Stock 2021 MT07 Top Speed

[nooby-jim]

I tried to hit top speed on my bike today and I could not get it past 106mph. It's a stock 2021 with just barely over 3k miles on it. Is there a reason that that would be happening? I was under the impression that it could hit 133mph stock.

[mjh937]

It is all drag related.  Where you tucked down to minimize frontal area?   Drag increases with the square of speed and with no fairings that is the limiting factor. 

[M. Hausknecht]

Aerodynamic drag and horsepower are the primary determinants of top speed.  A small person, with knees and elbows tucked in and chest plastered to the tank, might eventually get up to 133mph on a stock 07, but you'll need WOT for well-over 30 seconds to get there. That is a long time to be at full throttle. If you're a bigger person (tall and/or wide) and can't/don't get into an uncomfortably tight tuck behind the bars, your effective top speed is going to be well-below 130. Is that you?

[shinyribs]

Funny that you said 106 mph. And likely this story will sound very unbelievable. 

Before buying my '16 FZ 07 I had spent the previous years on a KLR 650. Everywhere you went on that thing was WOT on the freeway and the engine was just screaming and vibrating away. No reason to look at the speedo. You're holding her wide open anyway, and it's probably vibrating so hard your can't read it anyway. 

 

Riding home from the dealership on the interstate I was just cruising and enjoying how smooth and civilized my FZ07 was. One have in my lap and the other holding the throttle open. Just cruising and enjoying the scenery on a pretty empty stretch of road. Up ahead I noticed a tractor trailer that seemed to be moving pretty slow. Huh, I guess he's loaded pretty heavy. I was gaining on him... gaining on him...really gaining on him quick! I realized then that he wasn't going particularly slow, but I was flying. Looked down at the speedo and saw 106 mph! I had been effortlessly cruising along at that speed without crouching or even gripping the bars well. Sitting straight up looking around at the scenery. 

A stock FZ 07 will do 106 with rock solid stability without trying hard. I regularly tipped past 100mph out playing without getting out of fourth gear. I never tried for top speed. Fastest I ever saw was overtaking some vehicles in a passing zone and opened the bike up to zip past ( way more than necessary) and after passing and starting to show back down I saw 130-something on the dash, but I really wasn't paying attention. 

 

Don't go for top speed in 6th gear. Try the same thing you did before then downshift to 5th. See what happens. I bet you the bike will speed up. Regardless, 106 in 6th should be effortless. 

[shinyribs]

8 minutes ago, M. Hausknecht said:

Aerodynamic drag and horsepower are the primary determinants of top speed.  A small person, with knees and elbows tucked in and chest plastered to the tank, might eventually get up to 133mph on a stock 07, but you'll need WOT for well-over 30 seconds to get there. That is a long time to be at full throttle. If you're a bigger person (tall and/or wide) and can't/don't get into an uncomfortably tight tuck behind the bars, your effective top speed is going to be well-below 130. Is that you?

Since you've got lots of track experience with these engines I trust your opinion over my own. Reading this, and other things in the past, has me wondering if my 07 was a ringer. 

I was told accidental 3rd gear wheelies weren't a thing on 07's, but it was. And the bottom end on my 09 is weak compared to my 07. 

 

I'm 6'2"-220.

 

Modern assembly lines just don't produce ringers like the old days. 

[Migyver]

I hit 176KM/h (109MPH) while overtaking a car last summer on my bone stock 2018.  I'm 5'11" @ 180 LBS.   I did not realize my speed until I looked down at the dash and was like oops, time to slow down a bit.  This was my first summer with the 07.  My other bike is a wr250r so on a highway it's always WOT just to keep up.  The WR is my trail bike and is a totally different tool.  I love both my Yammies but they are used for different purposes and offer totally different smiles per hour. 

[FZ not MT]

On 4/24/2023 at 8:19 AM, shinyribs said:

Reading this, and other things in the past, has me wondering if my 07 was a ringer. 

Funny you say that as I have ridden four other 07's (one was a 2020 XSR), and my bike was hands down the quickest of them all. One had an Akra plus a Power Commander and another had a Mivv and a 2WDW flash. The XSR was a stone stock demo ride that just seemed anemic compared to all the others.

My 2016 FZ-07 has the stock exhaust, no snorkel, MWR air filter and a 2WDW flash plus a R6 throttle tube. After riding the other bikes, I wondered if mine was a ringer too, which it could be, or if the way I broke in my bike may have made a difference. My bike runs so well that I don't want to tweak anything else as I really like it the way it is.

Now about that new XSR900....

 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by FZ not MT

[cornerslider]

On 4/24/2023 at 7:07 AM, M. Hausknecht said:

Aerodynamic drag and horsepower are the primary determinants of top speed.  A small person, with knees and elbows tucked in and chest plastered to the tank, might eventually get up to 133mph on a stock 07, but you'll need WOT for well-over 30 seconds to get there. That is a long time to be at full throttle. If you're a bigger person (tall and/or wide) and can't/don't get into an uncomfortably tight tuck behind the bars, your effective top speed is going to be well-below 130. Is that you?

@M. Hausknecht, you are frequently the "voice of reason"..... My 2016 FZ-07 (that I bought new) in "naked" trim, used to run 130(ish) mph (indicated) on the high-speed section of BIR. That was on a "internally" bone-stock motor, with serious mods to intake/fueling/exhaust. That current motor has 17K on the clock, and probably 10K of those miles are on a track. Last season my top (indicated) speed had dropped to the mid-120's... I'm about 5'-7", and about 205 (soaking wet). When I see "claims" of 133 mph in stock trim, I have to chuckle. When my "07" still had the OEM airbox in place, it would fall on its face after 8K on the tach- no matter what gear I was running in. In all seriousness, to anyone reading this.... The ONLY way you will ever see 133 mph on a stock FZ/MT-07, is running W.O.T.-on-a-long/steep-downhill-road-with-a-strong tailwind!!! Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.....

[Triple Jim]

106 does seem slow though.  Mine will get to an indicated 115 pretty quickly if I duck down as low as I can.  I'm 6'2" and about 170 lbs without gear, so 190 with, I guess, depending on what season it is.  

I got to 115 the day I got my MT-07, in an attempt to seat the rings at varying RPM and throttle.  I don't know if it helped or not, but the oil level in the sight glass has not visibly changed in the 3,000 miles since my last oil change.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Triple Jim

[shinyribs]

2 hours ago, cornerslider said:

@M. HausknechtWhen my "07" still had the OEM airbox in place, it would fall on its face after 8K on the tach- no matter what gear I was running in. 

Really? That seems so odd to me. Normal riding I would just surf the low down torque wave but when the chance to play arose I would stay in the 8-10k rpm range. So glad modern bikes have fantastic rev limiters. Never felt like mine nosed over, it pulled strong right up until it started hitting the limiter. There was a flat spot in the 5-7k rpm range that wasn't horrible, but kinda sucked. Pretty much dictated that you were either using the low rpm torque or winding it up and letting it eat. Keeping the rpms near max kept it from falling in to the flat midrange when upshifting, which would feel pretty blah. 

[shinyribs]

11 hours ago, FZ not MT said:

Funny you say that as I have ridden four other 07's (one was a 2020 XSR), and my bike was hands down the quickest of them all. One had an Akra plus a Power Commander and another had a Mivv and a 2WDW flash. The XSR was a stone stock demo ride that just seemed anemic compared to all the others.

My 2016 FZ-07 has the stock exhaust, no snorkel, MWR air filter and a 2WDW flash plus a R6 throttle tube. After riding the other bikes, I wondered if mine was a ringer too, which it could be, or if the way I broke in my bike may have made a difference. My bike runs so well that I don't want to tweak anything else as I really like it the way it is.

Now about that new XSR900....

 

 

I only ever rode my own 07. My 09 doesn't hit as hard down low as the 07 and that makes the 09 guys laugh at me when I say it. My 09 feels like every other 09 I've ridden. Four or five of them. Even the ones geared down with sprockets still didn't match the 07's immediate oomph down low.

07 was wonderful to power wheelie in second gear. Just roll the throttle open in second at 20-25mph and it'd stand straight up. You gotta really open the throttle and wait a bit before the 09 spools up and takes off. It's magical when it does though. 

Somewhere in the middle is the perfect bike As much as it pains me to say it...the new Hornet may be just that

[cornerslider]

32 minutes ago, shinyribs said:

Really? That seems so odd to me. Normal riding I would just surf the low down torque wave but when the chance to play arose I would stay in the 8-10k rpm range. So glad modern bikes have fantastic rev limiters. Never felt like mine nosed over, it pulled strong right up until it started hitting the limiter. There was a flat spot in the 5-7k rpm range that wasn't horrible, but kinda sucked. Pretty much dictated that you were either using the low rpm torque or winding it up and letting it eat. Keeping the rpms near max kept it from falling in to the flat midrange when upshifting, which would feel pretty blah. 

When I say "fall on it's face", I'm not saying the RPM didn't go up (it did)- it made more "noise", and gave the illusion of "more power"... In all honesty, it didn't make any more POWER- just more "noise"-

[shinyribs]

10 hours ago, cornerslider said:

When I say "fall on it's face", I'm not saying the RPM didn't go up (it did)- it made more "noise", and gave the illusion of "more power"... In all honesty, it didn't make any more POWER- just more "noise"-

I believe everything you said, just surprising for me to hear the talk of these bikes struggling to to get much over 100mph. Hell, my 40hp/430lb KLR could break 100hp with knobs. I need to dig out some SD cards and get some old gopro videos out to see what I can find. Used to zip past a buddy's house in a little straight stretch often. Old racing buddy who likes to hear the noise. Regularly tipped over 100 in those short pulls and not sure I even made it out of 4th. 

[M. Hausknecht]

I think the OP's indicated maximum 106 mph is very odd, but without more info (we haven't heard from him again)  we can only guess as to what to attribute it to. I can at least imagine a big guy, sitting more or less upright, with lowish tire pressures and inadequate ring seating (because he followed the typical recommended break-in procedure that hasn't been appropriate for over 20 years), and not enough time at full throttle, feeling stuck at 106.

I've gone 131-132 mph (GPS indicated, so 4-5 mph faster than the speedo) on my fully faired, 90+rwhp 07 (full tuck, 160lb/70" tall) on a 3500 foot long straight entered in 4th gear around 75 mph. I didn't reach terminal velocity but there wasn't much acceleration over 125.

[DewMan]

Considering the purposely designed day to day usability power tune/curve of this motor, the theoretical top speed can only be obtained under just the right conditions I'm assuming.

The power curve putting power where I can use it while doing legal speeds was one of the primary reasons I bought the FZ-07.

 

[cornerslider]

@DewMan NAILED it!!!! For what this bike was designed to do, it's AMAZING!!!! For folks like myself, that chose to try to make it do what it was never designed to do.... There are probably better options. I know that 2023 will be my last year racing my 2016 FZ-07. I still own all the parts to make it street legal again.

I'm torn between buying a "new" MT-10SP, or just going back to street riding my "07"... The CP2 is such a great platform, and I know the physical size of the "07" fits me better. The MT-10SP  just "checks all the boxes" for what I look for in a street bike. 

[fzar]

I did 13.+ in mexico going down hill with a rear wind, hord airbox, Akra -TI, ECU flashed @2wheeldynoworks .

It took a while....

[jb.junior]

Definitely not stock, haha, but... 162.7 mpg with Daytona draft!

 

http://www.motoamericaregistration.com/Results/2023/DAYTONA/23_1_DAY_TWN_R2_seg.pdf

[balkor2]

On 4/24/2023 at 8:19 AM, shinyribs said:

I was told accidental 3rd gear wheelies weren't a thing on 07's

hehehe 

I have done an accidental wheelie in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & tiny tiny one in 4th 

[Hamlet]

I have not reach the max speed on mine. But here is the top speed on my FZ-07 2016 stock and considering that I am 1.78 cm, and 90kg.

I was going at 100km/h in a flat highway and decide to do a big speed up. I down gear to 3 speed and I full opened  the throttle to make it faster. The motorcycle speed increased fast and at the final I released the throttle because some cars were ahead. I saw 192 km/h (120MPH) but the motorcycle could have increased a little bit more.

Indeed after the 8000K RPM the motorcycle decline in its linearity to increase speed. But still super nice. 

 

 

 

 

[klx678]

Personally the only bikes I've actually done top speed would be the dual sports.  The 650 would hit indicated around 105 mph or so.  But I just don't want to spend the money should I get caught - the ticket and then the insurance cost.  Just not worth it.   I find it much more entertaining to hit the winding back roads and highways of eastern Ohio and West Virginia where doing 60-70 is about max for safe travel on the roads.

But hey, that's just my way.