Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

the RC45 for 1999 - including revised - porting on the VFR800 cylinder heads Honda was allowed to use by the FIM after exhausting their stock -:~ RC45 castings and, for the first time on a works Honda, an Akrapovic exhaust the result was a 250-rpm increase in revs to 15,250 rpm for the 72 x 46mm 16-valve DOHC engine, and an extra 7 hp to peak power. In total, the changes brought power up to an amazing 191 hp at the gearbox, at 15,150 rpm - still on a par with Honda's NSR500 Grand Prix racer. Not bad for a vintage racer. Yet that 4-percent increase in power over 1998 hasn't been achieved at the cost of any reduction in the V-four Honda's legendary rideability, as I discovered for myself on the first of my two days at a wet Motegi circuit in Japan. Not to take anything away from Edwards, who has turned out to be an excellent wetweather rider, but now I know how one of his 1999 race wins came in Austria - at the only wet round of the series last year. This must be the easiest world-level race bike in any class to ride in the rain. It has a smooth, progressive power delivery from as low as 6000 rpm, a controllable transition into hyper-strong power from 12,000 revs upward when the needle on the analogue tachometer (a traditional and old-fashioned tach, but one that is still much easier to read under racing conditions than the digital info centers as found on the Suzuki and Ducati) moves irresistibly into fastforward mode, and none of the brusque, jerky throttle response in any gear - even first - when you get on the gas again from a closed throttle. Even when you get the back wheel slithering around, it all feels so controllable. I actually enjoyed my two wet sessions on the RC45, especially with Michelin's benchmark rain rubber fitted to the Marchesini wheels. However, it was the next day that became the most memorable (and not just because I ended up doing a lap time that brought smiles and compliments from HRC race staff) because of the quality of the bike - arguably the finest Superbike I've ever ridden. And, yes, this was less than a month after I'd ridden Carl Fogarty's World Championship-winning Ducati, so I do have a valid basis for comparison before making such a sweeping statement. However, it was the Ducati that took the title again last year for the eighth time in the past decade. Well, okay, but without offending any of Fogarty's rivals, there was another vital ingredient at work here besides the inherent qualities of the Italian Vtwins. And that's Fogarty himself the Mick Doohan of four-stroke racing, the man whose belief in his capabilities and determination to win tran- scends all else. Troy Corser is no slouch (and a former World Champion, to boot) - but even he didn't have the measure of the Edwards Honda over the full season aboard his works Ducati, and now I think 1 know why. For 1999, Nakamoto's team of technicians and Colin Edwards' race engineer, Adrian Gorst, came up with a series of alterations to the RC45 mechanical package and race setup, which delivered a hitherto untold level of refinement to the Honda's performance. There were various other factors, mainly tire-related, which prevented the team from reaching the same level of perfection week in, week out, but the Castrol Honda's dominant one-two blitz of both legs on a tricky track like Branas Hatch in August underlined how much better strongly, you need the reactions of a samurai to do so before the soft rev limiter flutters the engine at 15,250 rpm, and you're reminded you need to be quicker on the draw. The power shifter is as faultless as ever (Honda's system uniquely cuts out both fuel flow and ignition for a nanosecond to allow you to change gear wide open), but the actual shift action itself seems the harshest yet on a V-four Honda - and it's been getting stiffer every year. Honda probably needs to undercut the gear pinions a little more each time, to accept the extra power on offer - but it definitely now needs a sharp stab at the lever to shift up. It also feels as if the Honda engine is even more responsive in midrange and low down than before - not abruptly so, just crisper. So as you accelerate out of Motegi's tight turn two, with the distinctive whine of the gear-cam drive clearly audible above the flat drone from the twin Akrapovic silencers (now with one on either side of the rear wheel), there's an immediate but controllable pickup and a completely linear throttle response that is frankly addictive, as well as sharper than before. When asked about it, HRC engineers they got over the full season. There were two main areas of improvement - one motor, the .other suspension. First, there's the detail changes such as the double-sump format, aimed at upping the power output in pursuit of top speed - and though the '99 Ducati narrowed the gap considerably, the Honda was still the fastest Superbike out there. But it's not just better topend power that's on tap when you gas it up hard out of comers, it's also the way that power is delivered. While the Honda gives its usual impression of a four-stroke GP racer when the tach needle hits 12,000 rpm, now it keeps pulling hard to the 15,250-rpm redline instead of getting ever so slightly lazy at peak revs, like before. In fact, the big red light in the cockpit flashes at 14,800 rpm to warn you that now might be a good time to think about shifting gears - but the engine pulls so cue I • n e _ S • FEBRUARY 9,2000 15

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