Here it is fitted

Another

Other side

Rear view

Here is my stab at why Yamaha did not make this bike capable of having a wider tire and it is all about good engineering. I believe it has everything to do with the drive shaft and specifcally the U-joints. A wider swing arm, to accomodate a wider tire, would require a larger U-joint angle. The efficiency of a U-joint depends on its coupling angle. For those that care, the efficiency of a U-joint, for coupling angles less than about 15 degrees, is given by the following equation:

Eff = 100 x (1 - 0.003 x theta)

where "theta" is the coupling angle in degrees. I measured the coupling angle of the rear U-joint on the VMAX at about 10 degrees. This means that the efficiency of the rear U-joint is 97 percent. This means that 3% of the power is lost in just the rear U-joint. I can't measure the coupling angle on the front U-joint but I assume it is also close to 10 degrees which means that its efficiency is also 97%. If we combine the efficiency from both U-joints, we get a combined efficiency of 0.97 x 0.97 = 0.94. This means that 6% of the input power is consumed by just the two U-joints. A wider swing arm would require greater coupling angles on the U-joints with a greater loss of power.

I would rather not accept more power loss for a wider tire. This is also something to keep in mind if and when someone markets an aftermarket wider swing arm. You may lose power.

Hi, The only part you have to remove is the inspection cover to the shaft area and replace with a strong Gaf tape to keep out dirt & water. Cheers

Kris dosent look like much of the cover is left! but the wheel does look much better dosent?

I have read this whole post and couldn't find any measurements between the tire and the drive shaft. With different make tires there would be different clearances. How come nobody has given clearances in inches or mm for different tires being used so we could get an idea if a cover is actually possible. Using feeler gages would give us an idea of clearances from perhaps 1/4" down to almost rubbing. Just an idea if it's possible to solve this problem.

Wouldn't take much for those with 240's to chime in with clearance amount and type of tire being used. Just my $.02 worth.

Mike

Post # 16 on page two of this subject I state that there is virtually no space between the tire and the driveshaft "basically it IS rubbing". The tire is a Metz Marathon 880 xxl 240. I just ordered my second one and before I have it mounted and balanced, I will take my nice sharp block plane and actually plane a little rubber off and then have it balanced. What can I say...I'm a carpenter. Hope you hear from some other "fatties".

Randy did you order that tire yet if u want another Matzler let me know will sell you ine cheap only has 300 miles.
As to clerance you are talking mm all depends on your tire selection I got maybee 3mm clerance