YAMAHA R5 350 PARTS

The Yamaha R5 350cc Two Stroke Twin was my First real Motorcycle. I had just turned 16. Like most things in life, I got my hands on this motorcycle by chance. Fate is more like it. Throughout my early teens years i used to collect old bicycles. My latest project was an old Schwinn Corvette. Around this time was a notice in the newspaper that a movie was going to be made in and around Lincoln Nebraska called "Amerika". The notice stated they were looking for old bicycles to be in the movie. They were paying top dollar or trading old bikes for new ones. I was right down there with my bike and traded it for a brand new sweet California Beach Cruiser with white wall tires. A week later the bike was stolen. As fate would have it, the property insurance money paid for a nice Yamaha R5 350.

The Yamaha R5 350 is most of the science behind the even more famous Yamaha RD350. The RD350 is similar but equipped with a more efficient reed valve system. They are both fast. "Giant Killers" people called them. Besides being faster than a lot of 750+ cc motorcycles of the day, they also had razor sharp handling. People were hanging off and getting a knee down on these bikes in street trim. These little bikes ruled the race track as the rider could wait till the last second to brake, slide in to the corner and throw the bike through the turn like a bicycle. To this day this bike could out-handle modern sport bikes with the right rider and smaller course.

Yamaha R5 350 Stoplight Drag Racing. I earned myself a ticket that was later dropped on my Yamaha R5. I popped a wheelie going down the cruise strip right in front of a cop. An R5 rider gets addicted to those power wheelies.
I smoked a lot of bigger bikes on the R5. One particular case I remember is this guy on a Honda CB750 Four. Like many others they bait you at the light by revving the engine. When that light changed he dumps the clutch, lurches forward and starts skidding in my lane. Seeing all of this in the corner of my eye I redline the little R5 and slip the bike further out of the hole. I look in my mirror and he is behind me fighting to keep up. Letting him launch first was a mistake because he almost came in to my lane. Problem is, I never let people bait me in to launching first.
Come to think about it, the old two strokes are still in the same boat today after all of these years. They are not fast enough to beat a 600, but, people on anything less better beware. The R5 & RD motorcycles will easily lay the Ninja 250 and 500 to waste. With a little tuning people were making these bikes go down the strip in 12 seconds. A stock Yamaha RD engine in a light-weight drag bike of the day would go down the 1/4 strip in 11 seconds flat.