New Things For Yamaha
LIMITED EDITION VIPER COMING
Sledhead News
Tuesday June 10, 2003
Yamaha announced today that they are going to be offering a limited build Cross Country sled based on the Viper S. “We realized that the Viper S, while very aggressive setup, is not made for Cross Country style racing. We are giving the new sled a 600 industry leading electronic exhaust valves, the Yamaha exclusive Ripsaw
track with new 1.5” lugs, and a new lightweight A frame style front suspension. Along with all of this, we have put Ohlins shocks at all 4 corners to help absorb the bumps.” says Mike Doughty. Yamaha is planning on producing only 500 of these sleds with a price tag of roughly $12,999. They are claiming that the engine produces 138 hp and the snowmobile only weighs 420 lbs.
The first run of 200 will go to racers only and be available in early November. The second run of 300 will be available to the general public and will be available in late January. The first peak at the new Viper 600 will be available at Haydays. Yamaha has also announced that this will be the last year for the Viper namesake.
“Through testing of the Viper S, Yamaha found that the rough conditions of Cross Country racing proved to be too much. We are hoping that the changes we made to the new Viper prove to be enough to withstand the beaten needed. The new sled will have many update to the trail only Viper chassis, along with the update to an A Frame style suspension similar to the RX-1 front suspension. Right now we are just trying to develop a rear suspension that is a good compromise between what we have now and the Snow Cross style suspension we developed for our new YZS 800.” said Doughty.


YAMAHA INTRODUCES
Sledhead News
Wednesday June 4, 2003

After announcing this past November that they were dropping their snowmobile race efforts Yamaha announced today that they are going to produce a Snow Cross and Oval purpose built sleds. “After seeing our giant success at this years Soo-500 we decided that we can once again be a force in racing” said Mike Doughty, Snowmobile Product Manager.The new SnoX sled will expand on our push into the 4stroke market. It will feature an engine very similar to the YZ450F motor but will be a twin cylinder 800cc motor with changes needed to make it winter friendly. With 2 less cylinders to work around the chassis is narrower and accommodates a 14” track easily. With the new track, Yamaha has come out with a new skid that reduces weight by 20% and uses 35% fewer parts. The front end will be a modified RX-1 front end to accommodate the narrower bulkhead and the added abuse from SnoX style racing. The new Oval sleds will be built in 2 different sizes. The first one is an 800cc twin 4 stroke very similar to that of the SnoX engine but higher revving. The basic chassis is similar to the SnoX sled but lower seating and geared higher. “More priority was put into cornering at high rate of speed, where as most are just SnoX sleds that can’t handle high speed cornering” Doughty said.
The second oval sled is a “Modified” RX-1. Fuel-injection was added and utilizes a highly programmable system to make tuning easier. It also increases horsepower and mileage for enduro style racing. Suspension has been lowered to accommodate high speed cornering.
“We are hoping with these major changes, we can once again dominate racing” Doughty added. “This past year was hard for us not being directly involved in the racing scene like we always have been before. If this year proves to be as successful as we believe it will be, we are prepared to offer a full range of race purpose sleds for a race program and also to consumers in detuned versions.” Doughty said. Although no pictures are yet available for release, some of our staff got a chance to check these 3 new sleds out and we were very impressed. Doughty refused to comment on who was going to be first inline for these new machines, but said that several contracts have been signed and will be introduced to the public at a later date at a press conference where they plan to reveal some more goodies about the new sleds and team members.


Someone has lots of time on there hands to produce this

Question why would they produce a 600 SnoX sled since the other 3 cancelled the class in 99

138hp out of a 600 :p

And who the &^$*& would pay 13 grand for a sled???

And when did Yamaha care about racing???

Personnally I think the story is BS

What are your thoughts???

This was to hard not to repost,Hook line and sinker???or not

if that 13,000 is canadian, the same guys that payed almost 14000 for there rx 1 r the guys who will pay 13,000 for this sled.
as far as weather its BS or not, i guess we will see at Hay Days wont we.
but it does sound kinda fishy to me??????????

time will tell

Like Paul says, time will tell, if yamaha decides that they are fed up with getting slapped around on the snow-x track, I'm sure they could build a competitive race sled with there vast knowledge in different forms of racing. To rework the viper chassis for snow-x tells me that they are not willing to start from the ground up, and are still going to be left behind.....

Its not April 1st already is it?

Im salivating just thinking of the possibilities!!!

Like the old saying goes though, too good to be true?? ???

:) :) :) .....oh and nice bird..lol

Seems a little far fetched to me. It seems to much of a stretch from such a conservative company. They have gone on the record as saying they are in the business to make money off snowmobiles sales period and any fat will be trimmed. It just seems like to risky of a venture for them to take. Next you're going to tell me they have signed Blair Morgan to be there star.

They have to make a snocross sled in order to keep the small amount of loyal customers they have.I have always liked Yamaha and would own one in a second but comparing company's right know Arctic Cat and Doo are beating up Polaris and Yamaha and lots of it comes from us new age kids and watching Sno Cross.I think Yamaha if they spend time and money could make a sweet sno cross sled.I beleive this story and I think they must have meant canadien for 12,900 because no one will pay 12,900 U.S when they can ride A REV or Sno PRO for 7,000 and as for polaris there 50th anniversary is in 2005 so they will be right back where they used to be #1 in sales for 2006 thats my prediction.

As for this Yamaha snocross sled I think it's good for them.I would like to ride one if it's for real. :p :p :p :p :p :D ;) ;) ;) :angry:

I heard Flash is one of the first customers....its his secret "weopen" against Perm in the Race of the Century!! ....lol :D :D

Actually I bet there are many Yamaha faithful that would pay that kind of money for a yam sled of that caliber. I hope it's true as Yam needs to do something.

Originally posted by NorthernDealerMan@Jun 20 2003, 11:11 AM
I heard Flash is one of the first customers....its his secret "weopen" against Perm in the Race of the Century!! ....lol :D :D
ROTFLMAO

THATS A CLASSIC BUDDY!!!! :D :D :D :D :D

Flash... :p :p :D :p :D I just cant breathe no more....hahahaha. Please STOP!!!hahahahaha......hou....houhou...hou....


Back to the subject...I think it may be true. Ski-doo did the same in 1974. ??? And they did came back after in the race program so why not Yamaha. They have all the technologies to do so. As Paul said time will tell.........Maybe Flash is a test driver for yamaha... SWRules

Originally posted by Sled Dogg@Jun 20 2003, 11:40 AM
Actually I bet there are many Yamaha faithful that would pay that kind of money for a yam sled of that caliber.


Not this one!!! For that kindo money you could buy two decent sleds?
Thoze of us that grew up eating with a spork instead of a silver spoon won't be buying one unless that's can. $
Unfortunately the marketing guru genius at Yami forgot the entry level and the young Hip crowd level sleds? so they are still selling sleds to who? want a brand new 01-02-03- what year is this! sum dealers still have em here? Blame bad winter, bad market, bad marketing? It still means bad bottem line$ ! :cussing:

The bar is soo high for todays sno x sleds it would be futile not to have a complete redesign just to hope to compete...

I dont beleive it's true. If they were going to get back into snox , they bring their wrenches back, right? Well my friend, who use to wrench for yamaha, hasn't
said anything. But he is set up with another manufacture. See what happens I guess.

If it's not true why did Yamaha sponser so many sno-cross's last season ;)

Some of it is true and some of it is not true. Whoever was being quoted didn't know what they were talking about. Yamaha doesn't care about racing. They were only involved in snocross to test the new skid that will be coming out soon...like either next season or the season after. The withdrew from the circuit because they are beyond testing the skid and getting ready for production. I think that most of the second part is true because it only makes sense that Yamaha is expanding on the four stroke market. It think thats why they are moving so slowly with what they are doing...because they don't want to rush into such new dimension in the market. Then again I could be wrong because I have no accurate sources to back me up ???

I for one dont belive it.

If yamaha was going to get back into racing they would do it properly. They would not make a 600 Class sled since nobody else races them. And they would not do it in a viper chassis. With no offence to yamaha guys, But the Viper Chassis could not compete with the REV and Firecat.

First off to build a "purpose built" sno-x sled does none of us any good.

I'm sure Yamaha can build a competitive race sled, but if it does not filter down to a consumer model who cares?

It used to pi$$ me off that I had to get a broken back riding my ViperER thanks to the no-action skid, while their race sled had some slick "purpose built" suspension... clearly the factory thought the no-action was inferior in the bumps!

If a "beefed up" no-action skid isn't good enough for the race sled, then it isn't good enough for me either!

The other three seem to have made the connection between sno-x and consumer sled sales, clearly the majority of buyers want a "trail friendly" sno-x sled! Yamaha is blind to this fact!

A purpose built sled may get them back into sno-x but it won't get folks back in to the show room. In a free world Yamaha can build and sell anything they want, but we don’t have to buy them!

Signed:
A burned -- Yamaha loyalist! (former loyalist that is)

Thats the way i've always viewed yamaha. If you like what they have there great, But don't get your hopes up if they don't make what you want.

They seem to do there own thing and no matter what the customer wants or the competition does, they just make belive there stuff is as good using there BS adds.

Just because Yamaha doesn't make a sled for you doesn't mean they suck. There are a lot of people who love Yamaha because they are the only sleds out there that come with good stiff valving and are a good cross country sled out of the box, but there are a lot who hate them because they are so uncomfortable...no one seems to understand that there are compromises...yet everyone seems to brag about "performance". Top performance comes with a big compromise. I know a lot of people will argue with that but the technology just isn't there to make a sled handle well and be comfortable at the same time.

I'll believe it when I see one at my local dealer. Or Haydays...... how soon is haydays? the only haydays going on around here is baling hay. Jeesh, I hate baling hay. Darn itchiness, allergies... although the cold beers when done almost make it worth it.

Hmm... haydays... I can't wait for the real one!!

:p

Hello Gents, I have ridden Cats and Doos all my life. I had really great luck with them,but they seemed like in the last few years to become cheaply made. vibration, strange noises and sloppy steering. Each time I rode a different Yammy, within the last two to three years, they seemed tight, with little vibration and great trottle response. When Yam announced the new RX-1 I said I gotta have it! This machine comes acrossed as quality! If they keep building them like this, I will never go back!
Just my two cents!! Honk

The Red Ones Are Fast Too :hallo1:

Honks, just a few short years ago I would'nt look at a cat, it was SKI-DOO,SKI-DOO,SKI-DOO, nothing else would DOO. I took a chance and bought a 02zr-800cc and I have to say it really surprised me on how well it ran, great on oil, great on gas and lots of power. I beat the crap out of that sled, and it ran as good at a 100 miles as it did at 3000+ miles. Now I have a 03 ZR-900 sno-pro, and this is the first sled I've kept for a second year since I've been riding, its just that good. Like I said, I would'nt even give a cat a second glance a few years ago, now instead of SKI-DOO its SKI-WHO?.....