Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

mot orcycle to br eak the lOa-mp h barrier a n d w i .c h won co u n tless GP ra ce s before retiring essen tially un defeated in' com pe tition. Th ro u gho ut thi s ce nt u ry, Peugeot has built a su ccess io n of fas ci n a ting mach ines, a nd now, at last, to ma rk its centena ry of motorcycle manufacture, a book has bee n published which tells the Peugeo t tw o-w h e el e d s t o ry in fu ll : " Mo ros Peu ge ot 1989-1998 ," b y tw o doyen s of Fren ch historic bike literature, Bernard Salva t and Did ier Ganneau. You do n ' t ha ve to read Fr ench to ap p recia te thi s book , which boasts t he mos t com pre he ns ive and delightful set of peri od illustrations that will ap pea l to any lover of La Vie Francaise: The one of Mll e . Don a ta Va na te ll i , a ca rd ina l' s niece, captured in her overalls in 1934 as she was abou t to set off on a 6000-kilome te r trip on her 100cc Peu geot two s t ro ke, captu re s t h e s p ir it of those h ead y, lo ng-gone da ys p er fectly, and th e be au tifu lly d esi gned large-form a t boo k has d ozens of o thers. Th is is not on ly an ex ha ustive and very thorou gh his tory of the marqu e, it' s a book to pore over - one w hich will leave anv read er impressed wit h the achievements of one o f th e less- we ll-known majo r two w heeled m anu facturers in th e worl d today. The boo k is p rivately publish ed bv the two aut ho rs and is avail abl e bv con tacting EBS Prod uction s, 22, Chernin d e la Cache-boulie, 71850 Charnay -lesMacon , France, 03-8529-1209 for details on orderin g a copy. Trium car ph, Tw o yea rs after its d evelopmen t w as first revealed in this column, the Strathcarr on SC4 spo rts car powered by a Triumph noocc fou r-cyli nd er mot orcycle engine has been an nou nced , a nd is set to be lau nched in final production f orm at the Geneva Motor Show next Marc h. Ba sed o n a co n ce p t by G e n era l Mot ors d esign er Simo n Cox, the SC4 is a product tha t Bed ford sh ire-based Stra thcarr on - which specializes in preproduction d evelopment for major car manufacturers - has develop ed for both road use and racing. This means that, whereas the stoc k Triumph engine a s fitt ed to th e Trophy 1200 delivers 125 bhp fitted with fuel injection and a catalytic con verter in the 1330-p ound Strat hcarro n protot ype road car, the race version has bee n tuned to prod uce 175 bhp, good for a p rojected to p s peed of 150 mph fo r the 111 0pound moto r car. This fea tu res a composite monocoq ue chassis developed by race-car specialists Reynard, which currentl y domin ates C A RT racin g an d whic h is about to en ter Fo rmula O n e with Jacques Villeneuve's British American team in 1999. lts Bicester factory is in the heart of Britain's Gasolin e Valley . With th e body co ns tructe d fro m a lig h tw eigh t Dutch -made alloy ca lled Hylite, the spa rtan two-sea ter resembles a four-wh eeled mo torbike and is targe ted to rival the Lotus Elise and Renault Spider and to cost less than 20,000 pou nds wh en prod uction begins in September next year. Stra thcarro n - whose technica l director, Colin Spooner, joined the company fro m Lotus, after working alongside former Norto n-mou nted IT-w inner Pet er Williams in the d esign d epartmen t plans to start a one-make race series for the car in 2000 or 2001. "We ' re d eli ghted to be invol ved in such an inte restin g project as this, which has the added benefit of being all-British," says Triumph sales d irector Bruno Tagliaferri, who confirms it's the first time that Triumph has agreed to su pply engines to an ou tside constructor since John Bloor Super Guzzi on hold,or is it? The recent execu tive upheavals at Mot o Guzzi ra ise a question over the time scale for Wit h Mo ta Guzz i 's own cha in-d rive d evelo pm ent of the next-gen erat ion 75-degree V-twin chai n-d rive VA-lO fa mil y o f superbike on hol d wh ile t he compan y en gines designed by former chief eng ineer Angelo Ferrari before he left the company in wo rks through its executive upheavals, the wake of ongo ing disputes wi th chief execu tive Oscar Cecchinato - wh o has also since Dutchman Eric Willemsee has bu ilt his departed . . ow n ca lled t he Sw allower. Why i s it Meanwhile, though , one of the leadi ng European Gu zzi specialists is about to beat the called that? It sw allowed all his money! parent compilny to the punch by launching his ow n Moto Gu zzi sportbike, incorporat ing chai n final drive and avant-garde chas sis techn ology. Dutchman Eric Willemsee is well known to guzzisii around the wo rld as the creato r of the series of Sw allow er Gu zzi racers, which he and other Dutch rid ers such as Peter Janssen have raced successfully since 1992. Why "Swallower" ? "Because it sw allowed up the mon ey in my pocke t d eveloping the d esign to the present very satisfactory level!" says Willemsee, wh o's responsible not only for tuning the 1100cc two-valve pushrod Sport eng ine in the bikes, but also for converting the shaft transm ission to cha in final dri ve, for improved hand ling and superio r sus pension .comp liance, based on a straight-cu t bevel gea r package incorporating a radical gear design patent ed by the Dutch com pa ny wh o developed it. In addition, the Swallow er Guzzi featu res Willemscc's own girder-fork parallelogr am fro nt sus pension, similar to a Fior or Britten fork and ma ted to his own design of deltab ox fra me . With firm orders for three bikes to underwrite the project, Willemsee has now turned his attention to prod ucing a street version of the Swallower Guzzi, again us ing the 1100 Sport motor but wi th the d eltabox chassis and fro nt-fork girders mad e in aluminum, rather than the steel of the race bikes. But h e's retaining the chain transmission in refined form for the street, and developing a close-ratio six-speed gearbox to acco mpany the pac kage, just as Guzzi has done for the yet-to-sta rt-prod uct ion VII Spo rt. . With styling based on the clean-looking Swa llower race bikes, Willem see is set to offer a ha nd-built V-twin spo rtbike that beat s the Guzzi factory to the punch in terms of next-generat ion techni cal speci fication, w hen production begins next Mar ch of the first of the dozen hand-built bikes he' s targeting to build in 1999. took over control of the company - albeit on four w heels, ra ther than two! Big Brother Ducati Co ns pi racy th eori sts w ill in si st that Duca ti's adop tion of a sealed ECU (the Weber-Marelli-typ e 15M) con trolling the fue l-injec tio n and en gine-ma nagem en t sys tem on the new 90055 and other tw ova lve mod els, which does not have a rep la ce abl e / rep rogram abl e EP ROM chip as in the past, is for a good reason . Ind eed, it does ap pea r a imed at d eterrin g d esm odu e du ca tis ti a ro u n d th e wo rld fro m d oin g w hat many of them like best, wh ich is to tune up their bikes th ems el ve s w ith a fte r ma rke t p arts , beyond th e level of p er formance w it h wh ich the factory decided it wo uld supply them . The pro gram and fuel /ignitio n-ma p d a ta a re stored o n a perma nently mounted flash mem ory insid e the new ECU , which is no t accessible from the ou tside, so if you fit an afte rma rket exhaus t or cams , port the head or raise the compress ion, you' re unab le to d erive a ny bene fit from d oing so , s ince you can't reprogram the fuel injection / EMS to take the improvem en ts in to accou nt. Of course, Ducati's new managem ent has indeed recogni zed th e sig nifica nce of the perfo rmance aft ermarket for the two-valve engine s and has d ecid ed to carve as large a slice of it as possib le for t he m se lves, via th eir Ducati Per for mance offshoot. Thus, each Duca ti Perform a nce exha us t syste m, for exa m ple, is su pplied wit h a rep laceme nt ECU that is pre ma p pe d to d eli ver the enha nce d p e rf orma n ce of th e n ew ex h a us ts . Ducati will not furn ish remapped ECUs to third -party customers, for use in connection wi th non-factory-supplied parts. This brake on enthusias t afterm arket tuning has been rem oved by Au stralian EFi specialists Fuel Injected Motorcycles, wh ose p roprietor , Duane Mitchell, was the first to u nlock the key to after ma rket reprogram m ing of th e 851/ 888 Su perbike EFI /EMS a d ecade ago, and w ho ha s bu ilt up a w orldwi de reputat ion since then for his electronic products. Mit chell ca n su pply a PC program called the Ul tiMa p FlashLoad er, whic h allows download ing of new maps in to the original Du ca ti ECU, while this is fitted to the bike. Fuel Injected Mot orcycles has alread y developed maps for the 900SS with open ex ha us ts a nd is cu rrently doing the sa me for big-bore kits, high -eomp pis tons an d fu ll exha us t systems. Mit chell is alread y working with man y of the leading aftermarket exhaust man ufacturers to d evelop spec ific maps for each of their products, using his PC p rogram to download maps available in an encoded form from the Fuel Injected Mo torcycles web site. He' s a ls o working on a co mpl e te d evelopment kit, w hich wi ll allow aftermarket part s manu facturers to perfo rm their ow n testing and make alterations to the stan dard map s on the bikes. Co nta ct: Du an e Mit ch e ll /Fue l In je ct ed Moto rcycles, PO Box 851, Apollo Bay, Vic. 3233 , Aus tra lia , Fa x +61/35237 4209. E-mail: duanefim@bigpond .com or 1-:\ we b site: www.fuelinm ot o.com .au. 00 (J\ (J\ .u) N l-< Q) ..n E Q) ;> o z 5

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