If the Yamaha SR400 is the easy-going, easily swayed favored of café racer developers, the 2-stroke Yamaha RD400 is its delinquent half of-brother.
It was launched in 1976 as a slightly more subtle version of the RD350 firecracker, however changed into nonetheless a short, frightened motorbike to journey. (as the Used bike guide said, “If it doesn’t wheelie in 2d then the engine is worn out!”) The RD400 turned into bought in large part on rate, being cheaper than contemporaries from Honda and Kawasaki, but this newly restored model looks as if one million bucks. And it hasn’t just been lifted out of a crate, or rolled out of the workshop of a high-cease eastern resto-mod professional. It became built with the aid of a member of the 2StrokeWorld forum called Dennis, and it’s just won the discussion board bike of The Month award.
Dennis lives in Northern California and he’s got an exciting story. Sitting in a bar in Berkeley, he turned into talking about how he regretted promoting his first Yamaha RD400 in 1983, when the fellow sitting next to him requested, “Are you inquisitive about an RD? It’s unfastened, you simply have to get it out of my mom’s garage.” The bike became out to have aftermarket high-compression DG heads, with a special radial fin design and gold anodized end. Dennis also observed Mulholland shocks, two spare tanks and side covers, and the original manufacturing facility exhaust pipes. After a painstaking strip-down, restoration and rebuild—with a mild café racer touch—he completed the RD400 in a lovable ‘Geneva green’, an unique Yamaha shade. Natural elegance. [For more details, head over to this 2StrokeWorld thread.]
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