Diesel KLR

I thought some of you might be interested in this.

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From: Date: Fri, May 28, 2004, 10:42am (PDT+3) To:
Subject: Re:
f1engineering.com - Diesel Bike

Production of the civilian version of our military diesel KLR has had to
be delayed for a short time. 

We are just a small company and have been working on this engine for
about six years now, however we have been unable to attract any
financial backers or partners to the project.

Even though the US Government has pretty much paid for all of the
development of the engine, we still need private funding of around $2
million, a very small sum considering the huge market for this
particular, worlds only high performance small diesel engine, especially
in light of current events and current gas prices.

This funding is required for EPA and DOT testing, crash testing,
reliability testing (even though we have thousands of miles on the
military bikes and upwards of 60,000 miles on a couple of the earlier
test bikes), production facilities , marketing, advertising, warranty
and spares programs etc., plus a million other details that we are not
required to perform on the military units.

All of our resources are currently being used on the new USMC contract
for 600 Diesel Combat Motorcycles.
Scheduled delivery of the first production bikes to the USMC is August
2004, with production continuing through 2006.

We had hoped to be building engines for the civilian version alongside
the military unit as this would have reduced cost quite significantly,
the cost of 5,000 sets of engine castings from the foundry is obviously
a lot less per engine than 600 sets. The same goes for everything else
in the engine.

So, although we are still actively searching for a partner / backer, we
are sad that we have not yet been able to get this great machine out on
the highways. We do however, still hold out hope that someone with the
financial resources needed will come along to help us continue on with
the project.

Meanwhile, yes we are continuing to build the diesel engines for use in
the USMC Diesel Combat Motorcycle, and of course our development program
continues on alongside the production line.

We now have software engineers working on mapping the engine for a
common rail injection system, the same as on the new Ford Powerstroke
and GM's Duramax.
This should give us quite a boost in horse power over the current
mechanical unit and make the machine very tractable under all
conditions.

The production USMC version of the diesel KLR is now right at 40 horse
power at 5700 rpm with 45 foot pounds of torque. With a power range from
1200 rpm thru 7000 rpm!!

Dry Weight: 369 lbs.
Fuel type used during tests; Diesel / Aviation Kerosene / Biodiesel
Performance: 0-30 mph, 3.3 sec. - 0-60 mph, 8.6 sec.
Maximum speed as tested; In excess of 102 mph.
Fuel Mileage as tested (full military load); 105 mpg @ 55 mph.

Thanks for your interest, and if you know of an enthusiast or someone
with the financial resources available that might be interested in our
project, please let us know, we need to get the word out there.

Regards,
Roger G. Flynn
F1 Engineering
10844 "E" Avenue, Suite A-1
Hesperia, CA 92345