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/128349
T hat' s whe n he beg an man ufactu ring Ducatl's race and spinoff street bod ywor k in the lightwe ight black ma terial w hich is almost commo nplace today but was rare and exotic back th en - that is until Zo mik brought it to the world via Bologna, thanks to Tamburini's adoption of it on his high-end 8BB des moquattro s. Now there 's a good chance tlhesame process might happe n again with the lightw e ight brake discs the two are now working together on , though Tamburin i BY ALAN CATHCART PHOTOS BY KYOICHI NAKAMURA cautions aga inst excessive optimism. to ride the pair of Mamba prototypes on the nearby Misano circuit , six weeks befo re the model's debut at Intermot. Important stuff first, though : Why "Mamba," Massimo? "I've wanted to use th is name on an extreme sportbike for quite some time ," Tam burini laughed . "T he Mamba is the most venomous snake in th e world , and the fastest one to stri ke its prey. See one on the road, and you 'd better stay well away - o r else! " Well, with the stoc k MV Agusta F4 1000 already winn ing five-way faceoffs against the might of Japan Inc. in tenms of hard performance data in magaz ine co mparison tests, that's already good advice for J-bike owners. But now the Mamba has addressed the one chink in the Italian Supe rbike's armor by slashing its somewhat portly dry we ight by over 10 percent. Just looking at the pair of black-and-red Mambas par ked in pit lane at a Misano track day, glistening together in the Italian summer sunshine , it's enough to get your heart beat ing faster and your lips dry from licking them in a mixture of admiration and anticipation. For th is is an even more seriously desirable motorcycle just to look at than the already dishy stock F4, wit h the bodywork now 100percent made from carbon fiber. Ditt o for the mudguards, intake duets, airbox, chainguard, headlamp mounts, w ire harness cover, foo trest guards, battery tray, o il radiator shroud, exhaust guard and rear num berplate bracket. Even the French-made headlamp is now ultra-lightweight , with a carbon fiber shell and Le xan stoneproof lens. Forged magne sium Marchesini wheels rep lace the original cast aluminum ones, resulting in a total reduction of 3.47 klograms (7.63 pounds), all in unsprung weig ht, and there's further weight savings thanks to the substitution of a magnesi um lower trip le clamp , single-sided swingarm, side- loading cassette gearbox housing , rear hub and side plates for the co mposite chassis, over the original alloy components. The tubu lar spaceframe comprising the upper section of the chassis has also been lightened by almost three pounds, with a reduction in wall thickness for its chrome-moly steel tubing from I.Smm on the production bike to 1.0 mm on the Mamba, w hile the smaller battery em ployed saves a further two pounds. And the six-piston Nissin calipers mounted to the stock bike are replaced by monobloc race components that are CNC-mach ined from a solid aluminium billet, for extra rigidity and less weigh t. They're still not radially mounted, though. In thi s guise , the F4 Mille's original claimed 192 kilograms (about 422 pou nds) of dry weight - not exactly porky, but substan tially heavier on pape r tlhan the 168 kilo- 'T ogethe r with the forged magnesium front w heel , and especially the car bo n fiber one, tlhe carbon ceramic construction de livers a significant saving in unspru ng weight, w hich be ne fits suspension compliance and brings a reduct ion in gyroscopic e ffec t , gram (369.6 pou nds) GSX-RlooO , 170 kilowh ich provides faster stee ring," he says. gram (374 pounds) ZX- IOR, 172 kilogram "But there are problems entailed because (378.4 po unds) RI and eve n the 179 kilothe material is so incred ibly hard , in spite of gram (393.8 pounds) C BRIOooRR - will be be ing so light, that it can only be mach ined slashed by 20 kilos on the customer Mamba, witlh diamond cutters. The difficulty is in down to 172 kilograms (378.4 pou nds) halfmaking the braking surface sufficiently flat , dry, with oil and water but no fuel, says otherwise you get vibrations through the Tam burini. Mission acco mplished. brake lever, just as if the disc was warped. However, that's only Stage 2, because Even a .002m m variation is enough to do Stage 3 brings this down even furt he r to an tlhis, and at tlhe moment, Zomik's producincredi ble 162 kilogram s (3S6.4 po unds) tion metlhod doesn't allow him to work co nhalf-dry, he claims, with the additio n of a sistently witlhin those to lerances. But, he 's a complete titanium exhaust system, handdetenmined guy, and for sure he 'll get there made in Japan by a local artisan uncovered eventually- and when he does, this has to be by Maekawa-san, MV Agusta's to p man in the future direction for motorcycle brake tlhe East. This comes w ithout the catalyst of systems." tlhe stock pipe but complete witlh a correSounded like time to test the truth of that sponding EPROM chip to correct tlhe engine assertion for myse lf. So, hopping aboard the mapping for tlhe free r-flowing exhaust, as we ll first of th e Mam bas, fitted with Zornik's as a more open version of the so-distinctive ceramic discs but non radial calipers, and "Tam burini organ" quartet of exhaust magnesium rather than carbon wheels, I set silencers arra yed beneatlh the o ff down pit lane - and immedi seat. The complete system _ _---:::=-~ ately noticed the extra zest saves a total of off the mark 4.68 kilo compared to g ram s the stock F4 (almost 10.3 1000, which isn't po unds) in exactly a sluggard but weight , in addition certainly doesto sou nding n't accelerate even more like the mus ical than Mamba doe s before. after its At kins d iet. A further factor in Having ridden the 200 the Mamba 's starvabhp Ten Kate Edition tion diet is a pair of Honda Fireblade street carbon fiber wheels, version of Chris saving a furthe r 2.5 Venmeulen's Superbi ke kilos (5.5 pounds) , racer only a few weeks with an additional 1.3 previously, that's what the kilograms (2.86 pounds) Mamba immed iate ly potentially coming from rem inded me of. Wrtlh the the pair of 290mm carbon unmodified F4 1000 engine ceramic, front-brake discs producing 166 bhp presendy fitted to one of the protofitted, it's not as powerful as the types Iwas testing and halfa kilo bigger, beefier-seeming Honda, (I. I pounds) more coming from but certainly the MV appears tlhe 21Omm rear. A peace divismaller and more aggressive-feeling dend product from former Yugoslavia, to ride, and it certainly appears notably these are a spinoff from Russian mililighter in every way than tlhestock bike tary technology that has been pro- wh ich indeed it is. You notice this duced in Sloven ia by Mitz lav Zornik, especially flicking from side to side in tlhe hitherto best known as the man who pair of Misano chicanes , especially the introduced road bike customers to first right-left one , whe re you have to carbon fibe r more tlhan a decade ago . www.cyclenews .com __ CYC LE N EWS • N OVE MBER 10, 2004 33