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/128320
Morini Unviels Prototype Engine A nother Italian boutique marque set to /"'\make its comeback is Moto Morini, which as confirmed in these columns two months ago is also set to be relaunched later this year at Intermot 2004. More details have now been revealed of the engine powering the new range of bikes which the born-again trophy brand will debut at Intermot in September: a fuelinjected liquid-cooled 87 -degree V-twin eight-valve engine with side-loading sixspeed gearbox, designed by the company's veteran progeWs!o, Franco Lambertini, with dohc cylinder heads and composite chain/gear cam drive, and a targeted dry weight of 60kg [132 Ibs.). The reason for the unusual cylinder angle is packaging, says designer Lambertini, since by reducing it by three degrees at the crankcase, you apparently save 30mm in space between the cylinder heads without having to use a counterbalancer to smooth out undue vibration. and this allows what is a Honda/Suzuki-like V-twin, rather than a bulkier Ducati-style L-twin, to be installed more compactly in the chassis - engine length is just 350mm in total. This new design will initially be launched in 996cc guise, though it has been conceived on a modular basis, capable of being manufactured in capacities ranging from 750cc to 12oocc, just like Lambertini's last Morini design, the Heron-headed 72-degree V·twin pushrod motor that powered models ranging from 3SOcc to SOOcc in capacity, as well as a 250cc single that was half the 500 twin . The new Moto Morini engine will be unique nowadays in employing a one-piece crankcase, for reasons that Franco Lambertini eagerly explains. "The great advantage of an engine conceived in this way is that. once mounted in the frame , it's extremely stiff and can be used as a fully load-bearing chassis component, allowing for a reduction in all-up weight as well as a more rigid motorcycle," says the designer. "It also has the advantage of reducing machining and assembly costs, because you don't have to true up two halves of the same whole - it's cast in a single piece, with side covers." A similar concept marked the Benelli Pirelli To MotoGP? Michael Barnes. Bam es credited Pire lli with his impressive sixth in the thick of the factory pack in the Daytona Supersport race . Privateer Jack Pfeifer rode his Pire llis to an impre ssive fourth in the Daytona 200, just in fro nt of Acree. Barnes, Caylor and Acree , and the Plrelli-suppl ied British Superbike tea ms, are responsible for developing tires that ultimately end up in World Superbike and World Supersport. Since Pirelli can't supp ly development tires to any team du ring the race weekend, Jack pfeifer finished fourth in the Daytona 200 it has to find other ways to using Pirelli tires. improve the product. The pri Having sewn up the rights to supply the vate teams, like Empire and Prieto, can't World Superbi ke and World Supersport fields afford to do private testing, so it's done on a for the next two years , Pirelli is now looking race weekend. Much of it was done in World at both the AMA and MotoGP Superbike preseason testing. Championships, according to Pirelli's interna"It's a dream come true," Roberts said, tional racing manager Eddie Ro be rts . "gett ing [Troy) Corser, [jame s] Toseland, During the California Speedway weekend, [Regis] Lacon i. I think we made more Roberts , a former racer with over 20,000 prog ress th is year than the last three years . miles on the Isle of Man, said it was a lo ngThe feedback is fantastic." te rm project and that there was no official Until this season, the only Pirelli runner line on Moto Gp, but by 2006-2007 they was the DFX Ducati team of Steve Martin. "would like to be at a leve l where we would Roberts said Pirelli was the cho ice of FG be cons idered. We won't go unless we're Sports, the World Superbike promoter, competitive." because of its experience in World Superstock, First is the AHA Chevrolet Superbi ke which has been a spec tire series since 200 I. Champ ionship, whe re the market is too big "That sowed the seed for the whole deal ," to ignore and where Pirelli has to build its he said. "For sure that was the whole reason name awareness befo re approaching one of that Flamm ini could see the re was no probthe factory teams . lem ." "We have to have a lot of data ," Roberts Pirelli supplies 5SOO tires in four comsaid, add ing that it wasn't going to happen pounds for each World Superbike event. overn ight. "It's probably a process of working From his UK base , Roberts will be crisswith one or tw o of the satellite teams." cross ing the Atlantic Ocean all summer, To that end, they've backe d a numbe r of atte nding all AMA races that don't conflict private ers, including Empire Racing's Lee with the British Supe rbike Series. Acree and O pie Caylor and Prieto Racing's Henny Ray Abrams 6 APRIL 21 , 2004 • CYCLE NEWS four-cylinder GP bikes of the 1960s even if Moto Morini's "shoulda-beena-world-champion" 250 single ended up invariably having the beating of them in races, in the hands of Tarquinio Provini and his replacement after he defected to Benelli, a certain Giacomo Agostini • and unlike any vertically split Ducati engine built in the next suburb of Bologna to the Morini factory, whose construetion in Casalecchio di Reno is well advanced, this allows a side-loading cassette gearbox to be used on a future Morini Superbike • and you can be quite sure there will be one of those, even if the first models to be launched at Intermot will be a halt-faired cafe racer sportbike (aimed at Ducati's desmodue 1000DS and its SS range) and a spinoff Naked bike to rival the Monster. The new Morini motor is not the first looocc V-twin Lambertini has designed, for he was responsible for creating the abortive 90-degree V-twin eight-valve Gilera Superbike motor twice displayed at the Milan Show around the turn of the millenni· urn but never yet put into production. He also designed the successful X9 SOOcc fourstroke single used in the Piaggio Hexagon maxi-scooter during his time at Piaggio, between leaving Morini in the late '80s after its takeover by Cagiva, and his return to the marque's current owners Moton Franco Morini/MFM ten years later, where among the products he has since been in charge of finalizing for production was the current three-cylinder Benelli Tornado motor, which is manufactured for the Merloni Group by MFM. Alon Cathcart The Corsa Challenge Pirelli has announced the creation of the Diablo Co rsa Challenge , a series to be held in conjunction with WERA Motorcycle Roadracing fo r the 2004 season. The Challenge is open to current 2004 WERA novice racers and its main ob ject ive, according to Mark Wilhelm, Pire lli country manage r for North America, is to give novice racers an opportunity to get "the credit they deserve and to let us demonstrate just how good a tire the Diablo Co rsa is in helping a novice rider build the co nfidence needed to break into the higher skill leve ls of racing with o ut going broke. At the end of the season, five racers will get Pirelli tire con tracts for 2005, and to help the m even mo re . We wa nt to support the process of o btaining other sponsorships for the following race year." For more information , visit the WE RA website at www.wera.com. Tuner Jack Hateley Dies Southern California Triumph tuner Jack Eddie Mulder and hit the nat ional circuit in Hateley, who gained fame wrenching for his the mid-'60s . "Jack was a piece of work," Mulder recalls. son , former AHA National number 98 John Hateley, and Triumph TT ace Eddie Mulder "Jack was Jack. He was a total gearhead , and through the I 960s and I970s , died April S in that was all he really cared about. We were Palm Springs, California. He was 75. good friends, but the first time that I met him, Hateley got involved with motorcycle rac- he threw me out of his garage because I was ing as a youngster, contesting scrambles tormenti ng the hell out of him. But he built a Matchless that I won Hopetown with, then he events such as the Catalina Grand Prix. "Dad rode a lot of scrambles, and then he built the bike that I won the Triple Crown on tried racing the Ascot TT, but that crashwall and the Triumph Cub that I won all those scared him, so he became a ~------------, indoors on. He was a big influence on me , and I tuner," John Hateley told couldn't have won the stuff Cycle News. "He first started building BSAs in 196 1, and he that I won without him. In one year we won over 200 helped out Jack O'Brien [a races and only had one failmember of the BSA Wrecking Crew], Sunny Nutter and ure , and that was because John Carter. Then he started of a dead banery. The guy Triumph of Burbank in 1964 was just amazing at or '65, and he ran the service preparing motorcycles. We were blessed to have department and built our him around ." racebikes." Hateley gained a reputaHateley is survived by tion for his immaculately his wife, [ane ne , three prepared equipment, and his sons , Mike, John and Mark, a da ughter, Linda, star rose w hen he teamed Jack Hotel e y with h is w ith yo ung dirt-tracker son, John. and six grandchild ren . 40th Anniversary