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/127243
mag wheels - some way off the 253 lb . class limit, of course, but 'a lso a littlemore than the 264 lb . Suzuki, which all agree was designed down to a weight. The Honda feels to have more of that weight on the front 'wheel tha n even the declared 55/45% split, especially ' as th e riding position is quite unlike pre-'88 NSR500 designs and has the rider sitting qu ite h igh , with a lo t of body weight on his arms and shoulders, and thence on the front wheel. Because of its understeering nature, it 's a machine you instin ctivel y end up riding with arms even more bent than usual, body crouched over th e tank, trying (Far left) Tester Alan Cathcart found the NSR's riding position 'put a lot of strain on his arms and shoulders and also the front wheel; (lef t) the NSR used inverted Showa forks and Nissin brakes. our competitors, but we must exam ' in e wh ether the hand ling is improved without the gyroscopic effect of the single crankshaft, " says the HRC chief engineer. " We will co nt in ue to test th e twin-crank design just to see if there is any point to it!" Similarly, Honda reveal ed to me that they are also working on an electronic fuel-injected version of the NSR250 V-twin, with a manag ement system, but th at this has not yet been tried out on th eV4 NSR500, The extra torque of the 'Two-Up' version is not really som ething th at th e NSR500 engine needs : It already has eno ugh to ' pull th e side off Mount Fuji ! Whereas last year's NSR500 was a revver, with an overrev capaci ty that ' would allow th e engine to be run up to 13,5000 rpm if you wanted to hold a gear between corners , for '89 Honda trad ed so me of that top end capa bility for an even fatt er midrange that delivers aweinspiring performance under accelera tion ; in sp ite of the frontwards weight ' bias, you have to slide forward on th e seat a nd shove as much of your body weight as possible on th e bars to keep th e front wheel even reasonably close to th e ground when th e wrist is twisted exiting a turn especially the uphi ll Suzuka hairpin. Moreover, Honda also introduced a clever wheeze to further soften th e power delivery , whereby the rate of opening of the flap -type power valves can be varied according not only to the engine revs but also to the degree and ra te of throttl e opening. A mini-compu ter fitted in front of the rev-counter takes care of this fun ction, and can be programmed by one of four alternative mi crochips to offer a different opening curve. Similarly, the Shindengen d igital ignition, drive off the right end of th e cra nk, has a near-infinite variety of curves on offer, obtainable by a range of pre-programmed ch ips which Honda evolve in testing , rather than cook at the race track Bimota-style: Tsunoda says they generally use one of two or three favorite curves, even though the re' s ahuge cho ice of others. Speaking of co m p u ter iza tio n, H RC hasn 't used data acquisition systems at races yet, even though they 've been doing so in private testing for th e past five years and more, partly because Erv Kanemoto preferred not to get weighed down with data at GP races, a nd instead used his fund of experience as well as Lawson's input in setti ng th e bik e up. But HRC will go the telemet ry route in 1990, says Tsunod a, probably debuting their o wn real -time system at th e first race o n hom e ground at Suzuka. For a com pa ny whose car division is abl e to cont ro l the on-track perfo rm ance of Prost and Senna 's Fl race engine a nywhere in the world by satellite from th eir Tokyo offices, this is junior league stu ff. Honda introduced 'new cylinders with a l itt le more top en d for Hockenheim, and retained th em for the rest of the season with a choice of two exhaust designs, cha nged according to th e nature of th e circu it. These various modificati ons hav e transformed th e revvy, highl y-strung '88 version of the engine, which I found had a definite step in the power delivery around 10,000 rpm , into a bike that has a liq uid-smoo th delivery , from low down and , a n acce p ta b ly wide powerband though not as wid e as th e Suzuki 's. However, th e Honda mak es up for this by taking no pri soners in midrange: it pulls from a bo ut 7300 rpm aft er trickling off from rest with the ease of a mega-powerful road bike, but co mes on the power very strongly a t just over 8000 revs and delivers awe-inspiring performance from there up to maxim um horsep ower of 'more th an 160 bhp' at 12,000 rpm. But then unlike the less po werfu l Cagiva,which runs into a brick wall at 12,200 rpm , the NSR 500 will keep revving to 12,800 rp m wi th out sign ifica n t drop in ho rsepow er , th ough after th at it does tai l off sharp ly. In th is respect th erefore, H onda has reverted to the engine cha racte r isti cs of th eir previous NSR500 designs, but of course with a 10l more power on tap: more power, but with a more flexible delivery. That 's qu ite a trick, and obviously on ly co mes about after a huge a mo unt of patient development, th e kind HRC's large staff of clever engineers specializes in. Under th ese circumsta nces therefor e, it's not so necessary to gear for performance as for corners - not always th e sam e thing - and the ch o ice of six alte rna tive ratios for each of the six speeds in the side-loa d ing extractable gearbox, plus a range of th ree different primary drive ratios, Iacilirates thi s. Though all th e other contro ls are as light and finely set . up as ever on a works Honda, the left-foot one-up gearchange is a little notch y, if not exactl y Cagiva-esque: m ayb e th e dogs h av e been redesign ed to co pe with all that ex tra power? In spite of copious use of carbon fiber (ha nd lebars, silence rs, bod ywork a part from th e alloy fuel tank , a nd rear brake - mad e by Hitco in th e USA - plus so metimes wh eels a nd brak es in carbo n as well ) as well as lo ts of titanium everywhere, the H onda sca led 268 lb. half-dry in race form with th e carbo n brak es, or 273 lb. as tested with the steel discs and I to will it round turns with your body weight - a far cry from the upright, hey, ho, ride 'em cowboy stance of Schwantz's Suzuki, Actually, the Honda feels th e more cont ro llable of th e two, only that it's a really conveying delusions of gradeur: you think you 're doing a great job of muscling it into line, but it knows who ' s reall y boss! Unless your name's Eddie Lawson, of course. A H ero . . . Honda was more successful in reso lving th e traction problems which beset them in '88, a nd thanks to that redesigned rear sus pension ' linkag e as well as a more rational relationship between the gearbox sprocket, swingarm pivot and rear axle, the bike gets its power down a lot better than its predecessor. H onda did try a 25 mm shorter swingarm at one stage, to try LO em ula te Suzuki by shorten ing th e whe elbase and moving th e weight rearwards but it wasn 't perserved with though th ey say th ey'll work on this th em e fo r 1990. Ov era ll th ough I found th e performance of th e Showa suspens ion and new-type inverted forks to be quite impressive, whi le th e big Ni ssin brakes are li ght yea rs bett er th an their '88 predecessors which , for all th eir size, felt soggy and uninspiring as well as being prone to heat warp. The forks