VOL. 52 ISSUE 30 JULY 28, 2015 P27
bar, and the air intake grille
made via carbon 3D printing by
Bako Design. Wire wheels with
Borrani M-Ray alloy rims are
now fitted, shod with tubeless
Avon TrailRider or Dunlop Trail-
Max dual purpose tires, while
Beringer Aerotech Monobloc
brake calipers machined from
solid now replace the Brembos
the MV Brutale is supplied with.
The twin 320mm front discs
are retained but now gripped
by four-piston radially-mounted
calipers up front, and a two-
piston rear. Dry weight of the
complete bike is 368 pounds.
Contact www.viba-motor.fr for
more info or to place an order.
Alan Cathcart
purpose use, ditto the 43mm
Marzocchi fork housed in new
triple-clamps offering a greater
rake for more stability off road,
though an optional Öhlins Black
Edition fork is available. There's
a host of carbon fiber compo-
nents like mudguards, chain
guard, etc., with Rizoma foot-
rests, a Scrambler type handle-
HONDA LOOKING TO TWO-STROKES
H
onda has filed patents
that reveal they are
working on a direct injec-
tion two-stroke engine that,
if successful, will pass Euro
4 emissions targets and be
music to two-smoker fans
across the globe.
Two-strokes are lighter,
produce more power per a given capacity
and are infinitely less complex to work on
than today's four-stroke performance en-
gines, but they have always been seen as
one of the great polluters of the world. That's
thanks to the amount of unburned fuel that
escapes out the exhaust pipe, not to men-
tion the amount of glorious smelling smoke they
emit—but Honda may have found a way to over-
come this.
Direct injection technology is nothing new, ma-
rine outboard and snowmobile engines have been
using them for years, but no one has commercial-
ly applied them to a production motorcycle.
According to the patents filed late last month,
the two-stroke engine has a fuel injection system
mounted on the back of the cylinder, pointing
upwards toward the back of the cylinder bore. To
make the bang/blow equation happen, the fuel is
timed to when the fuel is just before top dead cen-
ter, ensuring the unburned fuel doesn't get swept
up with the exiting exhaust gasses. Another side
benefit is the fuel is aimed at such an angle that
the piston and cylinder can be partially cooled as
the fuel evaporates against them.
But, there is a caveat in this little gem. In the
patent dialogue, Honda states "the two-stroke en-
gine is often preferred over the four-stroke engine
in the field of general purpose engines because
of the simplicity in the structure." General pur-
pose engines can be anything from generators
to bike engines to compressors and diesels, so
it remains to be seen what application the engine
will be, if at all, used for.
Still, it's nice to dream about that NSR500 road-
bike that might someday be sitting in my garage.
Rennie Scaysbrook
Wouldn't it be
just wonderful
if Honda were
to build two-
strokes again
so we could
have a bike like
Ralf Waldman's
NSR250 here?
