That wasn't Honda's vision. They were forced into competing with a filthy 2-stroke because their oval-pistoned monocoque NR500 was uncompetitive and unreliable. Honda have always had an almost pathological loathing of 2-stroke engines. They brought all their corporate might to bear to get rid of them and then pretty much failed to follow through once Rossi quit racing for them.
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
Or maybe Honda are the only Jap bike manufacturers with the balls to try something different... hassle the NR but look were it lead to, the RVF, via the RC's
The V5 rc211v other Jap bikes still run inline 4's, boreing, gota have a few cock ups to learn from, eg: the upside down V4 NS
cheers DD
(Definately Dodgy)
NO. Soichiro Honda hated 2-strokes and did everything he could to prevent Honda from developing 2-stroke engines, hence the fantastic multi-cylinder, multi-gear small capacity 4-strokes of the '60s. That became a corporate culture. Modern MotoGP is purely the result of Honda lobbying combined with a fortuitous convergence with tree-hugging global-warming nazis preventing direct injection 2-stroke petrol and diesel technology from becoming the IC engine of choice.
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
"A shark on whiskey is mighty risky, but a shark on beer is a beer engineer" - Tad Ghostal
little OTT man, those "multi-cylinder, multi-gear small capacity 4-strokes of the '60s" kicked some serious stroker arse, anyone can put an engine togeather that has only 3 moving parts... try a dohc 5cyl 125, be like me trying to find it for a piss... ya'd need twezers and a farking big magno glass![]()
cheers DD
(Definately Dodgy)
Exactly, and be consumer applicable, of course the higher efficiency electrics may kick some assWhat you really want if it was focused on helpful tech for consumers, would be a buyback scheme at the end of a season, to stop all the loaded companies dominating through Ti bits. And tbh, I think the level of performance out of todays machine would still make the races a good watch.
"A shark on whiskey is mighty risky, but a shark on beer is a beer engineer" - Tad Ghostal
How is it OTT? And exactly what 2 strokes were they competing with? Predominantly eastern European machines running on a shoe string and still managing to win championships. Honda's utter loathing for 2-strokes is well documented.
From Yoshiro Harada, head of Frame Design in 1956:
"As we went on, it gradually became more concrete," Harada recalled. "The Old Man would get to the Engineering Design Room early in the morning and call out, 'Hey, last night I thought of this,' and everyone in the room would come over to see what was up. Then he would get even more excited and start spluttering as he explained. After a while he would get impatient, and then he would squat down and start sketching his idea on the floor with chalk. While he was drawing, he would be thinking ahead, so he'd use his hand to rub out what he had drawn and start sketching again. His audience would keep on increasing. The Old Man would be in the center of this circle of people, just like a sidewalk performer," he continued, laughing. "The employees who surrounded him, though, would all be quivering with tension as they listened to the Old Man. 'The engine will be a 4-stroke!' and, of course, this had long since been decided. That wasn't Mr. Fujisawa's request. The Old Man had come to really hate 2-stroke engines then. He just despised them. In the New Year season of 1957, we started development, beginning with the engine."
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
Hey I dont doubt for a second strokers wernt liked, but whats wrong with trying something different, nothing lost, nothing gained... the little Honda diesels compeated against eg: off the top of my head, Suzuki 50cc twins, Yamaha 125 V4s both strokers.
cheers DD
(Definately Dodgy)
l like it! which it had more cylinders !!
Hmmmph! If it doesn't sound any good then I don't want anything to do with it and abso-fuckin-lootely won't be buying it. Which means ya can stick ya diesels and ya leccy bikes up ya green hessian jumper.
It's not all Honda's doing that MotoGP went four stroke. There was virtually no application of 2 stroke performance technology in the real world so what was the point? Now we have stillborn MotoGP prototypes as production bikes (RSV4), long bang cranks direct from championship winning bikes (M1/R1) etc etc. Sounds farkin' good to me.
Haha, before you lambast 4 strokes as being expensive, the lease only price of a factory Aprilia RSA250 was over the 1 million Euro mark, never mind the running costs.
http://sportrider.automotive.com/132...nes/index.html
http://www.sablogzone.com/bikezone/?tag=aprilia-rsa-250
So the Aprilia RSA125's which make up 95% of the grid (so much for competition amongst manufacturers) do not represent a cheap option. On the other hand with Moto3 rules like this:
"Moto3 engines will be limited to a maximum bore of 81mm while oval pistons will be prohibited. Engines will be restricted to 14000rpm. Valves will be limited to a maximum of four, and they may not be actuated by pneumatic or hydraulic systems. Variable valve timing and variable valve opening systems are also banned.
Engine costs will also be limited with a cap of 12,000 euro per unit, including any upgrades."
I can guarantee we'll see more than one manufacturer involved and it won't cost the sizeable part of a small country's GDP to compete.
So with new sporting 2 strokes few and far between small capacity 4 stroke innovation can only be a good thing in the tiddler class. This reverse cylinder stuff is becoming old hat offroad and now on the track.......so how long before a reverse cylinder Superbike pops up? Maybe soon a CBR1000RR won't be a rumoured V4 but a reverse cylinder IL4 instead?
Bottom line? All of a sudden the small GP class has become relevant again.
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