Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·RACERtEST Cagiva V594 i.e. lf) 0\ 0\ """' ~ ~ ..0 o ...... u o 24 season, Andrea Goggi. "We wanted to improve the. midrange performance," said Goggi, "but though Doug tested it and didn't like it, John did. But we needed more work on refining this layou t, so we switched back to the standard one for Chili." Same thing for the firing angle of the Big Bang engine. Cagiva tried closing up the "60-80 degrees" firing order at Bmo and the USA last season but it made very little difference, says Goggi. "The important thing is whether you have the Big Bang at all, or not," he declares. Cagiva instead focused their development on .improving the bottom-end pickup, and the result is a noticeably more tractable power delivery than I remember from riding the 1993 bike. You actually have to force yourself to use a gear higher and fewer revs than you expected, to get a better drive out of turns. Part of the reason for this is the excellent handling, which gives you so much confidence it helps you to keep your corner speed way up higher than I can recall with other 500s I've ridden. This does of course place an extra burden on the front tire, making the choice even more critical and the standard Michelins fitted for my test not ideal - the rear got very hot and bothered on both bikes after just a handfu of laps - but it also means that you must ride it in some ways more like a Ducati than a - well, Suzuki RGV! Pickup from as low as 8000 rpm is good (though it'll carburet from even lower revs if you insist), but the engine starts to come on strong at 9500 rpm when the power valve starts to work hard, and from 10,000-12,500 revs there's mind-bending acceleration that will unhook the back wheel if you're not careful to pull the bike upright exiting a slow turn and get working on the fat part of the tire. One gear lower... Peak power of 175-180 bhp (depending on the spec for the seventransfer / three-exhaust-port cylinders and exhausts) is delivered at 12,600 rpm, but the missing overrev that Cagiva finally discovered in 1993 is still there, with the engine running up to 13,200 rpm, if you want to save a gearchange, before power tails off. If the Cagiva's power delivery isn't quite as linear and smooth as the class standard - Doohan's NSRSOO Honda - it got pretty close: On top speed, too: Chili was trapped down the Mugello front straight at 195 mph on the team's data acquisition system housed in the seat, almost 4 mph better than Doug Chandler ever managed for the simple reason that Chili's years of racing a 250 taught him how to tuck himself away much better behind that shapely streamlining, says Goggi. The only complaint the riders had by the end of the '94 season was the Cagiva's bottom-end acceleration, something I could only compare if I had another bike on the circuit to play with. And I didn't. What I did have was the fuel-injected 500cc Cagiva warmed up and waiting for me: wow - FutureTech made real. Straight away, you notice a difference: the throttle action is even more responsive than the £lat-slide Mikunis deliver on the carbureted bike, but only once you have it wound at least partway open. Perhaps because of the lowflow / high-flow nature of the twin"injector system, there is like a dual-rate progressivity to the throttle response - only a little pickup at small throttle openings, then extremely quick response at wider ones. Adjusting yom- expectations in terms of your riding style exiting slow turns to take account of this does take a while, but once you gain confidence riding the bike, it's not a ptoblem: In return, you get a feeling of improved sharpness that's hard to quantify. I mean, the V594 isn't exactly slothful once the throttle is wound more than a quarter-way open - but it just seems that the V594 i.e. engine has more of an edge. And it's definitely better on pickup out of medium-speed comers, like the exits from the first two chicanes at Mugello, accelerating hard in second gear from 10,000 rpm upward. The injected bike seemed to leap out of there with added zest - I could tell that by the way the front wheel kept popping up in the air! Where it was less happy was on the downhill turn behind the pits, where a (Right) The carbonfiber snout f88dlI the aIrbox a p_rtzad charge. (Balow) Mora fiber la found at the awlngsnn, but It IIttachaa to the aluminum section of the fiber/alloy· hybrld frame. and greater freedom for engine design and layout. But Cagiva won't be taking advantage of the fruits of success tliat their painstaking years of determined development on EFI have yielded - well, not directly, anyhow. The payoff for all that investment, both human and financial, will come with the debut of the F4 Superbike, to which so many of the lessons imparted by the two-stroke GP project will be adapted. So, no need to feel too sad at the demise of Cagiva's 500cc effort, then, after those glorious 15 years of tilting at Japanese windmills and, unlike Don Quixote, actually knocking them down. GP racing's loss is Superbike racing's gain: The legend of the Lady in Red continues.... CN whimp like me backs off the thrqttle because he's worried about washing out the front wheel, especially on that standard front tire. The combination of high revs and low load spells confusion for the fuel injection, which thinks it has to keep on pumping gas when it doesn't have to. The net result is that when you want to get hard on the throttle again for the pull up the hill, nothing happens. The engine goes completely dead - then cuts in again very suddenly as all the unburned fuel is dissipated, and you're back to full operationaJ mode. "It's true - that's the one problem we haven't been able to dial out yet," said Andrea Goggi when I reported back to the pits. "Fogarty had the same thing happen to him going down the Craner Curves at Donington, and it's hard to come to terms with. We need more work on the map to refine this." Subsequent laps proved that if you ride the bike properly at Mugello, this isn't a problem. The important thing is to keep the same load on the throttle to keep the EFI working properly. It will be interesting to see if Bimota has resolved this problem on their road bike. Meantime, my spin on the Cagiva 500 i.e. proved beyond doubt that, once this final glitch is ironed out, the potential is there for fuel injection to be adopted on two-stroke GP racers as well as roadsters, in pursuit of refined response, optimum setup at all times - CAGIVA V594 i.e. • 8onI1..- ;glllell.~, Y-4.C1ll1llC.1 "''IlIMI1MHllRlka tlIIIIn CUla] -lD Cl&illatlllls IIId fIIel:lnlI* ~ WIIv8 W8IIc EngIne •... , ; _ _ 561150.8mm CII*lY..........................................•............................. 49lltc ClII....... . 0UIpII.........•.•.•...........•..•.......•••••..••.. 17&-180 bllp .12,600 qlIlI, at gIlIbclx (8ll&t lUput clIpends epecIIcIIon c:tr.ft tor e8llIl cIRUl) FtIIMgI • •. , . . •.•.•.....•'.••.• TA&'CIgIva...... fuel i;lclIan. wi! 3IlnIn II1IlllIIe badIes. two~IlIf"'IIllI"'''''''''h.' (4113llnln IIIui CIIbInIan wi! -.:. ~ . . K8IfIIIIft ""3 r~ugt eI8cotI rot) ~ CIuIdI 1Ilt.- e-tpeede'· ... dry (71ticl1on/8. . CompolIIIII ~ 7U2O rIIt1J tIIIilHIpwflame a.III SlJI:)I 11m FtonI 46mIIl Ohlins imIed8d IBlesupe folks ....... ~COhlpClllltswilgllm. single 0IIIlns sIlock IIId ~ linkage Hl&I engII .........................•..•.................................... 24 degrees Trill .......................................•...•..... _ 3.858 Inches (as tesled) WtigN: 290.4 poI.IlCIs wiIIlout fuelllInk, lliIII olIIwaIerld&ta acqllisilion syslIlm (2ll3.8 potIIds) WeIgIlt dIIlrIbuIIoIl ............................•................................ 54146% WlIIIIbIII ; 55.118 inches BratrII Front 118' Wh8elllllres Dual 290mm Brembo CllI'bon discs with four-piston 8Iembo caipers 18llmm Tilfon CllI'bon cisc with lWo-piston 8Iembo caliper Front 12160-17 Michelin ra

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