Modified Yamaha R1 2WD

 Modified Yamaha 2WD project manager reveals: it was faster dry or wet, suffered only a 2.5bhp power loss, and that there were four manufacturers who had Öhlins 2WD-equipped mules.

This is an extended version of a story which appeared in MCN in April.

A week before he retires, Lars Jansson - Öhlins’ R&D manager of future projects and the man behind the would-be revolutionary 2-wheel-drive system - is at last free to tell its secrets, and reveal it remains in a high state of production-readiness.

 How did the two-wheel-drive (2WD) project begin?

Yamaha had been interested in 2WD since the late 80s. In the early 90s they asked us to investigate the best method and we suggested a small high-speed pump above the gear box and a small high-speed hydraulic motor in the front hub with a reduction gear. Yamaha then asked us, please build it.  By the time we presented the first crude prototype in March 1993 we were quite enthusiastic

We devoted around a third of our future projects department to 2WD. The first date we went public was on a motocross bike in the Swedish Gotland Grand National in 1998. In 1999 we built two Yamaha TT600R bikes, but by this time Yamaha seemed to be losing interest in using the system exclusively because they felt the system was more of an add-on than part of a bike’s original build. So we started to pursue opportunities to interest other manufacturers in it. This is why we allowed the R1 to be ‘leaked’ in 2001. We told the rider to make himself obvious while testing in Spain.