But at 100kg (wet), I needed a little more juice from the Yamaha WR250F. The engine is straight out of the YZ250F but with a few enduro tweaks so it’s an absolute animal for a quarter-litre enduro bike. But the motocross characteristics still shine through and while it screams up top, I found it lacking down the bottom. Fortunately, GYTR has a solution for that.

WE RATE
TORQUE The GYTR muffler and header pipe instantly extracted more torque from the four-valve DOHC engine. I was able to carry gears a little longer and shift earlier.
PUNCH While the torque has improved significantly the instant punch off the bottom has too. I can now leave it in second or even third when hopping obstacles that suddenly appear, without having to drop a gear and dump the clutch.
SOUND The pipe sounds awesome and the WR250F now sounds like a dirtbike, not a farmer’s mule.
LOOKS The GYTR pipe looks the goods, especially when compared with the massive stocker. It doesn’t have a flash carbon-fibre tip but it’s sleek and small.

WE DON’T RATE
FITTING Getting the header pipe to wrap around the cylinder head takes a bit of jiggling. Eventually I got it but it’s not a two-minute job.
HEAT SHIELDS The diameter of the header pipe is smaller than the stock header so the heat shields are too big.
PRICE $1270 is a lot of money for a bit of extra torque, but this modification has improved the bike so much that you soon forget the cost.

VERDICT
Nowadays we expect a bike to come out of the box with no need for adjustments. Sadly, that is unrealistic. While the coil springs and suspension valving on this bike are on the stiff side, that was a good thing for my weight, which meant the only thing I needed to chase was the torque to hall my 100kg. If Yamaha was able to produce the WR250F with a more European-style pipe, there would be no need for any mods at all. Editor Mitch Lees

GET IT HERE
BILL $1270
BROWSER yshop.yamaha-motor.com.au
BLOWER (02) 9757 5800