New Honda 800 GP bike spied!

**James Deuce** · 26th September 2006, 20:16

On the contrary, I think Ducati have a reasonable aero package. The [roblem with a bike is the extra plane of motion over a car. Good straight line aero can make cornering difficult.

There are limits to aerodynamics, such as the front wheel can't be enclosed, and the rear body work can't extend very far past the rear wheel.

**Crasherfromwayback** · 26th September 2006, 21:19

Originally Posted by Jim2

On the contrary, I think Ducati have a reasonable aero package. The [roblem with a bike is the extra plane of motion over a car. Good straight line aero can make cornering difficult.

There are limits to aerodynamics, such as the front wheel can't be enclosed, and the rear body work can't extend very far past the rear wheel.

I'm with you Bruva! I know nothing about aerodynamics, but KHI know a fair bit. Back in '85' or '86' (can't remember that far back now days!) when they built the ill handling GPZ1000RX, they discovered a wide back end gave them a significantly higher top speed. The 'Dustbin' era bikes were as fast as fuck with very little (by todays standards) HP, and then they outlawed them.

The bikes now make enough HP to propell them to way higher speeds than they're doing now, but the rules regarding bodywork are holding them back.

At Mugello last year, Nakano's Kawasakis wheel speed sensors were showing the rear tyre was doing 40kph more than the front along the main straight.

So they have enough HP to go faster, hell the back tyre is spinning all the way along the straight as they have enough to break the available traction, but crude enough aerodynamics to stop them!

No wonder the tyres sometimes spin on the rims.....

**pritch** · 26th September 2006, 22:10

Originally Posted by svs

It's a V4

http://www.crash.net/news_view~t~Hon...~id~137909.htm

Yep I saw that. I also saw a nice picture of the new 800 Ducati somewhere. Very pretty, and still with the newly-retro underseat exhaust. I think that was on the official Moto GP site?