph. the XS1100E was- over a quarter of a second (which is a lot) quicker in the standing-start quarter-mile than the next-quickest machine we've ever tested - which happens to be the Kawasaki Z I-R. The XS Eleven has enough full-throttle top-end power to do second-gear burnouts, to pop first-gear wheelies like an RD400, to smoke the tire all the way through first gear. to blow the doors or handlebars off anything on the sane side of a 427 Cobra and to-run all day at over 100 mph. It also has more than enough power to put an unwary rider in jail or an inexperienced rider in the hospital. The Eleven is not a motorcycle for the novice.

It is, however, a motorcycle for the experienced road rider who wants the maximum in low- and medium-speed power for carrying gear and passing smoothly. When asked to describe the lower limit of the Eleven's powerband one tester commented, "It starts at the point where your thumb touches the starter button." The bike will accelerate without hesitation from 1800 rpm and your arms will he pulled straight by the time the electronic tach's needle flickers past 3000 rpm.

The Eleven has no equal when making top-gear-only passes. "It's like a huge electric motor," enthused one rider. "Just turn up the rheostat." For example, the Kawasaki Z1-R we also tested this month is a powerful machine, gifted with an enormous amount of mid-range power. But to accelerate with the Eleven in fifth gear, the Kawasaki had to he in fourth. And even in fourth gear a 1978 Gold Wing couldn't keep up with the 1100 in fifth. The XS1100's power is unapproachable by any other motorcycle at any speed.

No sudden surges of power can he found anywhere in the range between 1000 and 10,000 rpm nor are there any flat spots. Even after the Eleven reaches its 8500-rpm power peak, the power just trails off gradally as the tach needle swings into the red zone, which begins at 8500 rpm. In fact, virtually everyone who rode the bike was surprised to find himself suddenly well past the redline the first time he grabbed a fist full of throttle. This happened partially because the bike accelerates so quickly and partially because the engine keeps pulling so strongly above 8500 rpm.

There's a shortage of flywheel mass in the big four, and when unladen the engine builds and drops revs very quickly. This characteristic is accentuated by the CV carbs, which open their throttles suddenly from idle. Throttle abruptness was sometimes a problem at small throttle settings in lower gears when a small movement of the rider's hand created a disproportionate response from the engine, causing the bike to lurch. Some lash in the drive train also contributes to this problem.

Although the XS1100 averaged 38 miles per gallon of gas, our 46-mpg maximum figure is probably more realistic for most riders. We spent a lot of time riding the bike exceptionally hard, but during more restrained touring we recorded 42 to 46 mpg. With that kind of mileage, the bike has a range of over 200 miles on a tank.

The Eleven always started instantly and warmed up enough to respond smoothly within a minute. The big four sounds noisier to the rider and to bystanders than other machines, but our sound level meter told us that the bike generated 84.3 decibels of noise during our sound testing.

The transmission always shifted lightly, positively and rather noisily. The clutch disengaged with an astonishingly light pull yet was still very progressive and predictable. We had to adjust it once after making two dozen runs at the dragstrip, but it never grabbed, dragged or slipped.

HANDLING

What surprised us the most about the XS Eleven was how well it handled. Shaky, heavy handling at high speeds has become the rule for the big 500-pound 750- and 1000-cc multis and is commonplace in lighter fours and triples and even many twins. With the heft of the big engines has come heavy low-speed handling and a shortage of cornering clearance. But Yamaha's four, while not perfect, is much better than average in these respects.

When ridden at racetrack speeds (which are as difference from fast-road speeds as night from day), the XS 1100 will wobble consistently. But even the most daring street rider will have a hard time provoking it into anything more than a subdued wobble. We spent the better part of two days wailing around remote mountain roads at illegal velocities and the worst behavior the 1100 displayed was an occasional, mild wiggle. Very aggressive cornering, with hard acceleration and speeds and angles which took the bike almost to the limits of its cornering clearance and tire adhesion, would sometimes prompt the wallowing at high speeds (over 60 mph) and so would a hump located in the middle of a fast bend.

If the suspension was set on its softer settings, the steering would begin to hunt when the throttle was snapped shut in the middle of a fast bend. Increasing the suspension preload—especially at the front eliminated this completely.

In most fast cornering situations the Eleven was steady and easy to steer, and we had no complaints about cornering stability in medium- and low-speed bends. Except for the Suzuki GS750, the Yamaha steered more precisely and wobbled less than any big multi we've ridden in the past couple of years, including the Laverda iota.

Yamaha hasn't obtained steadiness through heavy steering, either. With its ultra-long (61.9 inches) wheelbase, lots (5.12 inches) of front wheel trail and 600 pounds of weight while rolling, the XS1100 would be expected to steer slowly, but really doesn't. More importantly, the big machine doesn't handle heavily when rolling. When being pushed or paddled around with the engine off, the XS 1100 feels as heavy and awkward as any machine we can recall. But as soon as you roll away under the bike's own power, that massive feeling vanishes. The Yamaha is easy to manage at low speeds and may be nudged into a bend with very little effort at medium and high speeds. Readjusting your line or changing the direction in which you are turning in an ess-turn doesn't require the forceful steering inputs of other big fours.

Furthermore, getting on the brakes while cornering doesn't cause the big bike to sit up as much as most other large-displacement multis. There is some resistance to bending into a turn while braking, but not nearly as much as with the Kawasaki KZ1000 or Honda CB750, for example.

The final surprise for the fast road rider is how far the XS1100 can be leaned over before anything drags the road. The Eleven has a great deal of cornering clearance, particularly when the suspension preload is increased to its highest settings. The first things to drag are the folding footpegs, followed by the centerstand and collectors.

Cornering clearance is at a maximum when the bike is accelerating through a turn because, like other shaft-driven motorcycles, the XS1100 drops on both its front and rear suspensions when the throttle is closed and lifts again during acceleration. Even with the suspension compressed during closed-throttle cornering, the ground clearance is more than adequate.

The Eleven is gifted with better than average suspension. For most riding we chose the stiffest front fork preload positions and one of the two stiffest rear suspension settings. As previously mentioned, this eliminated certain minor problems, and it caused no real comfort compromises. The increase in preload also had very little adverse effect on road-holding in sharp dips. Although we don't know how they'll hold up, the rear suspension units offered better rear-end control than most Japanese shocks, even though they have virtually no compression damping. The front fork also performs well, especially over small, sharp bumps.

The weak point in the XS1100's handling is its Bridgestone tires, the same tires which are used on the Honda Gold Wing. They are adequate on dry pavement, but they slip more than normal on painted lines, manhole covers and other slick surfaces. On wet roads it's possible to spin the rear wheel in fifth gear at 70 mph. Since the rear wheel is 17 inches in diameter, there are only a limited number of available replacement tires, and none currently available are significantly better than the 'Stone. Only a tire with a rubber compound about as sticky (and as short-lived) as a roadracing slick would he completely capable of standing up to the Eleven's terrific power and considerable weight during fast cornering. Since that sort of rubber isn't practical, an XS 1100 rider had better be certain his throttle hand is completely under control.

Once rolling, the Eleven was steady from a walk right up to 136 mph, the bike's apparent top speed. Sidewinds and bumps didn't distract the bike, but rain grooves did make it wiggle.

One last treat: The XS 1100 is even easy to get on the centerstand.

COMFORT AND RIDE

The XS Eleven has the comfort necessary to make a motorcycle an enjoyable tourer. The big soft seat kept both riders' and passengers' bottoms from becoming sore on long rides but some testers did note a trace of numbness after two or three solid hours of riding. Although the seat is wide and long enough for uncrowded passenger-toting, it's also low enough to permit riders with average-length legs to stand flat-footed at a stop. Shorter riders also can reach the ground more easily than they might expect.

The seat, pegs and handlebar are arranged to provide comfortable riding positions at all speeds, even with a passenger. The handlebar is wide enough to offer plenty of leverage for in-town riding, yet still low and narrow enough for comfort at high speeds. Yamaha's soft rubber grips and mild throttle-return pressure insure that the rider's hands won't he tortured during long tours.►