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/126613
(Above and above right) The new four cylinder engine is shown front and rear . Only the valve covers are stock. (Below right) Collins says the lower end and crank will be very durable. not two or three seasons. Th ere are Ch evrol et-styl e size rod bearings a nd main bearings, a n d Bill Miller for ged co n nec ti ng rod s. " T h is is the stu ff th a t the Top Fuel ca rs run and th ey'r e making up to 2000 horsepow er , so th e stu ff sho u ld be virt ually bulletproof. So now a g uy ca n go to a race with h is T op Fuel bike a nd h e might burn a pi st on or lose a valv e, everybody does th at . Now it's a mailer of j us t pulling th e head o ff a nd changi ng it a n d by using these RC cy lin de rs an d m y Goldwing cylinder arrangem ent, a rac er can change a cy I inder head in 12 m inutes because h e doesn't have to disturb th e ca m or th e ca m timing. H e sh o uld be able to change all four pi stons in 20 minutes an d we shou ld be a ble to change th e comp lete engi ne package in 30." With the motor sq uared away, th e secon d half of Collins' revolutionary packa ge is the rear engine design. The basis of th e design stems from not o n ly a u tom o tive Top Fuel technology , but also from a desire to strike back after hi s V -8 co ncept was outlawed. "I like to show them - I just like to. I like to build, create and design. But th ey kind of got me started. "They didn't tick m e off. I think they kinda wanted to just count th e old man out. And they shouldn't have done that. Because if they hadn 't have, I probably would have just retired the dev il and spent all of my time up here in this off ice in stea d of all of my time in the back shop." Collins feels if the rear-end concept works well for the cars, it should work well for the bikes. But with the motorcycle being a single-track vehicle instead of a twin-track vehicle like the cars its wheelbase will be 136 or 140 inches - a real long motorcycle. In fact i t' s a little more than half the length of a Top Fuel car. The first couple times Collins rode his test bike he said it was a real scary deal, real scary. " T his new bike is only 20 inches from the seat to the ground. The rider is a whole bunch lower and we've reduced fron tal area by eig h t or nine inches with strea m lin in g . We lay down in a simila r drag ra ce fash ion with you r feet behind yo u and you r body is stre tched ou t a lmos t vertical. II's kind of weird because yo u ' re so far back from th e front wheel you ca n' t u se th e fro nt wh eel for referen ce in steeri ng, turning, or lean in g. " Havin g th e engi ne behind you is kind of freaky because you ca n hear it but yo u ca n' t see it . II so u n ds lik e th ere's so me body driving up yo u r tail. That's probabl y a pretty goo d ana logy. II feels like somebody 's driving up yo u r tail and you'd better ge t th e hell out of th e wa y. " I think o ne o f th e mo st a maz ing th ings that we discovered was tha t the greatly extended wh eelbase wa s a n a id to recov ery from ill handl in g. If th e rear wheel did get loos e a nd ge t side ways it would reco ver a lot beuer an d a lot m ore positively wi th a long wheel base th an it wo u ld wi th th e short wheelbase. T he thing didn 't have th e tenden cy to go aro und in circles like a dirt bike o r a sta ndard stree t bike on ice or whatever. " Yo u can almost let the rear end do anything it wanted to and you could bring th e front end back in alignment by just £lipping th e handlebars. You didn 't have to usea whole bunch of body Engl ish and try to for ce th e rear wheel to come back in line with th e front wheel. The front wheel would actually steer the bike rather than guide it ," explained Collins. Collins sa id that test runs (with a CB900 motor in the chassis) were very successful but claimed you had to almost learn to ride a motorcycle all over again because it was so different. "Being that low in the saddle, your height and weight doesn 't have a whole bunch of bearing on the handling of the bike. Because you 're so close to the roll center, if you want to tum left you just £lip your left elbow a nd yo u're just about turning left . The back end is actually driving it. I think we 'll see even the more successful of my competitors. hang back a year or two to see what. happens and as th ey've done in th e p ast, th ey'll just take pictures out of your newspaper a nd figure how long it reall y is a nd how high it really was and they'll copy it ." Collins expects to debut th e Battlesta r at the first NMRA all-bike race a t Gainesville, FL, on Ma y 1-2. As for those who counted th e "old man" out, Collins replies... "What can you do? Well, I couldn't do anything anymore radical in the engine department. This engine is more radical. It 's bigger, it 'll be stronger and it 'll probably produce more horsepower because we don 't have the frictional losses between two crankshafts since we have just one. "II's going to be an act that will follow the double. I don 't know if they're counting me out. I don't think they were counting me out; they just figured that maybe I lost interest but I didn 't . They had better beware. I'm alive and well in Gardena. i.and com,' ing'., .· " •