Category Archives: Yamaha YZF-R125

B-motor – 1200mile update

ok so we’re about 1200miles down on the rebuilt B-motor with rebalanced internals and right the way through break-in miles I felt like the clutch was slipping. I sorta expected this because on the previous motor it slipped from too much power so didn’t really think much of it. Every now and then it did seem to “catch” properly and would dig in and take off but it seemed to be random. For those times it happened though.. wow.

But then at the end of break-in miles since i had to change the oil anyway I put the upgraded clutch (R15 clutch basket with 6-spring boss + uprated springs) from the old engine and it still wasn’t quite hitting the speeds I was expecting. It would get to about 85mph but not any further and given this engine has the power band back in the correct place and screams from about 8.5k right thru the limiter this was unexpected behaviour.

I had been expecting the map to take a while to adapt to the new engine but really it ought to have done that by now. I had recently done a 2hrs each way run which was all main roads so we were in the 8-10.5k range most of that run which meant the autotune had plenty of time to do its thing and sort the map.

The other week I thought I’d just try it on the 14t front sprocket as a test and weirdly it was still not catching right…so I dug into it a bit more and discovered I’d put the clutch cable in a different position from how i’d had it before to see if i could lighten the pull, and then forgot I’d done that. It’s a 1 finger stunt clutch with 3 cable positions so you can vary the travel/pull-weight and as it turns out in the “lightest” position where I had it (which gives the least clutch movement) it was never fully engaging the clutch….

So then I switched it back to the middle position back to the somewhat heavier pull and holy chickenballs what an instant difference.

Continue reading B-motor – 1200mile update

YZF-R125 R15 Clutch upgrade – 6000 miles inspection and stock clutch install speedrun

Since the “A-motor” has been removed from the bike now, I need to strip the upgraded clutch I built a while back off it, since the newly rebuilt “B-motor” is already slipping on the stock clutch and the upgraded one needs transferring to that engine when I do the “end of break-in miles” oil change.

Continue reading YZF-R125 R15 Clutch upgrade – 6000 miles inspection and stock clutch install speedrun

The B-motor runs!!

woop! it runs \o/ (so far).

This has been a massive learning curve for me, particularly the sheer number of operations which have to be completed, as well as having to build at least 2 special tools to get the job done meant (for me anyway) it wasn’t really possible to “see” the whole process from start to finish, which in turn makes me very nervous on a project.

Continue reading The B-motor runs!!

YZF R125 180cc kit top speed

TL;DR: Top speed I’ve managed (so far) on mine with 180cc kit, 160cc injector and longer duration cam, with PCV + Autotune/wideband: 89mph.


So I’ve noticed there’s people searching on this topic so I’ll share what I’ve discovered so far, hopefully it’s of some use.

Top speed on mine when I got it, as 125cc on stock 14t sprocket was 83mph (indicated). That was absolutely throwing-it-down-a-hill-with-the-wind-behind-you, the most I could get out of it. 83 seems to be a fairly common top speed for stock bikes. Some other people have claimed 86 out of a stock bike but I can’t verify that myself and that wasn’t my experience.

Continue reading YZF R125 180cc kit top speed

YZF-R125 180cc “B-motor” engine build photo catchup

I started a thread on the forums a little while ago but meant to mirror it here. I may add in the old posts here if i get time but otherwise this will have to serve as a little photo-catchup. please refer to the forum thread for the full story. I’ll try and update both moving forwards..

Whilst not pictured here the cylinder and head are loosely on now while I set up the timing chain etc. Hopefully in the next few days it should be ready to fit.

[EDIT: pics updated, engine fitted and runs!]

Splitting the crankshaft on YZF-R125

Biting the bullet here and using the ebay hydraulic pless to separate the halves of the crankshaft and replace the con-rod etc. This is getting serious now..

splitting the B-Motor crankshaft on YZF-R125

B-motor crankshaft rebuild progress in pictures…

what we’re starting with..

Continue reading splitting the B-Motor crankshaft on YZF-R125

Replacing inner cam bearing on YZF-R125

This is me attempting to replace the inner camshaft bearing on a YZF-R125 cylinder head.

I’ve not done this process before and it involves extracting a bearing from a blind hole. I’ve found how it’s meant to be done but this is a test to see how well that goes to see how difficult it is, and to help me decide whether it’s something I want to try doing on my main engine.

The bearing puller I’m using is pretty much the default ebay one, just search on “blind bearing puller”.

Removing lower timing gear on YZF-R125 attempt #2 – success!

This is the second attempt at removing the lower timing gear and the captive bearing on the crankshaft of my spare “B-motor”, which I’m trying to build up for my bike.

Idk if this is how it’s supposed to be done but I’m working with what I’ve got.

Whether this turns out to be a good approach or not long term remains to be seen but for now let’s see how far we get with it…

How not to remove lower timing gear on YZF-R125

This is the first of my “descent into madness” series of videos where I’m trying to rebuild this spare R125 engine.

I bought the engine as broken and when I took the cylinder off the bearing surface of the little end was damaged, which means the crank needs to be pressed apart to fit a new connecting rod.

So basically I have to take the entire engine completely apart just to get to this one dumb piece to replace it.

The videos are out of sequence but I have such a backlog and there was going to be a plan and it all went to crap. Every expert I was hoping to get to help me with this basically just disappeared or didn’t follow through, so I’ve finally resolved to buying the kit and figuring out how to do it myself.

Even though the engine in my bike has issues (from when I messed up a couple of years ago), despite that it’s done another 5k on the 180 cylinder (even wiht the timing chain issues) and I have not gone easy on it 😉

I’ve had a few people asking me to rebuild engines and do upgrades etc which is very cool, so it seems like it’ll be worth learning how to do it.

Hopefully this all ends with an engine dyno and building mad engines as was always the dream/plan 🙂 I’ve added this video to a new playlist for the B-motor rebuild so I can add all the other videos to it as I work through them. Thanks for watching and thanks to SXparts.com for sourcing hard-to-find components like the lower timing gear.


UPDATE: I said in the video (at 2:08) the lower timing gear wasn’t available, well it turns out i was wrong on that and you can get it here. Thanks to A for the link 🙂 https://www.cmsnl.com/products/sprock…

#YZFR125 #R125Life #bikelife #bikewife