YAMAHA RD400
The Yamaha RD400 is naughtiness in motorcycle form – all two-stroke crackle and lairy acceleration. David Shuttleworth explains how he brought this one back from the brink
When a Yamaha RD400 hits 7000rpm, magical things happen. The instant gratification and sheer fizzing urgency of the ensuing 1500rpm burnt itself into David Shuttleworth’s 18-year-old psyche way back in 1978. Memories like that never fade. Instead they emerge years – sometimes decades – later, just as vivid as when first enjoyed, as a reminder of the very best of times.
“It’s that two-stroke thing,” grins David, patting the seat of his 1980 RD400F. “I’ve owned countless four-strokes over the years, most of them infinitely more powerful than this, but they just don’t give the same buzz. There’s something uniquely evocative about a two-stroke coming on-pipe – that powerband thing. It takes me all the way back to that very first time, 45 years ago.”
Not that David was a complete 2T novice back then. He’d already laid the groundwork on a FS1-E at 16 and an RD250 at 17 – on L-plates, of course. But it was the step from 250 to 400 that really opened his eyes.
“The jump in performance caught me off guard. First time out on the 400 I got on to a straight bit of road as quickly as possible, because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I wasn’t expecting the accompanying rush as I ragged it through the gears, or how it slid me back down the seat. By sixth gear and over 100mph, I was hanging on like an ape…”
Things got even spicier when David decided RD400 ownership and proddie racing were inevitable bedfellows. A chat with Stan Stephens made clear the choices: a road tune would give a noticeable speed increase yet offer season-long reliability; a proddie tune would get him near the front of the pack, but he’d be rebuilding the motor every third meeting.
“Cost was an issue, so I went for the road tune on the grounds that I’d see how I went and maybe go for a more radical set-up if I was battling near the front,” he explains. “As it turned out, racing wasn’t really for me – too expensive, too time-consuming, and I wasn’t quite as competitive as I thought I might be in an open class up against GSX1100s and stuff like that. But the road tune was enough to take the RD from 105mph flat-out to an indicated 120.”
Four decades on, David’s garage is again home to a 400cc two-stroke Yam. Aself-confessed tinkerer (hardly surprising, given David’s background as a Roy
