DIRTBIKE

TOTAL HOURS 10

MODS THIS MONTH

GYTR tank, B&B bashplate

MODS NEXT MONTH

Motoz Hybrid tyre, GYTR pipe

and flywheel, ProBolt kit

With the YZ’s duties as a

pristine magazine photo model

completed with this month’s hit-

out against the Sherco 250SE-R

(page 42) it was time to hook into

some serious mods. ADB’s enduro

testing crew and freestyle motocross fans

had managed to leave boot marks on the

front guard and headlight with their heel

clicker routines but never mind.

At least it wasn’t too late to protect the

frame rails, by organising an alloy bashplate

from B&B Off-Road in Ballarat, Vic. These

guys have been around almost as long as the

YZ two-stroke so it was no surprise that they

had a jig to make the required component.

The B&B bashplate doesn’t go around the

expansion chamber but the stock exhaust

seems to be built tough enough to take a

few hits. Not having the extra protection

also avoided us having to worry about

whether the bashplate would clear the GYTR

by FMF Nickle Torque Exhaust that’s on its

way from Sydney.

We have fi nally managed to get the

hour meter into double fi gures and that

was partly thanks to the GYTR 12.1 litre

fuel tank, with its 50 per cent increase in

capacity over the stocker. Nothing like a

boost in (petrol) supply to increase demand.

There were no issues fi tting the tank, we

just swapped over the mounts and fuel tap

from the stock tank and fl ushed it out with

a few litres of petrol to make sure there

were no traces of plastic from the moulding

process. The tank is translucent so you can

watch the level go down but the radiator

shrouds stop it looking totally naked.

It does kick the shrouds out slightly,

particularly at the top, so we were a bit

worried about what would happen to them

in the tight. It’s also slightly wider between

the legs when sitting forward to

weight the front-end.

First stop was the Stradbroke

State Forest for a quick blast on

fi reroads and non-techo singletrack to

get that hour meter ticking over. We did

three laps of a 50km circuit at moderate pace

without breathing hard and it looked like the

GYTR tank was still good for another lap.

The main tracks had all been groomed

for the fi reys but didn’t look like they’d had

much use since then. It was pretty funny to

see rock wallabies come shooting out of the

new stormwater pipes under the road as we

approached. It was a hotday.

With the revised ergos, it seemed more

comfortable to keep standing and lean

forward to weight the fork. The extra fuel

certainly hadn’t stopped the YZ’s friskiness.

A couple of days later we were up at

the Toolangi State Forest trailriding area

with Editor Mitch Lees on the RMX450Z

long-termer. You couldn’t have more of a

contrast from Stradbroke, was lots of tight

singletrack, climbs and descents at Toolangi.

The terrain up there is an interesting mixture

of loam and rocky sections.

The stock gearing on the YZ-X was a little

high for this stuff but the bike reinforced

its reputation for being light and fl ickable.

Still, would’ve accepted a 5kg penalty to

have been able to use a start button before

Mitch turned up on some of those hills.

We did fi ll up the tank before this ride,

which wasn’t really necessary, and the stock

Dunlop AT81 rear is pretty fl ogged out for

hillclimbing so we’ll be back up at Toolangi

shortly to test out the latest changes.

There’s also the suggestion of some dirt

tracking at Broadford with a Motoz Hybrid

on the back. Mitch reckons I’ll eat dirt.

Wolter Kuiper

YAMAHA

YZ250X

COSTS

RRP: $10,990

Warranty: Three months parts

Distributor: Yamaha Australia,

Web: yamaha-motor.com.au

(02) 9757 0011

http://www.adbmag.com APRIL 2016 | 137

OPEN ALL HOURS

Finally the YZ-X has racked up some time in the forest

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