Retrospective: 1986 Yamaha SRX600

This article was originally published in the April 1995 issue of Sport Rider.

America—land of the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, one-year waiting lists for Harley-Davidsons and an almost unquenchable thirst for horsepower—has been without a sporting single for some time now. The era of kickstarters and decompression valves is well behind us, perhaps permanently, and it is important that we don’t lose sight of one of the finest singles of all time: the 1986 Yamaha SRX600. By almost all definitions, the SRX is a fantastic all-around motorcycle. It debuted with a low price, distinctive looks and handling just a click away from a lightweight racing machine. Moreover, if your tastes run to modifying your machine for high-performance uses, the SRX is one of the very best motorcycles of the past decade.

After the whupping American dealers took on the original Yamaha SR500 single in the late ’70s, none of them yearned to dust off another unsold Yamaha street-only single in their showroom for a year or four. But on the other side of the globe in Japan, the SRX enjoyed a vast following. Although they were originally stuck with a 400cc model, Japanese dealers had no problem tossing SRXs out the door at an unprecedented rate. Japanese enthusiasts loved the bike and the mystique of the quirky single; they weren’t hung up on the fact that it was as slow as as a snail in a headwind.

And so it was that in 1986 the Yamaha SRX600 came to America only to hear a dry, collective yawn from nearly everyone who gazed in the direction of the six and its meager brother, the SRX250. In a world governed by triple-digit horsepower numbers, multicylinder engine configurations and a sales audience that knew the class acceleration figures better than their own Social Security numbers, the SRX found that with one cylinder, 40 horsepower and 14-second quarter-mile times, nearly everyone ignored its existence as if it were a cheerleader's younger brother.

But on occasion Yamaha Motor Corporation’s U.S. arm imports some market-test-be-damned bikes, and the SRX600 was such a bike. If they moseyed their way past the pathetic acceleration and ’70s kickstarter, enthusiasts found a little emerald of a bike. The engine was merely an enlarged version of the XT/TT dual-purpose powerplant, and the chassis was from the Japanese SRX400; triple disc brakes and a heavenly dose of near-perfect balance (the fork springs were a bit soft) made it a joy to ride fast. In the right hands and with a slight downhill grade, the SRX, with its light weight and friendly maneuverability, could taunt bigger machines costing thousands of dollars more. Much of the chassis equipment, including the brakes and suspension, came from the parts bins of other high-performance Yamahas like the FZ600.

Where mainstream buyers saw inadequacies in the SRX package, enthusiasts saw potential. The machine featured one of the most unbreakable engines since the 1981 GPz550, and some fairly trick equipment too. The unusual carburetion with the single float bowl and four-valve head tops that list. Yet, neat-bike qualities notwithstanding, take the SRX home and live with it for a while and you’ll have a hard time bragging about its virtues when your riding buddies blast past you on any road with a straight section, almost sucking the speedometer needle from its mount. But once the peculiar carbs and hefty exhaust have been replaced by high-performance, free-flowing units, those hardy owners with the command to modify will undoubtedly discover that the stock SRX was not unlike an Olympic sprinter with a dry-cleaning bag jammed tightly over his head: Where the stock machine stumbles and wheezes its way to redline, the pro-stock bike grabs great lungfuls of air/fuel charge and lunges when you give it the spurs.

But the SRX is not without its wobbly spots. Internally, the small end of the connecting rod is a bit weak for most tuners’ liking, but Carillo and other rod houses are more than willing to whip up a rod if given the proper provocation. That dainty rod and the fragile shift forks are the only immediate weak points of the SRX600 engine. I rolled mine to the grid of its first roadrace with all of 19 miles on the odometer, and it survived 2000 race miles before my body—not the bike—said enough. The Four Stroke Single National Owners Club (316/663-1869) has a core membership of SRX owners, some so in love with the bike that they bought crated old stock from dealer warehouses for safe keeping. If you’re into SRX theology you really owe it to yourself to get in contact with your fellow thumper enthusiasts; they’ll tell you more about your bike than you probably care to know.

The word now is that those brave souls at Yamaha are working on yet another street-only single to avenge the semi-shunning they received with their two previous tries. Trying to convince mainstream buyers that a street-only single is a good thing will undoubtedly be an uphill battle in the ’90s as well, but it is a battle that needs to be fought. The new machine’s introduction is slated for the 1996 season, if the whispers are true. Yamaha, keep it light and pretty.