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/127176
designer Ingley describes as the single greatest chassis improvement the team made all season, "since it made my life a lot easier by eliminating the stiction and deflection that they experienced with the Marzocchis and presented us with constant suspension behavior." Only two of the five V588 Cagivas built are fitted with the inverted O'l Ohlins forks , and of these one is 00 being kept for comparision tests at O'l the start of next season, and the other ....... .i s being employed for ongoing evaluation, as they say, though don't ask me by whoml Anyway, can't risk a journalist crunching the front end, so send him out on the41.7mm MI R Marzocchis used on the other bikes: not brilliant, but not so bad either - 'takes a Mamola to rea lly notice the difference, or a lot better testing conditions, or both. _ A noticeable feature of the Cagiva's handling l did discover, though - and one I can't say I really cared for - was some quite strong understeer under power exiting a tu rn. For the first couple of laps while I was pussyfooting around trying to figure out just how slippery the tires really were, I didn't notice it. But once I got a bit of confidence and began accelerating harder and earlier, it needed a determined effort to pull the bike back on lin e exiting a horseshoe turn like the one at the . end of the main straight at"Misano, where you have to gradually feed in the power as the track opens out. This is su rprising in view of the Cagiva's steering geometry, which . has all the 'indicators of a faststeering, controllable bike: a slightly' longer wheelbase than last year at Removing the Ducati Paso -like fairing lowers rev eals the be autifully · crafted alloy twin-spar chassis; note asymmetrical hunchback swingarm. three exhaust port power-valve cylinders and their accompanying exhaust pipes experimented with, as well as a shorter conrod of 105mm length (compared to 1l0mm in '87) wh ich was eventually standardized and the three different carburetor sizes compared. to last season where only 35mm units were available. The compression ratio was raised slightly, but the biggest mechanical step forward came with the adoption of the ultra -thick computercontrolled Marelli digital ignition, a sp in -off from Grupo Cagiva's collaboration with Marelli/Weber on electronic fuel injection for the Ducati 851 eight-valve" Superbike, · and the ongoing experiments that The extremely compact 58-degree. twin-crank. reed valve V-4 motor debuted on the 1987-spec V587 and now produces 1 50 horsepow er. . . 12 141Omm, true, but only 90mm of trail (adjustable from 80-98mm) and 23.5 degrees head angle (can be altered over 21-24 degrees). Possibly the tire profiles and the abnormal combination of a little-used crossply and the rear radial may have been responsible, but it wouldn 't be the way I'd have expected or like the bike to be set up to race. Cagiva approached the 1988 season for the first time in some years with only detail improvements in mind to an already promising motorcycle, rather than undertaking wholesale redesigns all over the p lace - a wise decision. The Botta chassis was essentially unchanged apart from the 'hunchback' swingarm, with the same rear suspension design and initially only small changes to the front end to accomodate the later 'fitment of the inverted Oh lins. The basic 58-degree engine design was retained, but various alternative specifications for the ' six transfer I. have been conducted since November 1987 with the same company on a single-cylinder test engine (actually the 125 Cagiva G P motor, onequarter replica of the 500) fitted with fuel-injection. Those experiments · have now advanced to the point that a full-size V4 motorhas been fitted with EFI for bench tests this winter and eventually track testing, ,bu t meantime an adaptation of the ignitio n part of the engine management system was fitted this season to the V588. Dubbed the Racerplex, Marelli's digital design not only enables the team to program a special chip with their choice of ignition advance curve for each outing infinitely variab le according to choice, of course - but also to provide the rider with a choice of up to four additional pre-programed optional curves that he can select by mea ns of an on-board switch duri ng the race. This is relatively old hat in Fl ear racing terms. where a further refinement means that the engineer in the pits can actually alter the e.m.s, characteristics, includi ng the ignition curve, by remote control (leading in turn to the controversy regarding whether Honda were favoring Senna or Prost by slowing their unfavored driver 's engine down on the track thusl), but it does represent an advance on anything any of the j apanese works motorcycle teams .currently employ. Being ab le to sharpen or soften the engine's performance characteristics in a race as Mamola is now able to do gives him an at present unique advantage in the event of, say, a tire problem or mid-race change in the weather. Of course, the next stage is full EFI, in which case the engine .management systemwill do that all for you automatically, but for the meantime the Racerplex system is an impressive advance in two -wheeled ignition tech n ology that has also proved remarkably reliable. The other major improvement wrought to the Cagiva in 1988 was the adoption mid-season of an all new bodywork design by former Bimota partner Massimo Tamburini , heavily based on his fullyenclosed TGAI Suzuki design back in 1984 for Team Gallina. Tamburini's bodywork with its internal ducting not only allowed Cagiva to obtain true crossflow air supply to th e carbs for the first time, but also resolved their remaining thermal' problems by the adoption of curved .alloy 'stacked' radiators, 'first from japan and then la ter -specially made for the V588 by KTM in Austria, longtime suppliers to the Cagiva MX team. In this way, the ho t air from the radiator and cool flow of air to the Mikunis were completely separated, resulting in much improved and more consistent carburetion as well as improved air penetration, as measured in the Aermacchi wind tunnel. The fact that the Cagiva js also the best- looking current G P bike by far is a further achievement - but what else could we have expected from one of the most powerful influences in contemporary motorcycle styling?! . After a decade of involvement in the 500cc G P class, first with modified Suzukis for Marco Lucchinelli then with bikes .bearing their own company's name, ' 1989 looks like it will at last provide the moment of truth for the hyper-enthusiastic Castiglioni brothers Claudio and Gianfranco. They have their ace rider: Mamola will be honoring the balance of . his two-year contract. They'll have the right tires: Cagiva are seizing on Pirelli's decis ion to start supplying a second GP team (Gallina's Hondas) as reason to abort their two-year deal.with the Italian tire firm and return to the Michelin fold. "T h ey have the right r ace engineer in George Vukmanovich , the right designers in Bo tta and Mascheroni, and the right facilities in the new, well -equipped Varese race shop. And after my br ief sp in on it at Misano, I'm mo re than ever convinced they have the right bike: the Cagiva V588, or rather its newseason update the V589, is ready and able to win races with a rider of Mamola's caliber aboard. All they need is to finally crack that reliability problem, to skim at least 17 pounds off the bike, which though officially declared at 272 pounds half-dry is nearer ,to 286 pounds in rea li ty ~ way too much to be competitive with the japanese, but capable of reduction with some he lp from their component suppliers - and to ensure Michelin give them the best tires, rather than the ' su p er production' ones: the Cagiva group's manufacturing clout will help here - expect to see the entire Ducati range equipped with the French road tires next year! All that, pl us the lar ge slice of good fortune without which nobody wins races, not even the japanese - and 1989 cou ld be the year Randy Mamola rewards the Castiglionis with that elusive initial G P victory. Don't bet against itl •