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/127808
1997 and 1998 Hondas as far forward as possible for better front weight bias. Air flowing over the sides of the three-piece fairing draws cooling air through the radiators. An electric fan is fitted to the right radiator. With no radiator blocking direct airflow over the engine, considerably greater volumes of cool air both cool the pewerplant and sweep the hot air away from the rider. While Ducati may hav.e inspired Honda to go ahead with a superspOrloriented V-twin, there is no desmodromic valve actuation here, and neither is there fuel injection. What there is in the chain-driven overhead-cam fourvalve cylinder heads (identical for the front and rear cylinders, just turned 180 degrees) are bucket tappets with shim adjustment. Valve adjustment is said to · By Mark Hoyer felt sorry for American Honda's Bruce Ogilvie. There we were, a bunch of motorcycle-fanatic journalists attending a new-model introduction at Honda's headquarters in Torrance, California, and Bruce was standing there explaining the features and benefits of Big Red's latest entry in the quad market, some four-wheeldrive thing that appeared to have great, uh, utility. The whole time he was speaking, it was silting at the edge of the room. Possibly one of the coolest sportbikes Honda has ever produced, a 996cc Vtwin in that lovely shade of red Honda lays on its VFR750, was running second to a quad. It was cruel. Thankfully Bruce knew what we wanted to see. He did the business efficiently and the quad went away. They rolled it out. "I'd like to stress that this model is not intended for racing," said Dirk Vandenberg, Honda's product-testing ace who would be telling us all about the all-new VTRl000, otherwise known as the Super Hawk 996, "and it should not be evaluated as a racing platform." Yeah, right. I'm sure he realized it was futile to try to convinc~ this group of that. Anyway, Vandenberg went on to explain how one of the target bikes from the very start had been the Ducati 90055 and definitely not the 916, but that over the course of testing the VTR had easily surpassed the performance of the 900, and the 916 was used as a benchmark more and more. Still, this particular model was meant to be a street bike from the beginning. "It's not meant to be a racing platform," Vandenberg reiterated. "We will address that in the future, the near future. Maybe next year. There's been some talk about an SP version in the future but this is not the one." The concept for this bike took its beginning in the Hawk 650 GT of a few years back, though it was finally the ongoing popularity of Ducati that really lit the fires at Honda to move ahead with the Super Hawk concept. The design is completely new from the ground up and features a good deal of technology that was new for Honda. Perhaps the most interesting of these .was the twin-spar aluminum frame. While the material and twin-spar design are quite normal for Honda, the fact that there are no integrated swingarrn-pivot plates is not. The swingarm pivot is instead bolted to the rear of the horizontally split engine cases, as is the lower shock linkage. The footpegs (attached in the swingarrn pivot area) and sidesland are also located on the engine. Only the upper mount of the rear damper is attached to the frame proper. Open-ribbed castings are used in the engine-mount area of the chassis and it is here where a good deal of tuning has gone into the chassis for lateral vs. torsional rigidity in an effort to make a motorcycle that is confidence-inspiring, easy to ride and fun to ride. The proposed benefit of the overall design is light weight; the frame is 15.4 pounds. Rake and trail are 25 degrees and 98mrn, respectively. After examining existing engine designs, Honda didn't feel·that any of the V-twin powerplants it had available (none of which were 90-degree vees) were suitable, and that ultimately led them to start with a clean sheet. The liquid-cooled 90-degree V-twin displaces 996cc (the same displacement, incidentally, as both Ducati's new homologation special, the 916SP, and Suzuki's TLlOOO) and uses a single-pin crank with carburized, nutless connect- (Above left) The VTR1000F Is being billed as a street bike - no racing for thle model - and so gets a thraequarter fairing. A raclng-orlented SP version Is said to be on the way. (Above) The 996cc 9O-degree Vtwin Is fitted wjth two radlatora, one under each fairing panel. (Left) The twin-spar aluminum frame does not Incorporate swlngarm pivot plates. Instead, the swlngarm Is conected to the rear of the engine. In this photo, the bracket that the lower shock linkage Is bolted to Is visible. ing rods. Carburizing is a treating process that lends strength to the material, while the nutless rod bolts shave weight. In the same weight-saving and friction-reducing vein, light, skirtless slipper pistons were used. For strength and comp'}ctness, the cylinders are integrated into the top crankcase, similar to the method used on the CBR series. In an effort to overcome some of the inherent'engine-placement difficul ties faced when usiil.g a 9O-degree V-twin, a pair of side-mounted radiators were used so that the engine could be located take far fewer than eigh t hours and, al though not finalized, the service interval in this respect is projected to be 16,000 miles. The 98 x 66mm cylinders are fed by a pair of giant 48mm flat.slide carburetors - the largest ever fitted to a Honda motorcycle. The valves, too, are the largest ever used on a Honda, 38mm on the intake side, 34mm for the exhaust. To provide ample breathing capacity for the large carburetors, the airbox has an eight-liter capacity. The CBR900RR by comparison has a seven-liter airbox. As has been the practice for Honda on its sportbikes recently, the VTRl000 uses a throttle-position sensor and 3-D mapped digital transistorized electronic ignition for optimum spark timing under all conditions. Redline is 9,500