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/127824
FIRST RIDE Once set up properly - and above all with correct tire pressures - the handling of the Triumph chassis is beyond reproach, again steering (ouch!) a perfect course between the Honda and Ducati. It's' not as twitchy as the Honda, even in its latest form, but it's easier steering than the 916 is in the more kicked-out of its optional head-angle configurations. If you pull the Ducati steering angle back to 24' degrees from 25, it turns about the same as th.e Triumph, but now the British bike is more stable around fast-sweeping turns where it's always better than the Honda. The Daytona is perfectly neutral on turn-in - it doesn't want to tuck the wheel under and fall into the apex on a hairpin, but nor does it take a lot of effort to flick it from side to side in the quick Cartegena chicane. The fact that unlike the Ducati - there's no steering damper underlines how right the geometry is. IncidentaJIy, a truly exceptional steering lock makes turning the Daytona around.in a crowded street a cinch. Yet on faster turns the Triumph feels totally planted. Once you've chosen your line, it sticks to it on fuJI, zero, or part throttle. There's no power understeer, no pushing the front wheel, no flapping the bars in your hands. J~st choose your spot and aim for it - the Triumph will get you there. The strange thing is that the Showa suspension settings both front and rear are distinctly on the soft side for a sportbike, yet they deliver ride quality out on the street without sacrificing handling on the track. Once again, the best of both worlds. Just be ready to add a little compression dampirig to the fork to stop it from bottoming out under really heavy braking. After being less than impressed with the issin brakes fitted to previous Triumphs, I was ready to be sniffy about the fact t:!:lat the T595 still opted for the Japanese brakes when Britain has truly outstanding stopper specialists just up the road from Hinckley - PFM for castiron discs and Alcon for six-piston calipers (as used on the Super III). But the Nissins are magic. They deliver a degree of bite allied with sensitivity I thought impossible from stainless-steel discs and four-piston. calipers - and which is some way better than anything Brembo has delivered since they gave up making cast-iron rotors. Triumph's new-generation triple: More cubes fewer ounds T he heart of any motorcycle is its engine, but more so than usual, the all-new T5OO-series three-cylinder motor was the key to development of the nextgeneration Triumph T595 Daytona and T509 Speed Triple street bikes. Triumph was well aware of the drawbacks of its existing engine, developed back in the 19805 with engineering consultantsRicardo - they were bothbulky and overweight when compared to the modem four-eylinder Japanese opposition. This meant that any bike fitted with this engine was bound to be heavier, bigger and consequently Jess nimble than it should be - this was less of a problem for a Trophy touring bike, but bad news for the Daytona sportbike. Its replacement needed to go OIl a crash diet - especially if Triumph was to successfuJIy target its nominated Honda CBR900 and Ducati 916 competition. So while retaining the trademark 12-valve OOHC inline triple format that Triumph of late has made its own (well, until the new Laverda Jota arrives in a few years), the factory engine team has produced an all-new design which shares only the connecting rods with the previous T300 version that will continue in production for several more yeaI;s - and even they are now shot-peened for the first time. Everything else is brand-new, allowing external engine dimensions to be shortened by 55mm in length and 50mm in height. This more-compact design helps deliver a 50mm shorter wheelbase, as well as a massive 26.4-pound weight reduction in the engine alone. To achieve its target power output of 130 PS (128 bhp) at 10,700 rpm for the T595 Daytona (the CBR900 puts out 126 bhp at 10,500 rpm, in case you were wonderin.g where they knew to put the goalposts), Triumph was forced to increase the bore size by 3mm to 79mm on the T595 (the T509 stays as before) while retaining the same 65mm stroke its had since the debut of the born-again Bloor bikes in 1990. The resultant 955cc capacity took the Daytona outside the World Superbike cutoff of 900cc for three-cylinder bikes, but John Bloor is more interested in hunting for sales on the showroom floor than in putting trophies on the mantle - and beating the CBR90d in performance as well as in appearance was at the top of his list. But that's not to say that Triumph won't produce a downsized SP version of the bike in a few years - one that will be eligible for World Superbike racing. Having delivered a more-compact basic engine design, the next step was to source a range of lightweight internals aimed at both slashing overall weight and reducing inertia. There isn't a single part which hasn't been studied with that in mind, beginning with the crankcases themselves. These are far thinner and Ijghter, yet stronger than before, thanks to the use of leading-edge materials and innovative casting techniques. Another crucial factor in saving width as well as weight is the way the 11.2:1 forged pistons (versus 10.6:1 on the old Daytona triple) no longer run in iron liners. Instead, Triumph has followed Suzuki's avant-garde lead with the GSXR750/600 and now use electrostatic plating in the bores of the aluminum cylinder block now thespeciaIly-eoated pistons can run directly in them with reduced drag. The pistons are also semi-forged, and have a new piston-ring pack with a 20 percent reduction in ring width The 955cc triple Is a new design nearty 25 pounds lighter than the triple It replaces and producea nearly 130 horsepower. to improve control at high speed, as well as to reduce friction. Other key factors in th.at 26-pound weight ~avings are a smaller crankshaft and correspondingly Iighte.r single balance shaft, located directly in front of and gear-driven off it; and the redesigned six-speed gearbox (each gear pimon is now 30 percent narrower) and clutch. Among the many detail changes are the cast-magnesium clutch, camshaft and breather covers; and an additional 11 pounds has been saved by the use of a Motad- The main keys to the improvements are apparently the trick sintered-compound pad material that Nissin has developed, allied to Triumph's own stainless-steel brake hose, and a 16mm master cylinder. The result: class-leading braking performance - though the jury's still out on wet-weather performance until the rain in Spain stops staying in the plain... But my first few laps on the T595 delivered a very spongy, unstable feel to the front end while hard on the brakes not at all what I was expecting. A quick check of the tire pressures showed that they were way, too hard. For some reason, the owners manual specifies 36 psi for the front BT56 and 42 for the rear far harder than I'm used toeven pump-.ยท ing up the very same tires when I rac~ developed thin-wall, stainless-steel, three-into-one exhaust system - now with just a single silencer for the first time on a modem Triumph. A beautifully cast stainless-steel manifold blends the trio of exhaust headers . into the single main pipe, delivering a smooth, stepless flow which offers minimal resistance to escaping gas. That idea emanates from the world of race car engineering, and specifically from the Formula One world in which the company that collaborated with Triumph in developing the cylinder head of the new three-cylinder engine cut its teeth - former World Champions and Indy 500 winners, Lotus Engineering. A separate branch of the historic car marque at one time owned by General M~tors (after founder Colin Chapman's death), Lotus has a world-elass reputation and some very clever engineers working for them - none more so than former works John Player Norton and AJS/Matchless Grand Prix racer Peter Williams, who joined Lotus some 18 months ago from performance engine giant Cosworth. The irony of Triumph's greatest racing rival in British F750 racing a quarter of a century ago now working on the Triumph engine for the next millennium will not be lost on John Bloor's older customers, but whether he did or not (and nobody's telling), the fact is that Lotus' influence has been a critical factor in delivering such impressive performance to the new bike. Like the rest of the engine, the cylinder head is completely new - although it does use the same valve angle as before, but with bigger valves to optimize breathing: 32.5mm inlets (vs. the 30mm of old) and 28mm exhausts (26mrn before), operated by twin-overhead camshafts chain driven as before up the right side of the engine, but with extra duration on the inlet and more lift. Lotus redesigned the cylinder-head porting and combustion chambers to achieve F-1 type coefficients, according to Triumph. The Sagem fuel-injection (see sidebar) package's 42rnm throttle bodies replace the 36mm flat-slide CV carbs used on the old engine, with their extra ducts tapering to a crude ellipse still 42rnm across but now 34mm tall - to improve mixture velocity. The flow-efficient shape of the internal bore in the throttle body blends smoothly with the intake ports, and is a critical factor in performance, the Triumph R&D engine staff says. Finally, Triumph now has a sealed airbox properly developed for performance as much as noise-saving, ram-fed with cool air via the ducts beneath the headlights. The bottom line? Well, Triumph has achieved its objective of matching the CBR900 - on paper, at least. Actually, it djd slightly better than meet its target, for in T595 Daytona form the new engine delivers 130 PS (128 bhp) at just 10,200 rpm - measured at the gearbox sprocket. This is at lower revs than the target figure, yet with the engine still safe to the 11,500 rpm .rev-limjter. More to the point, perhaps - Triumph did it without sacrificing the triple's famed torque: 73.8 ft.-lbs. at 8500 rpm, comfortably outpunching the big Honda and even the 916 Ducati. A Triumph of R&D!