Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126071
... .• fI.I IIIlI ~ g .r; \.0 1"- Gurney to the Sourc "The so urce of t he Sun" O'l ..... C'J s.. u .c S u > 0 - Th e Japan ese deriv e t he nam e of th eir country fr om a Chinese phrase m eaning "the sou rce of th e sun, " th e characte rs for wh ich are at left. The phrase describes the cou ntry 's geographical position east of China. The w ord "Japan" came fr om Marco Polo's attempt to render the Chin ese pr onunciat ion of th e phrase in Italian after his return from China in the 13th Cen tury. Th e Japan ese themselves, however, usually give the characters a sound that is rendered in English as " Nihon . .. The top character m eans "sun," the bottom one " source." Originally the Jap anese built up a written language by taking Chinese characters and adapting them to their own radically different spoken language. To th ese characters lik e the two shown here - th ey lat er add ed a k ind of alphabet of their own, making th e two written langu ages also different. Z (Ab o ve an d be low) Ne it her rai n nor sleet nor t yphoon . . . testing goe s on at the R&D sh o rt t rack . (Inset! One of th e more bi zarre p ieces in Asaka's attic, t his DO HC fo ur -car b sc reeche r was de signed to power a utility pickup. To get an idea of what th ey might b uild whe n t he ru les of the game ar e fina lize d. we go to a n earby t est co mplex w he re they run fu lly-automatic d u ty-cycle t ests o n a powered d yno . T he re are two d yn o ce lls. In each , a co m p lete m otorcy cle is tied to t he dyn o rolls and hooked u p to a set o f remote co n t ro ls . fo r th ro ttle, cl u tc h an d gea rshift. It 's a bit u ncann y , wat ching t he strap p ed down rid er less Hon das being run u p and do wn thro ugh th e gears by u nseen com mands carried out by ' a se t o f air/and/or/hydraulic serv os. The co m mands co me from computer-style ta pe decks beyond the firewall. These read master control tapes on a m u lt itu de of chan nels, sending simultaneously in rea l time all th e necessary control signals; not only to the m o t orcycle , but to the dyno ap ply in g the proper iner t ia loads in the proper direction during acceleration and throttle-off coast in g; varying the wind speed from the bank of co o ling fans to match simulated road speed - they miss very few tricks. The mach ine', downshifts are a trifle clumsy - picky . picky . Where do the y get the master tapes? The y c an manufacture them electronica lly , but most are ac tu al riding profiles generated on real mo to rcy cles equipped with eit h er "flight recorders" o r telemetry equ ipment to re lay data back to an electronics-laden van . With this set -u p, they can creat e and rep lay anything from Pat Eva ns on an R CB10 00 at Suzuka to J o e St reetrace o n an X L350 at Griffith Park to Mo ther Machree o n a Road Pal in th e p ar king lo t. Most o f t he t ape s are gene ra ted by Hon da R & D test riders on roads an d streets a ro un d Tokyo (of whi ch Asaka is a su rbu rb) , but the equ ipment allows th em to bring any road (and any rider) in the wo rld into their te st ba y. The dy no wheels in th ese and other bays can be set up with bumps of various numbers, sizes, and shapes to - 30 cy cle ,t h e chassis an d suspension, to the point of destruction, if ne cessary. One test bay in this co m p lex is set up to do this full-time . Everywhere there is bank upon bank o f d igital re ad-out instruments and strip -ch ar t genera to rs watched b y on e or more te chs, bu sily writing in Japanese te chno-script. The ir short h and is one co m po un de d of J ap anese vv ord-ch aracters, Arabic numbers and En glish technical terms. Fin all y , we come to the main dyno building. Through double doors and into t h is lon g hall ; th ere are 28 dyno cells distributed along bo t h side s, almost t o ta lly so undproofed and each viewed through its o wn triple -thic k pi cture window. About fo ur o f th e bays were shrouded ove r and screened du ring our visit. On e of these ' wa s an 11 ,000 rpm durability test on what sou nded (fro m th e stifled bu zz co ming through th e window ) like a twin . Run un t il it b lows ; th en lo o k at the pieces to see what went wro ng. T here we re te st s fo r fuel m ix ture at Wide Open T hro ttle (WOT) ; the re was RC 500 m oto cro ss , engine an instrumented to read ex ha ust -gas pu lsati on s in its expansi on c ham ber; there was a 999cc H.E . R.T . (t ha t 's Honda European Racing Team) engine pu lling 110 horsepowe r at 9,000 rpm. There were engi nes se t up to read valve train stress an d vibr at ion: o th e rs being