WR250 2-Stroke

[beemerwolf]

Hi Ya'll...

I am new to this forum but have been hanging out on the DRZ400 forum & sometimes a couple of others.

Well, I just picked up a 1997 YAMAHA WR250 2-stroke & been trying to find out more about it, but it seems that I just have not been very successful.

Can anyone help provide some info for me, or possibly some other sites/forums to check out.

Are there any past tests of these great bikes out there...or are they just too similar to the YZ to separate it?

Thanks in advance:thumbsup: ?

HappyRiding !!

[Bambislayer]

I know they made a WR 250 and 500 in the 90s. If my memory serves me, it was similar to the YZ but made for off road although it didnt have lights.

What info did you want?

[jayh300]

and a wr200, i had a 92 and it was an excellent bike. wide ratio tranny and a great motor.

prolly one of my fav bikes ever.

[TWILES]

From what I've read about them they are a corked up version of a YZ just like the 450's and 250F's are now. The few I've seen had head and tail lights. I guess when you take all the restrictive stuff off you have a YZ with a different tranmission and probably a heavier flywheel like now minus electric start.

[Motty]

g'day mate

i've owned a 98 wr250 for the last 18 months and absolutely love the thing

pretty much rebuilt it from the ground up about 3 months ago and now it rips

what do you want to know?

umm wr obviously wide ratio, much better than the yz tranny for bush/trail riding

i cant speak for the american model but i know the wr in aus has slightly different porting. apparently you guys got different models to us in the later years although im not 100% sure. if you still have the standard 3 foot muffler cut it down to yz size, still quiet but should be heaps more power (and closer to yz type powerband)

check the power valve, chances are unless its been replaced it will be f*cked, specifically the little stopper thing that prevents the valve closing too far

the forks are shit, you will need to get em revalved (unless its already been done of course). i'm in the process of getting gold valves from a previous owner of one, apparently that does the trick

i find the power a little too peaky at the moment - awesome fun where theres lots of traction but on big rutted sandy hills all i do is eat my mates dust. i'm planning on putting a flywheel weight on it and possibly some other mods to bring the power lower in the rev range.

speedo cable is too long and stock speedo sucks, i broke both of mine within half an hour of riding. i put a digital pushy speedo on (no good for speed but is pretty accurate with distance)

stator is piss poor, dont plan on going anywhere at night

thats all i can think of at the moment

by the way, i'm only concentrating on things that you should look out for. it really is an awesome bike and i'm planning on keeping mine for a long time. everyone who rides the thing says the same thing - &%$#@! me thats insane!

if you have any other questions feel free to pm me

[Motty]

From what I've read about them they are a corked up version of a YZ just like the 450's and 250F's are now

the only corked up part is the muffler, a monstrous 3 foot ugly son of a bitch that sticks out past the mudguard. cut it down to yz size and it runs just as hard as any yz

in fact i've blown away both big bore 4 and 2 strokes (2000+) on it. only drag i've lost on the thing was when i forgot i had another gear ?

of course on the track the forks let me down, they have a tendency to understeer really bad

[beemerwolf]

Hey Ya'll....thanks for the info so far

Motty.....g'day mate back to ya'...? you know way more about this bike

than I have been able to find out anywhere on the web so far, thank you my friend:applause:

Okay now, it's a 1997 WR250 2-Stroke, USA Version

It has a shorty type muffler, similar to the YZ of the same year

Wide Ratio tranny & the motor................well, I just haven't

been able to find out the differences from the YZ motor of that year

There are not any lights on it & I do not know if it has a stator on it or not:eek:

It does come with some sort of ICO meter

Also, this is the original owner & he hasn't ridden it much at all

...but he is a professional mechanic, so he has taken care of it quite well:thumbsup:

From the pics, it looks pretty darn good & hopefully it will

make a great woods, desert AND single-track bike!!

..........yes, we do have woods, single-track AND REAL DIRT

out here in Arizona:banghead:

I will actually get it tomorrow so I will post

some pics & let ya'll know more about it after that:cool:

HappyRiding !!

:ride:

[RCannon]

The US version of the wr 250 used the yz motor from the older yz's......pre 96. This was a good thing. Most of the hop-ups for the 94 yz would work well on your bike. Not that it needed it. In stock form the wr would run away and hide from the 97 yz version.

We have a lot of folks from non-us countries here. Lots of them got different "YZ/WR 250's"Canada got a reall cool wr 250 in 98 that was based on the current (98) yz. US did not.

The wr's went away because yamaha built them out of older yz parts. Who in their right mind would pay extra for a two year old design? Well, in your case the answer was..."Then smart people".

In 97 it would have been far easier to build an mx bike out of the wr. The yz would have been the best offroad choice. The yz engine was very soft and a dog in stock form. Hop-ups were very limited in the help they offered.

You have a wide ratio tranny as well.

Yamaha did not cork these up as they never called them "offroad bikes". They were "closed course only" bikes. Thank God.

In hopped up form this machine would also run away from the hopped up 96-98 yz's. Hang on to this bike and take care of it. I will buy it from you as soon as you'll sell it to me.

Mods? Just ride the thing. Find a Kehin carb from the 97-98 yz if you want to end jetting issues.

[Yami-Ivan]

Lets see some pics of this bike, seems like I seen a '94 Wr250 in an old Dirt Rider and it got good reviews.

[Motty]

my pleasure mate, these bikes are pretty rare so its good to finally find someone else who owns one

i'm not sure about the american one, but the aussie wr is actually street legal! ive never bothered getting it road registered because it slaps your balls together in a really bad way on the highway, but its great fun in suburbia. i've done a few trips down to a mates place about 20ks away, its a strange feeling passing traffic on a 2 lane highway on a motocross bike

one thing i forgot to mention, as RCannon says you will find it impossible to dial in the jetting if you have the same carb as mine. the idle screw actually just opens the choke so apparently the only way to jet it properly is to have no idle ? either that or buy a different carb

post up some pics i'd love to see it!

i'd post up mine but unfortunately i scratched the shit outta the plastics last weekend, lost half my stickers and my front fender is broken.... so it doesnt look quite as nice as it could

[beemerwolf]

Rich & Motty....thanks for all of the info on the WR. I picked it up today & whoa nellie that bird is F-A-S-T!! Even with the wide ratio it pulls like a freight train. It even lugged well down low too! I'm not sure about jetting ussues yet, but will learn more with time.

I also learned that it actually has a stator, but no lights, as delivered from the factory for the US Model. I ordered a factory service manual today, so maybe that'll tell me how many watts I have & how to access it.

Say Rich, I looked in your garage & am wondering if you are trying to corner the YZ market??

Yes, I will remember that IF I ever sell it to give you a call, but I tend to find the right bike...and this is it......and then I compile spare parts, and keep it for quite some time.

HappyRiding !!

?

[97wr250rider]

this bike is pretty much a yz but with the wide ratio gears. it does have a lighting coil on it so if you want you can put a light on it. it has a longer rod then the 96 it was notorius for having jetting problems so what i did is put on an aftermarket mukuni carb on and it really pept up the next best thing is putting on the boyesen rad valve and carbon force reeds.

[97wr250rider]

the best thing you can do to this bike is put a mukuni carb on it. and remove the stock tank and put a ims yz 3 gallon tank on ti and a 95 yz 250 seat

[RCannon]

The threads almost a year old. I hope he figured out his problems since then...........

[gasgas250]

In Mexico, WR 250 2 Stroke were until '98 and they were old YZ's (2 years old) with lights and spark-arrestor. They even had the same color and grapich scheme of same year YZ's.

Ir order to buy one you had to pay in advance and wait like 2-3 months for delivery from Japan.

[chris777]

WR250? now where the hell did i put that thing,Ive got a 94'just did a thread on it like a couple weeks ago,check it out (wr250 smoker)

[KAS]

How is the suspension on these older WR's? I know they can't be anywhere near the current MX bikes, but what about trail riding, or woods racing?

My nephew has a '93 KDX200, but he wants something different, for not a whole lotta cash. We might have a line on a '95 WR250 in the future.

The suspension on the KDX is just mush. Would the WR be an improvement?

[zz3gmc]

The WR has YZ suspension. I cant remember, but it may have been slightly softer than the YZ.

[97wr250rider]

i think the only thing thats diffrent is the valveing i had mine done by house of hourse power and there just as good as the yz

[760 motorcycles]

hello,corked up?? my wr eats anything up in the desert/forrest w exception of the 500 cc 2 strokes. faster than all mx bikes,climbs like a 450 4 stroke,only lighter. its basically stock.