Yamaha WR250R Mega Thread

My PO did similar with the suspension, which was quickly fixed, but also messed with the CO setting. Now THAT I did not know about for quite a while and just rode the bike figuring all small singles ran that bad. Then on this thread I read about setting the CO and found he had reset it on 6! Bogged low, bogged high and had never run properly while I owned it. It is now at 0 and runs a lot better.

I just posted a few odds and ends take-off WR-R parts (stock saddle, stock silencer, stock tank, T63 rear) that are cluttering up my garage on the flea market here.

I bought mine last year with 1200 miles on it. Your bike has been sitting a long time as mine was. It took a couple weeks of riding it for things to loosen up. The clutch was grabby for example and the motor was more like a scooter. I was VERY unhappy at first.

The more I rode it the better it got, though. I put the stock sprockets back on it and that made it better in the city. It took about 2 months to get used to the power delivery, though. I was over reving it and not using the torque that it has. It actually has nice shift points that make the bike feel snappy.

I have about 9k miles on it now and am very happy. After an oil and filter the tranny/clutch got much sweeter. I've come to like the motor character, and it's plenty fast. My top speed is about 90mph at sea level but I cruise in the mid 60's on the highway. When I hit the throttle stop on a grade, I just downshift and the bike speeds right up to my cruise speed and I can back off the stop. If it does it in 5th, I drop to 4th and repeat. She'll pull 65 easy in 4th.

My suspension was very stiff at first, but broke in nicely after doing the CDR last year. You are right that the bike is short. Maybe 2 inches shorter than say a KTM. But it works well and is the smoothest single I've ever ridden.

The biggest improvement for me was when I mounted T63 tires.

To get a good price on a used WRr find a PO that completely screwed up the settings on the bike

No wonder Honda's new CRF is devoid of all this... they expect a large portion of sales going to this crowd. I would be willing to bet that a good portion of people that sold WRr's barely used expected them to be more idiot proof more entry level Honda'ish... Not that the WRr is a KTM, but it is more like a KTM than the other Japanese Dual Sports.

I'm sure these same owners could completely screw up a KTM suspension too

Its also a matter of knowing how to ride the bike you own. I came to the WRR from a DRZ 400. The DRZ has/had so much more lower end power, it was a big adjustment. Once you get used to where the "powerband" of the bike is, and learn to ride in it, the WRR is fine. Typically, "thumpers" make their power down lo, so again, it takes getting used to revving the thing(WRR) a lot.

I used to ride a GSXR 600 on the track, as my track bike, and ride an SV1000 on the street. Both bikes have about 110 HP's, but one is an RPM bike and the other is a torque bike, and you ride them totally differently.

Almost every used bike I have ever bought that had something adjustable, it has been adjusted wrong or poorly. Worst seems to be always suspension, if it has a knob to turn PO invariably turns it as stiff as it can go. No doubt to reflect his extreme requirements or whatever, I don't know. I had thought modern fuel injection was idiot-proof but I guess I was wrong.

Or, more likely, not suited to you and your riding conditions. Just as your settings wouldn't likely suit me any better than the factory settings did.

Hey Fisherman,

This what I wrote over on the WRR/X forum:

Just got back from running 2 test runs on the WRR. First test was I upped the 5th place digit from 4 to 6 as you suggested(motokid: ID). No difference what so ever from my limited 15 mile loop which included curves, hills and straights. Only when I got going down a long steep hill could I even briefly see 84mph and 10,000rpm. On the flats I had trouble maintaining 69-71mph @ around 78-8100rpm. I even looked at the filter as suggested over on the ADVrider forum; (it was fairly clean) so I removed it for 2nd run, and was able to get it to rev a little freer, but not much more W.O.T. response. Tomorrow I will have to remove the programmer and try another run to see what effect it has. Do you have any other suggestions to try, I don't want to have the bike down for any length of time as this is a primo time of the year for me for riding.

My old xr650L was a flood salvage, only required a carb cleaning, battery and engine flush to get running. Anyway, the suspension was pretty good when I got it, I never adjusted the dampening at all, only the preload. Best $525 I ever spent.

The WR had forks set different from each other (near max rebound), and the shock was set at near full compression and no rebound when my dad bought it and the PO lost the manual to dial in the stock settings. The rear was lowered and so was the front end, but the front was lowered too much. On trails the rear end was all over the place.... PO: "I tuned the suspension for better handling" .... That is what my dad told me.

Not trying to bash on Honda dual sports, my dad has a crf230L as well, and the suspension works well from factory for a wide variety of riders under 190 lbs and not too aggressive. I am too heavy for it combined with slightly too aggressive, but it handled washboards etc better than the WR when we first bought the WR.

Next to safaritanks and IMS are there anymore that produce extra large fuel tanks?

Gr Patrick

Those are the only two for the WR250R/X.

Dont forget Rotopax.
Joking aside I put the 3.7 Safari on a little while back and I love that tank. Great range, protects the radiator, and I can look down at it and instantly know how much fuel I have left (I got the translucent one). I have not noted any significant change in handling of the bike with the bigger tank either.

Nothing on this planet is idiot proof. It just takes a better idiot in case.
As soon as one starts to fiddle with the stock controller or an aftermarket controller or whatever without using professional equipment to fine tune settings for *every* riding condition, this is a dangerous and error prone procedure. Just throwing in some mods "everyone does" and connecting some controller with some friends map will certainly not work out of the box, might destroy the engine (which actually is pretty undestructible) and cannot be blamed on "modern fuel injection".

Professionals take lots of money to adjust a fuel controller for a specific bike. At least over here this is a real expensive task.

BTW my WR250R has been working flawlessly for 31.000km now. Not one single issue, no matter where or at what conditions I rode. Engine, injection, fuel pump, fuel consumption, everything is just fine like on the first day. And this is the reason why I will not spend one single thought on changing this, poking into the diag mode, deactivating any peripheral controls or whatever. What for?
Regards, Phil

I am not sure how maxing out rebound compression and preload plus setting CO to 6 would be proper for anyone's conditions, but I see your point. A 1150 GSA I bought from a guy barely over 5 ft tall who never took it off road had done the same thing to the suspension, and then got a lowered seat for it because it was "too tall". Etc. etc. If there is a knob people tend to want to turn it, often to 11 it seems.

AMEN, brother! I love the 70 MPG. Why screw with that? I also like the fact that the exhaust doesn't choke me like that from my older street-only bike. Clean emissions DO count for something. I only wish they provided the O2 sensor for "closed-loop" operation like the non-USA models.

Just so its clear, there is rebound damping, and compression damping, and they are two different things.

Thanks, yes I am aware of that. Suspension tuning is a black art.

edit: The other thing the PO had done that I did not like so much but came to like later was he put on over-sized Maxxis Desert IT tires (140's in back and very tall). So maybe he was tweaking damping to try to match those tires, which only seem to work well at relatively low pressures, so that the tall/soft sidewall do most of the work. Still not sure what the CO set at 6 was for.

Anyway SOP for me now is, on a used bike when something is adjustable, set it back to factory spec where possible and then go from there. With the CO it was not immediately apparent it had been messed with, nor did I know that was possible until I read about it here.

The key to successfully using stock suspension in my case was to understand that adjusting of rebound and compression damping are not at all independent from each other. For me it was required to find my optimum settings by adjusting both of them and analysing the result.
However, I have a simple use case: better on road with supermoto wheels and lowered/shortened stock rear shock vs. better at offroad with enduro wheels and long rear shock.
I was not at all lucky just changing rebound settings for instance.
I had to combine rebound and compression settings until I had found a way it would fit for myself. And that worked out. No racetrack settings, for sure, but perfectly ok for road usage in my case.
Regards, Phil

Has anyone installed a manual cam chain tensioner on this bile yet and if so where can I find the info on this. Thx for the help in advance!

FWIW on this bike with the big tires it seems the following in order of influence on handling feel (subjective of course, plus I am not very aggressive off road)

1. Tire pressures
2. Ride height & F/R balance (rear tire is relatively very tall). Bike sat ass-up nose-down with the big rear, more level it is much better for my needs
3. Sag
4. Damping (R & C)

I think I have 1-3 set somewhere near OK, now working on 4. On vs off road mainly tire pressure is what I'm messing with at this point.

I come from a car road racing background, and worked in the suspension field for a long time. New to bike suspension though. Whole different world esp dirt/off road stuff.