Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

FIRST RIDE ing package is the styling of the bikes that'll bring it to the road, which by any standards can only be called dramatic. Yet, incredibly, all of them were designed entirely in-house by Hallam, displaying a fine eye for innovation and esthetics that you frankly wouldn't expect from an engineer. The X1R is the most striking, but also came right at the end. "I went to Sydney and designed it in a four-week day-and-night binge after I'd got everything else done," Hallam says with a shy grin. '1 aimed for something about a decade further on than the Britten, which I reckon is the best-looking bike of the 1980s - but it's eight years old, now, and starting to look dated. I wanted to show as much of the V-twin engine as was feasible aerodynamically, have a full-width air duct for the fully sealed, pressurized aiTbox, and to aim for a cross between a shark and an eagle as far as the look was concerned. "I also designed it to minimize drafting effect - we expect to nave a lot of speed, and I want to prevent slower bikes hitching a ride. So with the highrise exhausts exiting under the seat, combined with the overall shape of the bodywork and seat, the air pocket behind the bike will be very small, and anyway filled with exhaust gas. It'll be quite uncomfortable for anyone to slipstream us." 1997 is the year of the 9D-degree Vtwin - at a time when Honda and Suzuki are seeking to emulate Ducati's dominant World Superbike champion 916 desmo with their new VTR1000 and ill 000, here's an even better V-twin from Down Under that may well change the rules of the game as far as Superbike racing and Hyperbike showroom sales are concerned. More to the point is the Hunwick Hallam engine - complete in X1R guise with modern, gas-operated desmodromic valve operation - not perhaps very close indeed to' the new otto valvole engine that Massimo Bordi and his men have now started work on developing, after the American takeover of Ducati? Place your bets. HUNWICK HALLAM BOSS POWER CRUISER IMPRESSION: HOLD ON TIGHT! Calder Park Raceway, north of Melbourne, is Australia's only Indy-sty.le banked oval, with a road racing course and drag strip incorporated in it, Daytona-style. Because of this range of testing possibilities, and the tight security that can be enforced behind the thick perimeter fencing, lots of Australian two- and four-wheeled importers and manufacturers use Calder for testing their la test 'n' greatest secret new product. The Australian Motorcycle Company is no exception, so it was to Calder that I was summoned in great secrecy last October two days after local boy Troy Corser had cIin~d the World Superbike title at nearby Phillip Island on another 90-degree V-twin, to view the product of two years' work by Hallam and his crew: the prototype Hunwick Hallam "Boss" Power Cruiser, first of the three different models HH is developing for a world launch by the end of 1997. I'll admit that as I drove into the Calder pit lane and saw the silver Power Cruiser standing there glistening in the spring sunshine, I slammed on the brakes and stared at it with my mouth hanging open for what seemed like five minutes. I was totally unprepared for what I was seeing. After all, when someone almost casually invites you to "come and look at a bike we've been working on for a couple of years," you don't go expecting to dis-. cover a state-of-the-art V-twin motor they'd have been proud to have made in Italy, with sequential fuel injection and styling worthy of Terblanche or Tamburini, all developed in total secrecy without anyone in the world becoming aware of it, in a package nearly ready to go into series production. You also don't expect to be asked to ride it - but that's what Hunwick had in mind for me. So after borrowing a leather jacket and squeezing into someone else's boots about two sizes too small for me - fortunately, I still had my gear bag after racing at Phillip Island, complete with helmet - I set off for a half-hour Calder Cruise on the first example of what will surely become Australia's Finest. Milwaukee? Where's that? About all the Hunwick Hallam has in common with an American V-twin is that it has two cylinders: the PC takes two-wheeled cruise control to new levels. More to the point, it provides a tantalizing foretaste of what the X1R Superbike will be like. Surely HH's keynote model will provide the bulk of their sales, as well as stimulating marque recognition via race track glory. And believe me, the X1R will take Vtwin performance engineering to new heights, judging by my Calder power cruise. I've ridden literally hundreds of 9D-degree V-twins in my time, from clattery pushrod Guzzis up to the new Honda VTR1000 Superhawk and Corser's World Champion desmo, and none of them were as smooth or revved so effortlessly, with a liquid-like power delivery, as the Hunwick Hallam. Okay, 90-degree V-twins have perfect primary balance, so you don't expect the vibro-massage treatment you get from, say, a 45-degree V-twin Harley with no counterbalancer - but even by these standards, the Hunwick Hallam motor is uncannily smooth, with not even any secondary tingles feeding back through the high bars or forward footrests. Amazing. In its 1385cc (105 x 80mm) prototype form tha t I was riding (it's since been decided to scale the engine down slightly in final production form, reducing capacity to 1353cc, with more "square" 102.5 x 82 mm dimensions - see Paul Hallam interview), the HH Power Cruiser delivers 108.8 bhp at the rear wheel, at just 7000 rpm - in an engine designed to run well into five figures in l000cc superbike form. But a combination of much softer cam profiles - but the same 38mm inlet/34mm exhaust valves in the fourvalve heads as in the XIR superbike and low 8.6:1 compression, allowing the PC to run on the lowest-octane unleaded fuel, deliver an unruffled but oh-sostrong power curve that starts as low as 2000 rpm and runs on without a hiccup to the 8()()()..rpm peak. There isn't an electronic rev limiter incorporated in the Motec/HH engine management system, simply that the engine refuses to run any higher - it just stops pulling, in what Hallam terms "natural rpm starvation." Anyway, there's really no point in ever revving it that high in the gears, and if you have forearms strong enough to hold on to the bars flat out in top gear on this moto,cycle built for a laid-back power cruise lifestyle, then you should have taken up arm wrestling for a career. Once over 124 mph or so down the Calder dragstrip, it became almost impossible to hold on tight enough to stop getting swept backwards over that cute ducktail rear fender. This is a bike built for those who want to cruise the concrete canyons of their city's downtown streets, knowing that if they wanted to give those guys on Honda CBR900RRs or 916 Ducatis a hard workout in the performance stakes, they could. There's so much torque on tap you hardly need to worry about using the Power Cruiser's five-speed gearbox (sixspeeder: on the XIR), but the shift action is smooth and crisp - must remember to give Hallam's phone number to Triumph - though you find yourself shortshifting just to get it in top and stay there, to ride the waves of torque the engine produces. Acceleration is truly awe-inspiring. The Power' Cruiser just rockets down the Calder drag strip in a way most twin-eylinder race bikes can only dream of. It's got a distinctive engine note, not so much like a Ducati as a narrowerangle V-twin, but very individual. And 'the throttle action from the Motec/HH EFI is very light and precise, with instant pickup from the engine in response to a twist of your wrist. Only some mapping problems around 6000 rpm initially spoiled my run, when the engine would spit·a.nd pop under constant load at part throttle. But some quick work by Hallam and his mechanics Richard James and Simon Drennan on a laptop soon had the problem cured, and the bike running sweet- Hunwick Hallam Power Cruiser Specifications . Engine ..........•..•...•...•.... Water-cooled dohc 9O-degree V·twin four·stroke with belt camshaft drive and four valves per cylinder ~nai_ 105x80mm Cap c~ 1385 cc Output 109 bhp at 7000 rpm (at rear wheeD e-pn.. la ratio '" 8.6:1 EngIne ..,aIID.D• . , . . . . ...Motec/Hunwick Hallam electronic fuel injection with 55mm throttle bodies. full sequen1iaI mapping and single injeCtor per cylinder Caartlox 5·speed with gear primary ClaIch . . . . . •. . • . . . . . . . . 13-plate multiplate oil-bath with diaphragm spring Engine used as fully stressed chassis structure. with single aluminum bracing strut and alloy head beam ee.-.a. Sa.p ••• IDft F_ 41 mm WP inverted lelescopic fori

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