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Electrical.
It’s almost like when things aren’t going Eli’s way, he gets mad and punishes the bike. It takes a strong man to be able to abuse a 450 to the point of failure.
So far this year we’ve seen Webb, Deegan (x2) and Tomac have a bike that’s smoking like that. I’m not sure if they’ve been related but 4 times in 6 weeks from the same team sure seems like more than coincidence.
Obviously!
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The suspension is so bad it damaged the engine internals.
Well they changed a few engines between motos so they may not be sure either.
It went Yeah Nah, I’m done.
Definitely a bad look for Star and Yamaha. I bet it made the Honda brass smile!
All 3 450s changed engines between motos and some 250s. Also some mx6 Yamahas. Not a good day to be a blue engine
Don’t forget Mosiman DNF at Thunder Valley.
What is Star Yamaha doing to the clutches? They all seem to have consistent clutch overheating issues.
Yeah Nah For Sure
Edit: I saw Carroll posted saying he simply lost his oil fill cap.
Don't forget Bryton Carroll from Rupert's pics. The Yamahas have pretty small oil volume and the reverse engine runs hot due to the exhaust port placement and pipe routing. Surprising Star is not running external oil coolers with some decent added oil volume. Maybe they'll start soon. And some higher volume radiators and coolant return tanks.
Makes sense. I guess that would explain why the clutches are so vulnerable on their race bikes. They’re just another thing contributing to the excess heat.
I’d love to see Eli’s clutch plates after this race, and the piston. The whole damn motor would be fascinating.
I'm pretty sure Webb DNFd aswell yesterday on the last lap in moto 1. He was in 11th right behind Barcia until the last lap but never crossed the finish line. Results show him in 15th behind Paturel who they lapped up to. In the results sheet his last lap shows as incomplete so yeah.. What a day for Star
He DNFd.
Ran out of fuel
The Star Yamahas appear to be on the edge of performance / reliability. When they get pushed hard during the moto they seem to expire.
Definitely not a good look. A detune to preserve the engines long term could go a long way.
Pit Row
My 24 holds about a liter which is in line with the other bikes. I’m wondering if they are running the electric water pump on the 450s? I’m thinking the new clutch design may be adding some heat also.
Both Webb and Savatgy appeared to run out of gas at almost exactly the same spot….the turn before the whoops.
that's pretty crazy for a guy who knows nothing about factory teams work: How in the world can a world caliber factory team run out of gas?!?! Surely there's a simple calculation where they can know exactly how much gas they'll need, then add 10% or something? They could machine a custom tank to hold this amount if necessary? Running out of gas? I mean, that just seems pretty odd to me.
Star bikes are becoming a liability and an embarrassment.
Did anyone run bigger tanks at Southwick? If they were going to run out of gas somewhere, you would think it would be the Wick
I don’t recall seeing Yamahas having issues like this last week at Southwick in a track that we always hear about being the most physically demanding for man & machine. I also don’t remember how warm it was last weekend either. But being at Redbud yesterday and standing in the direct sun, it was HOT, I think like 94° with some humidity.
Webb said it was a fuel issue that was caused by an earlier crash…so I’m assuming that somehow fuel leaked/spilled during his crash.
It wasmt that hot at Southwick until the end of the day. Even then, nowhere near like yesterday. Off topic, how was the racing yesterday being there in person?
It was pretty good! Redbud as always. Way easier in person to see nearly every rider make mistakes here or there that the TV doesn’t pick up. In the first 250 moto I wasn’t sure where to watch since Shimoda was passing Vialle and Deegan was on Kitchens rear wheel just a section apart from each other
In addition to blowing up, it looked "busy". Sort of see saw ish.
The Honda and KTM 450's are about 1.25 liters. The KTM 250/350 is 1 liter. The YZ250F is only like 720cc. At the level these guys are riding, being so borderline on the oil volume can have bad effects, obviously. Some extra oil and an external cooler would seem like a good idea for the Yamahas.
8 bikes in like 6 rounds, 2x webb(Fox, 2 corners to go first moto redbud) 2x Mosiman 1x Eli 1x Haiden(redbud was clutch related) 1x Thrasher 1x Minear
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