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1978 Yamaha XS1100E Eleven - 8-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, Vintage Magazine articlePage Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each pageCondition: Good
“This isn't a motorcycle. It’s a timemachine! Just turn that thing on the rightend of the handlebar and everything elseseems to slow down and freeze.”The subject was the new YamahaXS1100E, a phenomenal motorcyclewhich Yamaha has chosen to call the“Eleven.” It is a lot of motorcycle with a lotof attractions, and if you are a seasonedbig-bike rider with the experience to directand appreciate them, those attractions areexciting and impressive. The speaker wasdescribing the Eleven’s most exciting,heart-pounding quality: It's astonishing,relentless horsepower.Take this new four out on the street . . .and rearrange the street if you wish. Gelaway for a weekend trip on the Eleven anddiscover new meanings for the terms“torquey” and “mid-range power." Ridethrough the valley of the KawasakiKZ1000 and fear not. for the Eleven is, asthe saying goes, the meanest sonofabitchin the valley.We hasten to point out. though, that theXS Eleven is more than just a device forwarping time and shriveling pavement. It’sa complete, refined motorcycle. Yamaha’sbike-shapers saw the unrestrained super-bikes built by other companies a few yearsago arrive with a lot of fanfare, thenquickly and quietly disappear, so theylearned the lesson without having to payfor it: pure speed is not enough to make amotorcycle successful. Power and speeddraw buyers to showrooms. But comfort,styling, reliability, detail features, handlingand ease of maintenance are the consid-erations that, over the long haul, openmore checkbooks.So the bike Yamaha built was to have thebiggest motorcycle engine ever to cross thePacific East-to-West. The 1100 was to be amotorcycle big enough to bruise egos inany crowd of motorcyclists, but able toaccept the compromises necessary for therealities of day-to-day riding. The finishedproduct is truly an astounding motorcycle.THE BIKE: Although very contempo-rary, the construction of the YamahaXS1100E Eleven holds few surprises. Butone is the rubber-mounting of the entireengine unit to provide the rest of thechassis with an effective isolation fromengine vibration. The 1101.6-cc four-stroke looks very much like Yamaha’sdual-overhead-camshaft XS750E triple,but with a 3.5-mm increase in bore diame-ter and an additional cylinder. Both en-gines have 68.6-mm strokes, although the1100 has a 71.5-mm bore, and both use 36-mm intake valves and 31-mm exhaustvalves with shim-type adjusters. TheEleven's compression ratio is 9.2:1.Like the XS750E. the XS 1100 is fed by abank of 34-mm Mikuni constant-velocitycarburetors. All four of the Eleven's carbsare controlled by a single throttle cable.Unlike most Japanese multis, the Elevenhas no cable to pull the throttles shut. Thecarbs plug into an airbox which includesinternal velocity-slack-type intake tubes,so changing the air cleaner arrangementmay have an adverse efl ecl on intake tun-ing.The Eleven’s lower end follows the pat-tern of the “universal Japanese four.” Thecrankshaft rides on plain beacings. and asingle-row chain loops around the centerof the crank and up through the cylinderhead to drive the camshafts. A Morse Hy-vo primary chain, driven by a sprocket next...
11935-7801-09
