From the December 1996 Issue of Car and Driver.
What’s faster—cars or motorcycles? Among serious motorheads, arguments about that have raged since 1885, when Gottlieb Daimler invented the world’s first motorcycle powered by an internal-combustion engine and Karl Benz invented the similarly powered car.
In pure acceleration, motorcycles have been leaving cars in the dust for a long time. Back in 1973, the then-new Kawasaki Z-1, with its muscular and refined four-cylinder 903cc engine, could blur through the quarter-mile in 12.6 seconds with a terminal speed of 106 mph. Today, only the most powerful cars, such as the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Dodge Viper GTS, can trip the lights in a shorter interval. Which does them no good at all since you need both hands to count the modern motorcycles that are capable of 10-second quarters.
Speed on the road or on a track, however, demands more than just slingshot acceleration. A fast vehicle must also keep pulling to a high top speed, be able to stop repeatedly in a short distance with excellent control, and corner rapidly enough so that it isn’t always dissipating hard-won speed.
Even more critical is how easily the person in the saddle can segue from brake-scorching deceleration to tire-howling cornering to traction-threatening acceleration. Despite the motorcycle’s advantage in pure acceleration, evidence suggests that, in the broad spectrum of performance, cars have their merits.
A few years ago, for example, I wrote a column (C/D, September 1993) about keeping up with a rapidly ridden Suzuki GSX-R750 on winding Angeles Crest Highway outside of Los Angeles while driving a BMW 740i sedan laden with four adults and a week’s luggage.
That was not a fluke. Back in August 1977, then Car and Driver executive editor Steve Thompson, who was as proficient on two wheels as he was on four, found that he could circulate Lime Rock quicker in a Pontiac Trans Am than on a Kawasaki KZ1000 (1 minute and 11.9 seconds vs. the bike’s 1:12.5).
What would the result be in 1996? To find out, we called our pals at Cycle World and proposed a shootout. We would arrive on the West Coast with a new Dodge Viper GTS coupe for a contest of speed at Willow Springs raceway and also on Angeles Crest Highway with the motorcycle of their nomination ridden by the staffer of their choice. They answered the challenge by sending CW executive editor Brian Catterson with a 1997 Yamaha YZF1000R, the newest sport bike from the company that also crafts fine pianos and helps Ford design and build Taurus SHO powerplants.
To no one’s surprise, the Yamaha easily put the Viper on the trailer at the drag strip, with a quarter-mile run of 10.4 seconds at 132 mph. The Viper’s 12.3 seconds at 115 mph—the best of any current production car that we’ve tested—seemed snaillike in comparison.
The physics underlying the Yamaha’s advantage are simple. The 3600 pounds of Viper GTS and driver are propelled by 450 horsepower. In other words, each pony is carrying 8.0 pounds. With a comparably weighted pilot, the Yamaha weighs only about 700 pounds. Therefore, each of its 135 horses is burdened with only 5.2 pounds. In acceleration, the power-to-weight ratio is everything. Making the most of this advantage, however, isn’t easy with two fewer tires.
Coaxing the best from the Viper is simple. Rev the engine to precisely 2400 rpm—any lower and you’re slow, any higher and the wheelspin never stops—and drop the clutch. Shift as quickly as you can a tad before the 6000-rpm redline, and you’ll be running through the traps just after catching fourth gear. No bleach burnouts. No power shifting required.
The Yamaha requires a more specialized technique. With its short wheelbase, high center of gravity, and sledge-hammer thrust, the YZF1000R can easily wheelie itself right over on its back. The proper technique requires that the rider lean way over the bars as he launches the bike with a delicate balance of clutch slip and throttle control. Even with a burnout to enhance the traction of the Yamaha’s sticky Dunlop Sportmax II rear tire, a hard clutch engagement would easily spin the rear skin and eat up precious seconds. If you can reach the 11,500-rpm redline in first gear without flipping over, the rest of the run is easy.
In top-gear roll-on tests, the Yamaha’s power-to-weight-ratio advantage is further leveraged by its short gearing. With a high-revving engine and no worries about gas-guzzler taxes or CAFE economy numbers, the YZF1000R is geared shorter in its fifth and top gear than the Viper is in third. As a result, in top-gear roll-ons, the Yamaha is three times as fast as the Viper with its fuel-conserving, super-tall sixth gear.
Stopping is also a motorcycle strong suit. With triple disc brakes, light weight, and extremely sticky tires, the Yamaha stops from 70 mph in 154 feet—18 feet more efficiently than the Viper. Although neither machine is equipped with anti-lock control, the motorcycle has the advantage of controlling its front and rear brakes separately, allowing an expert rider to serve as a human balance bar. We experienced slight rear lockup, suggesting the Viper would have benefited from some sort of brake-balance adjustment.
In contrast, on the skidpad, the Viper is the easy one to drive. It generates its peak cornering force of 0.96 g without great drama, signaling its approach to the limit by gently running wide. Ease off the throttle, and it promptly tightens its line without any dramatic twitches or tail swings.
Motorcycles and their riders view skid-pads with the fondness that Dracula showed toward sharp wooden stakes. With a very fine line between breaking traction and breaking bones, and no Consumer Reports—style outriggers for security, Catterson passed on this test. Judging by the segment times at Willow (see map), we suspect the bike’s skidpad performance would have come close to the Viper’s.
In the simple, controlled world of the test track, the YZF easily took the Viper. Real-world pavement, however, is far more complex and challenging.
We joke around the office that Angeles Crest Highway between its origin at La Cariada–Flintridge to its conclusion at Big Pines 55 miles later has more curves than the entire state of Michigan. With terrific pavement, virtually no side roads, and relative freedom from traffic, particularly farther down the road on an early Tuesday morning, it was here that we met for the open-road portion of the test.
Catterson and I mapped out a course of six miles and agreed that we would absolutely not violate the road’s center line. Because the mountainous terrain precluded both radio and cellular-phone communications, we placed timers at each end of the course. We flagged off the car, then one minute later the motorcycle roared off.
At the finish, the Viper beat the bike by 12 seconds, which translated into a four percent-faster speed for the Viper.
With its prodigious cornering ability and benign behavior at the limit, this performance did not require any pins-and-needles driving. In fact, I only squealed the tires in the slower curves because sliding a machine capable of 0.96-g cornering ability at high speeds is more terror than thrill on a public road where you don’t know what lurks around the next bend.
The Viper steered beautifully with excellent stability on the fast sections, combined with an eagerness to hurl into corners fast and slow. And between the tilt steering wheel, the fore-and-aft-adjustable pedals, and its comfortable seat, I was able to find an excellent driving position. The seat also provides good lateral support at the shoulder level, which combined with the narrow footwell to keep me in place during hard corners.
Although the 6000-foot altitude sapped some of the V-10′ s strength, the 8.0-liter engine pulled strongly to its 6000-rpm redline, even if it sounded labored over the last 300 or so rpm. But truth be told, it felt almost as strong at 3000 rpm. There are no critical downshifts in this car, which is a good thing because the shifter is not a wonderfully precise instrument. With gears one, three, and five, placed slightly left of gears two, four, and six, I missed a shift on occasion.
The Viper’s brakes also gave me some cause for concern. Halfway through the six-mile run, the big discs faded, particularly in front, producing some rear lockup while slowing for the tighter corners. At the end of the run, the front brakes were smoking like two doused campfires. Although they demanded a heavier push as they faded, they retained their excellent feel throughout the run.
The bike, in contrast, suffered absolutely no brake fade and shifted with the precise snick-snick that no car short of a paddle-shifted Grand Prix racer could hope to match. It also accelerated prodigiously along the straights. But in the corners, Catterson clearly couldn’t keep up with the big Dodge.
That’s because when you’re on a motorcycle, an intimate relationship with an orthopedic surgeon is only as far away as a sprinkling of sand around the next blind corner. In the corners that he could see around, Catterson cornered hard enough to leave streaks of rubber from his rear tire and his knee pad to mark his path on the pavement. On blind corners, however, his wise and necessarily more conservative posture cost him time.
Catterson was also put off by having to start the run on cold tires and by the slippery-looking pavement sealer in a few corners. With four fat tires under the Viper, neither problem caused me concern. Under the more repeatable and controlled circumstances of the racetrack, however, there would be fewer such confidence-sapping variables to slow Catterson down.
Willow Springs is a fast track. The lap record around the 2.5-mile circuit is 1:06.05—an average of 136 mph. We wouldn’t approach that clip, but it is clearly a track that rewards speed, a commodity that both these machines have in abundance. The plan was simple. We would both take a few short sessions to familiarize ourselves with the track, then run five laps for time. Fastest lap wins.
We set the Viper’s tire pressure at the normal 29 psi and checked its vital fluids but otherwise did nothing unusual to prepare it for the track. In contrast, the motorcycle boys mounted a set of race-compound street tires on the Yamaha. Now we were complaining, but Catterson pointed out that the standard tires on the Yamaha were so soft that they would overheat almost immediately, resulting in such prodigious slides that the tires would be worn out after the five laps. He insisted that the new skins he was installing were needed for safety. In the interest of avoiding bloodshed—his—we grudgingly agreed.
We need not have been concerned. Although the Viper threw a rod after only three of the five timed laps (likely caused by grit in the oil gallery of this preproduction example), it turned a fast lap of 1:33.8. That was 2.5 seconds quicker than the Yamaha’s best.
As on the street, the Viper was an easy and forgiving partner around the track. In the high-speed turns, it pushed to gently let me know I was approaching its limit. In the slower section from Turns Three through Six, taken in second gear, I could use the Viper’s prodigious torque to bring out its tail with micrometer precision. Even the tricky transition from Turn Eight to Nine, where the Viper had to be slowed from nearly 130 to about 95 mph in mid-corner, the Viper inspired confidence.
The Viper’s only real weakness was its brakes, which, not surprisingly, fried even more here than they did on the street. By the third lap, I was regularly locking rear wheels as the front brakes faded. Even trailing the brakes into the corner, however, did nothing to upset the Viper’s balance. In fact, throughout the track session, I never put a wheel off the pavement. With a few more laps, I’m sure I could have shaved another two seconds from the Viper’s time.
The Yamaha looked terrific on the course as Catterson dragged his knees in the corners and the bike barely kept its front wheel on the ground cresting the rise in the middle of Turn Seven. But Catterson complained that Turn Four was dusty and slippery (I hadn’t noticed), and he was also bothered by the crosswinds in the fast Turn Eight–to–Nine combination (again, not a problem for the Viper). The track times bear this out to some extent, but the Viper’s advantage was only 0.2 second in these two corners. Perhaps the more important difference was the Viper’s advantage in high-speed acceleration.
At the end of the front straight, the Viper hit 138 mph before I applied the brakes for Turn One. That’s 4 mph up on the Yamaha. Given its 23-mph top-speed advantage (177 vs. 154 mph) and its shorter 100-to-120-mph acceleration time (2.3 vs. 2.6 seconds), one can conclude that despite the motorcycle’s advantage in acceleration from a stop, above 110 mph, the Viper is quicker. At a track like Willow Springs, that’s a critical advantage.
The Viper’s speed advantage shrank from 4.4 percent on the road to 2.6 percent on the track, primarily because the uncertainties of the road favor the more forgiving car. Given a tighter track on which the average speed was slower than the 96 mph achieved by the Viper, the motorcycle, with its more energetic midrange acceleration, might actually be able to beat the car. If the track is too tight, however, we would expect that the car’s superior ability to transition from braking to cornering to accelerating would put it on top again.
A word to wise two-wheelers: Unless you select a very narrowly defined track test, racing against a car with your motorcycle remains a losing proposition.
The Two-Wheeled View: Live Without a Net
“Never underestimate the competition.” That’s what I wrote 100 times on the blackboard in Cycle World’s conference room, my penance for getting smoked by a lowly car.
Like most of my colleagues, I’ve never had much of an appreciation for cars. Race cars, sure—especially now that we have four-time motorcycle world champion Eddie Lawson to cheer for—but not street cars. On the rare occasion that I do drive a four-wheeled vehicle, it’s likely to be a truck—the better with which to haul motorcycles, you see.
The Viper changed all that. I mean, here’ s a car that makes over three times as much horsepower as a hot bike; that goes and stops and turns with comparable verve. Most impressive of all, however, is how easy it is to drive the Viper fast—provided you can put its $73,000 asking price out of your mind, that is.
Conversely, motorcycles are much more difficult to ride fast—and a lot less forgiving. Csere crashed a car going 220 mph at Bonneville last year and walked away. I crashed a bike at 100 mph at Road America and went to the hospital with a broken pelvis.
Given the inherent risks, it takes a lot of confidence to ride a motorcycle at the limit. And so it follows that when conditions aren’t optimal, the rider’s confidence—and thus lap times—suffers.
That’s pretty much what happened at Willow Springs, where newly rippled pavement, sand on the track from an earth-moving project, and strong crosswinds conspired against the two-wheeled faction. The car, as the main story reflects, was better equipped to deal with those conditions. That’s the nature of racing: If we could predict winners in advance, we could all stay home and save a lot of unnecessary expense—and probably make a killing at the horse track.
Still, I can’t help feeling that the outcome would have been different if conditions had been better—or if the car hadn’t blown up and we’d been able to go through with our timed laps around the tighter Streets of Willow circuit. But maybe it’s a good thing the car fragged. It does, after all, leave the door open for a rematch. If there’s one thing I’ve learned living this close to Hollywood, it’s never to preclude a sequel. —Brian Catterson
How Different Are They Really?
The Dodge Viper GTS and the Yamaha YZF1000R may both convert petroleum into performance, but they follow very different trajectories to reach their targets.
Whereas the Viper relies on a tubular steel frame embedded within its bodywork, the YZF1000R is based on a beefy perimeter frame made of aluminum. Heel the bike over toward its 45-degree cornering attitude at speed, apply some power, hit some bumps, and the chassis wants to twist. For handling that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of a rider—and even worse, force him to roll out of the throttle—the frame must be stiff enough to resist this. The Yamaha’s is, thanks to frame spars stamped from flat stock and welded together into large, rectangular sections that are welded to cast steering-head and swing-arm pivot points.
Suspension principles are the same for both vehicles—springs and hydraulic damping control suspension movements. The Viper’s suspension provides adjustable rebound damping, but the Yamaha’s suspension is fully adjustable, so much so that sometimes it seems easier for a novice to dial a bike like this right into weirdsville than it is to properly fine-tune it.
Want to count the ways you can screw up suspension adjustment? Here goes: The fork is adjustable for spring preload, for compression damping, and for rebound damping. Additionally, the bike’s weight distribution, and its steering geometry, can be altered by changing the position of the fork tubes in the triple clamps—the alloy castings that bolt to the steering stem and carry the fork tubes. The suspension at the rear is handled by a spring-and-damper unit interposed via a rising-rate linkage between the frame and the swing arm. The suspension in each fork tube is adjustable for preload as well as for compression and rebound damping.
Whereas the Viper’s 8.0-liter push-rod V-10 uses relatively simple two valves-per-cylinder technology, the Yamaha’s liquid-cooled 1003cc (61 cubic inches) four-cylinder engine relies on multicam, multivalve complexity as it develops 135 horsepower at 9500 rpm on the way to its 11,500-rpm rev limit. Canted forward 35 degrees, the engine is aluminum with Nikasil bores, and it uses double-overhead cams and five valves per cylinder. It inhales through a quartet of 38-millimeter downdraft carburetors that feed the combustion chambers a charge squeezed by slipper pis tons to a compression ratio of 11.5:1. The engine’s considerable output is delivered to the rear wheel via a sequentially shifted five-speed, constant-mesh gearbox, a multiplate wet clutch, and an O-ring drive chain.
The high-revving YZF1000R engine offers a surprisingly broad torque curve, and one of the reasons for this can be found in its exhaust header. The header carries a power valve that is cable-actuated via an electric motor acting on impulses sent from throttle-position sensors in the carbs. At part-throttle openings, the valve partly closes to raise back pressure and slow mixture flow through the combustion chambers, thus enhancing throttle response in the low- and mid-rpm ranges. At larger throttle openings, it’s open, providing an uninhibited flow from intake air box to exhaust canister.
Like the Viper GTS, the Yamaha relies on disc brakes for stopping power. But whereas the Viper’s four rotors are vented, the Yamaha’s three rotors—two up front and a single one at the rear—are solid, although they are cross-drilled for lightness. The two front calipers each use four pistons working in differential bores to help ensure equal pressure across the brake pads. At the rear there’s a single, two-piston caliper.
Obviously, the characteristic these two most clearly share is dissimilarity. They do have one thing in common, though, besides the easy capability of landing an imprudent pilot deep in trouble with the local speed cops. There are no options available for either. —Jon F. Thompson
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