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/127842
By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kyolchl Nakamura 18 et's face it: The idea of getting something for nothing is irresistible. It's human nature. The trouble is, reality usually fails to deliver the goods: It doesn't matter whether you're the housewife doing the weekly shopping, the businessman trying to cut corners, or the development engineer in search of increased performance; what starts out looking like a freebie always ends up having strings attached. "FREE GIANT-SIZE DETERGENT" - yes, but only if you buy one, get one free: Isn't that two boxes at half price? Truth in advertising! Or how about "FREE MOBILE TELEPHONE" - yes, but only if you sign up for a year's service a t full price: It pays to read the small prin t. Okay, then what about our engineer: Double the horsepower with no appreciable penalty? Sounds too good to be true..: In the turbo era, it was. What started out as an offshoot of gas-turbine aircraft engineering seemed to promise something for nothing when it came down to earth two decades ago. First Renault in endurance aI1d Formula One car racing, followed S90n after by Porsche, as well as a host of truck manufacturers seeking to overcome the diesel engine's traditionallack of acceleration and load-carrying torque, sought to bring turbocharging to tarmac use. By using expelled exhaust gasses to drive a pump compressing the incoming charge, it seemed like nature was delivering something for nearly nothing - well, until you read the fine print, that is. Throttle lag, increased fuel consumption, the extra bulk and weight of installation, and especially the complex uprated cooling systems needed to offset the substantial increase in heat produced by turbos were all factors in bursting the bubble of engineering acceptance in gasengine use. As a turbo car owner myself, I can't deny the thrill you get from floor- ing the throttle and watching the boost gauge head for the red zone as you fastforward toward the horizon via a big kick in the back. But something for nothing, turbocharging isn't - and all four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers who briefly flirted with turbos more than 10 years ago before, like Morini, realizing the minuses substantially outweighed the pluses, admitted as much. It's been more than a decade since you could buy a two-wheeled turbo - and Honda's abortive late-'80s 250cc oval-piston Vtwin turbo GP prC?ject for the 500cc class only served to underline its unsuitability for two-wheeled use. But supercharging is a different matter, as car manufacturers such as Lancia, then Pontiac, Ford, and now Jaguar have recognized. Using a mechanically driven supercharger to compress the incoming charge doesn't have the problems of throttle lag or hea t genera tion that turbos do, while delivering a similar step in power. Until now, the extra weight and bulk of the blower unit com- pared to a turbo, and the fact that you have to give back some of the extra power you gain in order to drive it made supercharging unattractive for anything except drag racing. But times have changed with the development of a new generation of superchargers, not to mention the technology to control the whole internalcombustion process with electronically controlled engine-management systems. The only surprise is that the motorcycle world has ignored all this - until now. Russell Savory, 41, is one of Britain's top development engineers, accustomed to working on secret projects for several major manufacturers. In addition to his Isle of Man IT-winning Yamaha racetuning activities, Savory's Harlow, Essex-based RS Performance concern has also produced a series of tricked-out special projects, all based on Yamaha machinery -like the fuel-injected 2-1 liter V-eight engine comprised of a pair of FZRl000 EXUP motors bolted to a common crankcase, delivering over 300 bhp