YAMAHA XV500 VIRAGO
█ When the Virago500 began its trip
down the drawing
boards Yamaha's
designers must have
figured the task was
more like play, a
working vacation
perhaps. The orig-
nal Virago was a750, an air-cooled V-Twin with shaft drive and full cruiser treatment, as in stepped seat, small tank and high bars. The model hit the target market right on center and the Virago 750 was Yamaha's sales hit of the year.
Traditional looks, traditional engine configuration, so It made perfect sense to take another old-time favorite, the 500 Twin, and scale down the Virago theme
to fit the smaller engine. Lower seat, lower price, proven looks and
engineering, it's bound to work.
And so it does, but with some reservations.
They have little to do with the mechanical package. The 500, like
the 750 and 920 Vees, is air cooled, but the angle of the Vee is 70°
for the small engine vs 75° for the larger ones.
Good reasons here. Hi* best balanced vees are 90°, and the closer
together you go from there, the less good the balance gets while the
package itself becomes smaller and more easily packaged. Because the
Virago 500 is small, the tighter angle allows a shorter wheelbase
with room for suspension travel, etc.
The same applies to the Yamaha's other two 70° Vees, the Vision 550
twin
and the Venture 1200 four. Except that those two engines produce
more power and thus need water-cooling and coun-terbalancer shafts.
the Virago 500 Is not as highly tuned or stressed, So like the other
air-cooled Vees it neither has not needs water jack-ets or
counterbalancers. The 500 shares concept with the 750 and 920 but no
parts. The two Valves per cylinder (37mm intake, 32mm exhaust) are
opened via aluminum rockers by a single camshaft running in the
cylinder head casting. Intake Valve lift is 7.2mm, exhaust Valve
lift 7.7mm, and valve lash is adjusted with screw tappets. The cams
are driven by link-plate chain off each end of the plain-bearing
crankshaft.
Cast-iron sleeves are pressed into the
aluminum cylinder castings. The cast
JUNE 1983
