Yamaha FZ-6S Fazer

Introduced in 1998, the previous Fazer was built upon a retuned YZF600R engine positioned on a steel-tube frame. The bike sold very well because it was eminently functional.

The Yamaha FZ6 is a motorcycle that was introduced in 2004. The bike was developed basing on the 600 cc Fazer, who needed a brand new design and a smoother engine. The bike is build around the 2003 YZF R6 engine which was retuned for more usable midrange power. 

This motorcycle belongs to the super sport-touring class and this segment tries to be dominated by all Japanese builders. So the bike has a very strong competition coming from the Honda 599, Kawasaki Ninja 650R and Suzuki SV650.

Both the SV650 and FZ6 are fuel-injected, but as the Honda’s 599 engine is derived from a pre-fuel-injection CBR600 carbureted as well, and has a handlebar-mounted choke. The 599 mill is mounted in a mono-back-bone steel frame, while the FZ6 and SV650 have aluminum-alloy main frames, though weight-wise the 599 actually falls between the heavier FZ6 and minimalist SV650.

The 2007 model is a very versatile, middleweight with fuel injected R6 power and light, strong aluminum frame that gets a new swing arm, four-pot brake caliper, fairing, seat, and revised injection mapping. The bike is strongly built to do almost anything and to take you anywhere. This is the bike you will ride to work during the week and through serpentines in the weekends, satisfaction included.

We have to admit: Yamaha’s FZ6 has always looked great. The headlights give the bike its cool looking face and the windscreen provides her with aerodynamics. Redesigned fairing, windscreen and new, high quality paint look great and reduce turbulence. The gas tank has a very modern design and it looks like an integrated part of the aluminum frame.

This motorcycle has a very comfortable seat but more important it’s what’s under the seat: a stainless steel exhaust system with head shield which looks cool and doesn’t interfere with passengers or luggage.

At the end there are also redesigned passenger foot pegs made from aluminum for better comfort and appearance.

The bike’s technical features make it as attractive as it’s looks. The 600cc liquid-cooled 16-valve DOHC four cylinder engine with special cams and intake tracks is tuned to produce maximum torque and horsepower at more accessible rpm levels.

The fuel injection system provides the bike with its good response and performance but the large radiator with ring-type fan keeps the engine on a reasonable temperature.

Yamaha’s FZ6 is equipped with a six-speed gearbox with triangulated input and output shafts, heavy-duty clutch and through-the-frame shifter for years of precise, positive shifting.

This bike’s single shock ageless rear suspension is simple and light, with sport-biased damping tuned for a controlled, progressive feel; extruded aluminum swingarm is 23.2 inches long for reduced chain-pull effect, further bolstering the FZ6’s outstanding handling.

43mm, wide-set fork tubes for excellent rigidity and confident braking performance.

Extremely light YZF-R6-type five-spoke wheels keep unsprung weight low for improved suspension action and handling, acceleration and deceleration.

The Yamaha FZ6 is a machine very well developed and with great road characteristics. The bike is extremely maneuverable and because of the position given by the seat and handlebars you feel very confident and relaxed with traffic ahead. Ridding the FZ6 is not a very demanding task but because of the engine’s power reserve at high revs I had to be a bit careful with the throttle. The reconfigured R6 engine is very smooth and it provides usable power for as low as 5500 RPM and things remain strong all the way to the double digits, with enough of the old, rev-happy R6 character.

The suspensions are made to keep the rider in complete comfort but they are also adjusted for a good road performance.

The FZ6 has powerful brake both front ( 4 break calipers) and rear (1 break caliper) and this is great news because the bike is the fastest in the middleweight standard class.

But let’s not forget a very important thing on a bike: the sound it produces. And the FZ6’s is music to my ears and because of the position of the exhaust you get to feel like you are an integrated part of the motorcycle and this is for many riders a very important detail when buying and riding a bike.

The FZ6 is a very complex, smart and rational package. The bike has style and power provided by it’s YZF-R6 engine (the best in it’s class) and this seems to be all it needs.

Review

Cutting down tight canyon roads with knifelike precision, hooligan antics abounded. Rolling through gears and wicking up throttles, redlines were bounced more often than checks at a liquor store. Wheelies popped like pills at a Lindsay Lohan post-rehab party. Tires smoked like a $40 baggie of hippie lettuce in a state college dorm. Stoppies stopped like, well, a lot of stoppies. As for speed limits, let's just not even open that can of worms...

What motorcycles could inspire such reckless, irresponsible behavior from our usual law-abiding test riders and rambling analogies from this author? Well, my friends, it's time once again for the MotorcycleUSA Streetfighter Comparo.

The literbikes and supersports may be the hot sellers here in the States, but in our opinion there's nothing wrong with garage full of naked streetfighters. For the majority of riding situations, streetfighters, with their upright riding positions and relaxed ergos, are often a more preferable mount than the race replicas. We discovered as much last year conducting our first Streetfighter shootout, which we billed as the Euro Streetfighter Comparo - all our '06 entries hailing from the Old World.

For 2007 we diversified the comparo lineup by tossing in a couple of Inline-Fours from the Land of the Rising Sun - the Yamaha FZ1 and Kawasaki Z1000. The FZ1 has been a stalwart of the standard/streetfighter scene since its 2001 inception, and the redesigned Kawasaki made a strong impression on us at the 2007 Z1000 press intro. We were eager to see how both would fair against their three Euro competitors, a pair of Twins and lone Triple from our '06 test - the Aprilia Tuono, Ducati S4R Monster and Triumph Speed Triple.

The Italian Twins return to defend their top two positions from '06, with the Aprilia Tuono our reigning Streetfighter champion. The Ducati is unchanged from '06, but Aprilia saw fit to equip us this year with its 2007 Tuono Factory - the Factory moniker entailing dolled up bodywork, carbon fiber bits and Ohlins suspension. Like the Tuono, the Speed Triple returns from last year's test invigorated, with Triumph lending us one of 50 special-edition 2007 Speed Triples it released this summer - the British beauty brandishing an aftermarket exhaust along with a host of carbon fiber accoutrements out of the Triumph accessory catalog.

We'll get into the details of the modified Triumph and its four competitors in more detail in the following pages, but just how improved the aftermarket Triple was became apparent when we rolled all five machines onto our Dynojet 200i to snag some performance numbers. In this year's 2-3-4 dyno battle royal, the four-cylinder FZ1 came out on top in raw horsepower, peaking at 129.3 hp at 11,500 rpm - not an unexpected result, given the Fazer's R1-sourced mill. The pair of Twins put up respectable numbers, with the Tuono maxing at 111.9 hp at 9,700 rpm and the Duc hitting its 110.4 hp power ceiling at 10,400 rpm. The other Inline-Four, Kawasaki's Z1000, was a bit of a surprise as the lowest pony producer, cranking out 107.5 hp at 9,700 rpm. The jaw-dropper on the dyno, however, was the Triumph, with its 123.1 hp at 9,400 rpm good enough for second overall and stomping its '06 horsepower stat by 13.5!

The Triumph dominated in the tourque figures, with its 73.2 lb-ft registering 6.6 lb-ft above the next highest producer, the Z1000 at a devilish 66.6 lb-ft. The Yamaha was right behind the Z at 66.2 lb-ft, with Ducati and Aprilia registering an almost identical 62.4 and 62.3 lb-ft.

The bikes having been dynoed, it was time to fill them up with gas and toss them on our Intercomp scales. Subtracting the weight of fuel, the Ducati emerged as the lightest with a tank-empty weight of 430 lbs. The buoyant Duc was followed by the Triumph at 439 lbs and the Aprilia next at 443. The bulky FZ1 tipped the scales at 467, leaving the chunkiest of the lot the 481-lb Z1000, which, having loaded and unloaded the hefty kWakker a number of times, was not a shock to us. The shock, once again, was from the Triumph, whose pipe and carbon fiber goodies trimmed 23 lbs off last year's weigh in.

Raw numbers on a spec sheet are great for the objective-minded bean counters out there, but the character and practical application of that power and weight in the real world is what counts. To help us make these subjective evaluations, besides myself, we tapped out our regular test riders and MotorcycleUSA employees Editorial Director Ken Hutchison, Creative Director Brian Chamberlain and our new Associate Editor Adam Waheed. We also enlisted the services of So-Cal master of motorcycle mayhem, Brian Steeves, who would evaluate the one-wheeled potential of our machines without mercy - the San Diego resident being the true instigator of the do-not-try-this-at-home behavior outlined in our opening paragraph and highlighted in the numerous videos accompanying this test. We also got the opinion of former 250GP AMA champion, current MOTO-ST competitor and Motorcycle Hall of Fame member Jimmy Filice. Our diverse testing fold included skill levels ranging from novice to professional road racer and riders varying in size from Jimmy's 5'3" 130 lbs to my 6'1" 210 lbs. The preliminaries concluded, it was time to do some serious riding.

Our testing evaluation took place in two major phases, a street ride through the mountainous backroads surrounding our Southern Oregon HQ and a track evaluation at Willow Springs' Horsethief Mile. We had tested at the Horsethief Mile during last year's comparo and felt it was a perfect arena to push our streetfighter mounts in a safe environment, with the hilly circuit closer to a hazard/ticket-free street ride than a knee-scraping, tire-shredding day on the racetrack.

For our street evaluation we shipped our Southern California boys up North to get the full Southern Oregon experience. Our So-Cal employees wondered at mountainsides with actual trees on them and riverbeds not constructed from concrete. Steeves, our mercenary hooligan, even got his first two-wheeled close encounter with Bambi when a couple of deer jolted out in the road. It was just one of the surprises in store for us on the asphalt, which also including a punctured radiator.

A couple hundred street miles and countless track laps in the books, our six test riders buckled down to rank this year's crop. No easy feat. Trying to choose my favorite out of this bunch was like jumping in a DeLorean to visit my 13-year-old self and telling him to rank his favorite models from the Victoria Secret catalog. It wasn't easy, but after much silent study and consideration, it was just a matter of time before the Heidi Klum of our Streetfighter flock would be found. Our evaluation came straight down to the cold equation of a revised 100-point scorecard. We gave our six test riders ten questions, rating each bike on a 10-point scale and then added them up for the winner.
Oh yeah, we also crashed another streetfighter this year, just like in '06. Last year it was the MV Agusta Brutale. Needless to say, we were unable to secure another beautiful Brutale for this year's test. Well, as the classy novelty hat says "pobody's nerfect" and this year we managed to nerfectly mangle another of these beauties. Was it the budget-friendly Z1000, a cheating aftermarket Speed Triple, or the luxurious $16,999 Tuono Factory?

The above statement, my friends, is what we in the business call a hook, so if you're reading this test at work, start shuffling some papers around your desk to look busy because you're just going to have to keep on reading.

Source Motorcycle-USA