Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

First Ride 14 I !!Ii !Iii III U ... ~ " • g: ~ ~ ]: E Q) g. en 24 _ Aprilia says the stree t SP delivers 145 horsep ower at the cra nk at 10,700 rpm, equati ng to 136 hp at the gearbox - not such a big d ifference compared to th e stock, half-price RSVI OO ' s 128 hp at O 9250 rp m . But we're tal kin g tuni ng poten tial here, not delivered s tree tready performance on a homologation special such as this. Pic cin i says th at in custo me r-race form, A p rilia ex pects th e Mille SP to d eliver 155-158 hp at 12,000 rpm. That's fitted with the va rious kits as well as the 2-1-2 dual-silen cer titani um race exhaust that Aprilia supplies free of cha rge "for track use only" (notl) - together wi th a machin e sta nd and bike cover to every Mill e SP custo me r. It's all incl uded in the Mille SP's standa rd worldwide price of abo ut $32,000. The dual si le nce r was fitted to our Mu g ell o test bikes. It not only look s co bbv, but a lso ma ke s th e SP so u n d inco mpa rab ly more th roa ty than th e bu lky "scaricone" (big exhaus t) fit ted as stock to the RSVlOOO to satisfy the noise police. The bike produces a m u scul a r exhaust no te from the 60-degree V-twin mo tor tha t's sligh tly mo re high-pitched than a 90-degree Ducati , but sounds just as aggressive. Ap ri lia a lso incl udes a r ev ised EPROM chip for the Nippondenso CD! to compensate for th e freer-flowin g pipe, and cus tomers will be abl e to remap the fuel injection to take int o account the various race kits available, once fitted. Ma ximum. torque of 11.5 kgm at 8500 rpm on th e s treet SP is improved on this short-stroke engine from the 10.5 kgm at 7000 rpm of the lo nger-stroke RSVIOOO, sa ys Aprilia . This is du e to the re vised ai r-intake ducting which ensu res better cylinder filli ng, thus e n h a n ci n g the .balance between mid- and low-rpm torque, and top-end power. It all resu lts in a pretty flat to rque curve. H o w e v er, riding this ra cer -w it h lig h ts in se mi-st reet-Iegal guise a t Mugello was actually a.pretty frustra ting expe rience - and it' s all the fault of the ge nuinely impressive engi ne package that Piccini's team ha s d evelop ed , togeth er wit h Cosworth. This picks u p revs mu ch faster than the RSVlOoo, with the precise, ligh t-action th rottl e d eliver ing meanin g ful track-fri endly power from 7000 rpm upward, as the needle on th e ta ch o scoo ts aroun d tow ard th e twelve-grand ou ter limit - atwhich peak power is delivered in race gu ise. Only it never ge ts t he re : instea d , th e s hifte r ligh t incorpor a ted in th e on-bike in focen ter (whic h nat urall y retains the lap timer a nd top speed memory modes of the stock RSV) suddenly flas hes at the 10,250 rpm ma rk - the sa me as on the long-stroke Mille. . Aprilia RSV Mille SP Extensive revi si ons were made to the aluminum twin-spar frame (above ), allowing the engine to be placed higher in the chassis. The val ves and th ree-ring Wiseco pistons (above right) are larger than on the street version, while dual silencers (right) replace the tamersoundin g sin gle exhaust. From there, with such a free-revving en gin e, it' s only a na no-second before you're fluttering the 10,800 rpm rev-lim- . iter - w ith an engine that' s still hungry for mor e rev s, and shows every sign of wanting to keep on pulling up hi gh: there's abs olutely no drop-off in po wer b efo re the e ngin e cu tout. H ence th e frustration in riding the Mille SP in the form we d id at Mu gello. I've had quite a lot of experience riding V-twins on race tracks, and I can honestly say I've never, ever hit the rev-limiter so often in a halfhour riding ses sion as I did in each of my three stints aboard the Aprilia SP. In the form we rode it, it was betwixt a nd between - neither a full-on racer with en gine management system co rrectly programmed to reflect race track .use, nor a street-legal sportbike with the qu ieter exhau st , which p robabl y wouldn't produce as much power, nor build revs so eagerly- Instead, I go t a , glimpse oJ the p romised land rep resented by the short-stroke engine's po tentia l to produce mor e pow er, more performan ce u p hi gh - but on ly a gli m p se, wit ho ut the mea ns to access it, thanks to th e co nservative re v-limiter. Perha ps, da re I say it, it was delibera tely he ld d own that low in stree t form for reliability reasons? Wh at ever th e cas e, th e result wa s that I ended up rid in g the Mille SP at Mu gello mor e lik e a s treet bike, usi ng on e gear high er for many of Mu'gello's com ers simply to avoid hitting the revlimiter halfway th rou gh the turn a fter ge tting hard on the gas and feelin g the revs mo unt so eagerly. Midrange torque is okay by street standards, but the SP isn' t as m uscular low down as t h e RSVlOOO , nor as good in Supers port track term s as the equiva lent 996SPS Ducati. In as-delivered stree tbike specs, I'd be surp rised if the Ducati couldn't lap a track like Muge llo quic ker than the Aprilia, But that' s no t rea lly the poin t. Wha t Aprili a is delivering here is the . basis for a very competitive piece of race hardware, which however in streetbike terms onl y delivers a proportion of its rea l pot ential to the customer. In addition, the gear ra tios don't really s u it the fr e e-revvin g , high-rpm eng ine (the y need to be closer together because the re's simply too big a gap to take corners lik e the last fas t sweeper onto the Mugello pit straight in an ideal ratio). For the money, I'd at least ha ve expected them to include a power shifter to go with the lap-timer a n d speed memory. And I have to say that for someone w ho p lans to o nl y rid e their Mi lle SP on the street, th e stock RSVIOOO is a better op tion at jus t ha lf the price. The re 's not hi ng wrong wi t h th at , because the SP is Aprilia's answer to the superbike eq uation - like th e Yama ha R7. It will pro vid e a baseline pot ential for n ear-unlim it ed mod ificatio n a nd, they hope, race track success . But it's a pity that Apri lia didn't give th eir customers an op tion to re-p rogram the revlimit er on the street bike. Chassis-wise, the Mille SP follows in the short-stroke engi ne 's pa th of being tail ore d fo r r a ci n g , b u t in d oin g so breaks new ground bo th on th e st reet and for any racing four-s troke. Chassis gu ru Gae tano Cocco - the ma n responsible for each of Aprilia's title-w inn ing GP bik es - has produced a heavily-revised version of the RSVlooO's aluminu m tw in-spar frame. The V- twin eng ine is located 5mm higher than in the stock Mille, to fur the r compact the mass a nd red uce the po lar mo ment, for 'm ore stable, yet respo nsive steering. But just as on Aprilia's GP tw ostrokes, the position of the engine wit hin the chassis can be altered to optimize weight d is t rib ut io n and ha nd ling 5mm u p or down, 2mm forward or back. This shou ld avoid th e probl em. that Honda has had to grapple w ith th rough out the life of the RC45. The RC45, essentially, has the engine in the wrong place for id eal hand ling, ana H on d a is un a bl e to a lter i t wi thou t build ing anot her batch of stree tbikes to re-h omol og at e th e altered geo metry. Aprilia teams, meanwhile, will jus t be ab le to change to suit. \ In ad dition, while 20 p ercen t more stiff than the stock Mille fram e - for the sa me weigh t - the SP chassis has an adjustab le swi nga rm pivot a t the rear w ith a n O hli ns race s hock u s i n g a r evi s ed 'li n k a g e from th e RSV's. Up fro n t, the reinforced -steeri ng head allows the fork angle to be altered one degree on either side of the stock 24.2d egree rak e. The adju stabl e t riple clamps housin g th e gold titanium nitride-plated 43mm Ohlins racin g fork (themselves representing a good part of the big purcha se price) also allow tra il to be varied 6m m either side of the stock 95m m se tt ing. At 1405m m, the whe elbase is qu ite contained for a big V-twin . Basi call y, w ha t Cocco has d on e oil the SP is to bring the multi-adjustable cha ssis geo metry of his race-winning GP bikes to th e stree t - and thence to the supe rbike grid . There is really no other motorcycl e currently available for sa le that offers such ad jus tablity. T h a n k s to co p io u s u se of ca rb o n fiber, incl udin g all th e sin g le-seater bodywork except for the 5.9-gallon fuel tank - which is now alloy rat her than the stock Mille's steel - the SP weighs in at a claime d 407 pou nd s in street form - 8.8 O. pounds less than the RSVI O O Tho ugh basica lly unchanged in sty.ling (a nd , given the fact the bike's engine required all-new h om ol oga tion , Aprilia co uld have al tered the aesth etics), the SP is apparently ev e n more aerod y nam ic than the already streamlined Mille. This one breaks the benchmark 0.30 Cx barrier for the first time in a st reet production mo torcycle, thanks to a lowe r front ride height and reduced frontal area. u Seeing Goddard 's works race r sideby-side on the race track wi th the works Ducatis of Carl Fogarty and Troy Corser, it always looks bigger and bulkier th an you exp ect a V-twin to be. But that's only because the bodywork does a better job of protecting the rider. Proof of this comes wit h April ia's encouraging speed trap times o n fas ter tracks like Phillip Island and Monz a, with wha t mu st a t th is early s tage of o n- track d evel opm en t surely be a less p otent motor than the desm o d uo's. We haven't ridden Goddard's superbike ye t, bu t fro m ta lk ing to him it see ms the chassis is now pretty so rted, especially in terms of con tro lling squ at ou t of turns, which was the big handlin~ problem they had to ove rcome. N ow th ey 're co ncen tra ti ng on th e engine, w hich n eed s m ore m id -ra n ge torqu e and a bett er jump ou t of turns to be able to compete effective ly with the Ducatis an d lead ing Japa nese bikes. Butit's getting there. Th e Mille SP ' s multi -adjus ta bili tl means that it can be tailored to su it the

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