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/128368
MotoGP Tech: Kawasaki Goes Long Bang engines. The Kawasaki chassis was completely redesigned last year by Eskil Suter and his Swiss based SRT concern, but the engine remained basically the same. And every time Kawasaki tried to increase the power output last year, something would break. The chassis suffered from engine vibration that cracked the spars, and even with quite radical steering geometry, the bike proved difficult to turn - especially at cially at high speeds. The extra shaft is also according to Nakano. used as a balancer, making the engine smoother and allowing Yamaha to build a lighter chassis without any danger of it cracking. where the team had a new chassis, with a very different airbox, fuel tank and seat unit. crankshaft turning forward in this first Kawasaki has now shown several areas of At the second test, Kawasaki had the new engine in a chassis and bodywork that looked identical to that used at the end of 2004. Last week, the team was testing at Jerez with with Nakano and Shimizu using the new on its quick-turning ZX-I OR. Neil Spalding motor and Hoffman testing 2005 components on a tried-and-tested 2004 bike. series of equally spaced small pushes. The In a conventional street bike's four-cylinder crankshaft rotation. The tire therefore gets a trouble is that there is not enough time between each push for the tire to recover ect. Having previously and give the best grip when a second push been technical director of the Yamaha M-I project, Yoda brings a great deal of knowledge on that bike's arrives. Each time the engine fires, the push from that combustion lasts about 50 development new motor featuring a sound that was quite Yamaha-like. Using a revised crankshaft in crankcases similar to the ones used at the end of last year, the major external change apart from the noise was the four separate exhaust pipe outlets. The engine now has a firing sequence similar to the "long bang" firing sequence used by Valentino Rossi and Yamaha to win the championship last year. The Kawasaki MotoGP engine has to Kawasaki. It's too early for him to have had degrees, that only gives the tire 130 degrees of crankshaft rotation to recover. Yamaha, and now Kawasaki, has rearranged their inline four crankshafts 50 much involvement in this new layout, but it that the engine fires as if it is a 45- to 50degree V-four (neither company will confirm will only be a matter of time. Yamaha used a balance shaft to allow the precise numbers). This means that a second push arrives before the first one has finished, new firing sequence to work without shaking the entire bike apart, but it seems this first Kawasaki engine does not have one. "There is no balance shaft on this engine," not adding to the size of the push but making it continue for longer. The tire then has 3 10 Suter said. '1\11 of the development is being done in Japan, but the project is continually being developed - every few weeks we will always been one of the most basic inline have something new." The first tests on the new engine have four-cylinder "superbike-on-steroids" type gone well, with Shinya Nakano reporting a degrees of crank rotation to recover and to give the best possible grip. It is not a simple change, however, as the crank, cams, exhaust and airbox all have to be redesigned to get the best from the new arrangement. When Yamaha designed its first MI engine, it also used an additional shaft to reverse the rotation of the crankshaft, thus howed up ot the recent with a new engine that d"ff4mtnt firing order. 8 MARCH 9, 2005 • has mounted a reverse rotating alternator engine, the engine fires every 180 degrees of as the new technical K tions affecting the bike and it would be a similar solution to the way that Kawasaki What Is Long Bang? director of the proj- awasaki debuted its new MotoGP engine recently in Sepang, Malaysia, the development engine. If they add a balancer later, they could differentiate themselves from Yamaha by spinning the balancer backward. This would still neutralize some of the adverse gyroscopic reac- One month ago, Ichiro Yoda joined KHI awasaki at $epang. Kawasaki has chosen to leave the three riders - KRT team riders Nakano and Alex Hoffman, in addition Kawasaki's Japanese test rider, Kazuki Shimizu. This test is a further step In the development program project up a notch. pares ta try the _ and making the bike easier to turn - espe- its development program, with the latest coming after the first Sepang test in January high speed. Kawasaki has clearly decided to take its Shlnya Nakano reducing the gyroscopic effect of the engine bike that is far more stable into corners and which, as a result, is far easier to turn. Rear tire grip out of corners is also far better, CYCLE NEWS Ichiro Yoda has joined the Kawasaki team after previously working as technical director on the Yamaha M 1 project.