Moto1

Essential reading
http://www.motomatters.com/interview/2009/12/20/peter_clifford_interview_
part_1_there_s_.html

http://www.motomatters.com/interview/2009/12/21/peter_clifford_interview_
part_2_the_priv.html

Trying to make sense of all this. I think Honda-Yamaha-Ducati, and
possibly Suzuki with a little of that VW money, will build prototypes.
They'll be chasing 17k rpm, air-desmo valves, 260bhp, 2500km rebuild
intervals and 21L of fuel. That's going to cost them at least as much as
it costs them now, plus all the costs of the redesign. And Vale won't be
able to resist trying to win back to back 800-1000 races and
championships.

But that leaves a bunch of questions.
- What will Aprilia do?
- Is there really any more chance of an Illmor or KR appearing? The task
just got more difficult, didn't it, not less?
- Is there any chance of a WCM appearing, and if they did, which engine
would they start with? Because none of the current 1000 engines looks
suitable.
- Is there any chance of a major manufacturer offering a part built or
fully built engine as a starting point? Perhaps Kawasaki?
- Will any of the manufacturers deliberately build a 2012 road bike that
is a good starting point. The one that feels possible is Yamaha. What if
there's a 2012 R1 that has a reverse rotation crank, offset cam drive,
81mm bore and ancilliaries stuck behind the block rather than on the end
of the crank? That would fit in with the R1 product cycle.
- What if Ducati do another 500-1000 run of an updated Desmosedici?
- How about BMW and Aprilia? Could they manage a small batch run of
modified/altered engines

I have this depressing thought that Suzuki will finally just pull out.
We'll be left with 15 on the grid and nobody will even attempt any of
the options above. The 3 big manufacturers left will just have to suck
up another big round of costs in the change and then suck up the same
ongoing costs they have now. It's all doom, I tell you.

And all this was supposed to be cheaper?

- All the manufacturers will build prototypes
- Which means new prototypes, and new work on the electronics. Which all
costs lots of money
- They now have to cope with engine life limits, the same fuel
restrictions, but worse than that they'll be trying to work out how to
push the engine rev limits with a fixed bore and stroke. Producing
competitive prototypes didn't get any easier or cheaper, it just got
harder.

So I can't see how it's going to be any easier to find 260hp than it
currently is to find 220hp. So I can't see how it will be any cheaper.

In theory, it will be possible to start with a production engine but
you'll still need an electronics package and a lot of modification.
Given how far an 81mm bore is from any production engine, I'm not sure
anyone is actually going to try. Even if you did, you'll be at the back
of the pack. So what if Yamaha (say) produce a set of prototypes for
their main teams and then produce a limited run modified R1 engine for
their privateers. They've now got to produce what is effectively two
prototypes and support them. More expense.

The "cheaper" argument depends on there being more than enough power so
you can be competitive without chasing ultimate top end. Except I don't
remember 990cc avoiding a horse power race. The moment Ducati can pass
people at will on the straight, everyone else will spend money to try
and stay with them.

So I don't buy this "cheaper" argument. I think it has no clothes.

 

Yup. 4mm is a huge amount when you've already optimised down cylinder
sleeve thickness in the faster-better-cheaper cycle. The old days of
buying a set of TTS pistons and getting an extra 150cc with a rebore are
over.

The only one that's close is the new BMW. Which makes to wonder. The
other problem I think is the sheer width of production engines. The two
straight 4s in MotoGP had done a lot of work to move the cam drive and
all the ancillaries away from the sides of the engine. And at least in
Endurance the teams using R1s were having trouble with ground clearance.
That's going to be that much more of a problem with MotoGP spec tyres.

Which all leaves Aprilia. And who knows where the Piaggio group are
going to jump or if they can find the money under a pillow somewhere.

I think what's really puzzling is that Dorna-FIM-MSMA must all know this
stuff. And there must have been some hints and promises from the
manufacturers that they might help in some way. It's just not clear what
that might have been or what it might turn into when 2012 comes round.

 

But they're all eligible, surely? 81 mm is a _maximum_, not
mandatory.

http://www.fim-live.com/fileadmin/a...se/Grand_Prix_Commission_December_11_2009.pdf

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

OK, I see your point I guess. I make a four with max bore having
a stroke of 48.5 mm. Is that bore/stroke ratio (1.67:1) feasible? OTOH,
I guess twins are right out, with a min stroke of 97 mm. Triples are min.
64.6 mm (b/s=1.25), but I guess that'd still be too low-revving.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

So what is the minimum displacement under the new rules? One way to
keep the revs up is to shorten the stroke, no matter what the bore is.
So does anyone run a 900 or even an existing 800? What sort of bore
size and ratio do the current 800s have?

 

Undoubtedly a whiner. But a whiner who was forced out of the game.

The problem is it's not a rev limit or a technology limit. It's an
imposed restriction to be worked round with money and development. The
current state of piston and rod technology means anything up to 17900
might be possible. Except it's also linked to an engine lifetime limit.
All that is really going to tax the manufacturers and can only be solved
by throwing money at it. Anything over 16k rpm and possibly even lower
and desmo or air valves help; On things like friction losses, valve
spring life, cam profile design. Now they've all got the tech, I can't
see any of them giving that up. And not while Ducati continues to use
Desmo.

I think this may be what the bigwigs are all hoping will happen. Kind of
like the Honda V-2 two stroke. Everyone keeps backing away from leasing
full prototype engines. But perhaps one or more of the factories could
do a short run of race only engines loosely based on production tech.
And perhaps Ducati are the best placed to do this; Resurrect the
Desmosedici production line and supply engines for sale with MotoGP spec
compression ratios and cams with an ECU supply agreement from their
friends at Magnetti Marelli.

 

The only factory in recent times to lease engines only is Honda to KR.
Over the last year there's been rumours that they were all asked if they
would do it again and nobody came through. Of course that may also mean
that no KR has appeared to request them. Leased engines are nearly as
bad as leased satellite bikes for the manufacturers. It forces them into
a second product cycle in parallel with their main product cycle. They
don't want them to be too competitive but they also don't want them to
moan too much.

Motorcycle Racer has the expected Alan Cathcart article about Ducati and
Yamaha at the post-Portimao journalist test. You can take it all with
the usual huge pinch of salt. There's a lovely quote from one of the
high-ups at Ducati. "The problem is we're too good at our job of racing
twins. You watch if and when KTM try and fail".

I don't believe any independent is going to try and build Moto1 motors
based on production parts as those production motors stand now. So the
only way I can see this happening is if a factory produces a short run
of race engines loosely based on tech they already have. And doing that
in a way that isn't going to screw up too much their involvement in true
production based racing.
- Honda. A Blade engine with a top end from their last valve spring
engine.
- Yamaha. A 2012 R1 that looks like a valve spring M1. Produced in two
versions, one for SBK and one with much more exotic cams and components
for Moto1
- Suzuki. Nothing.
- Kawasaki. Sells the rights to their MotoGP engines along with all the
tools and dies to somebody like Suter or Petronas who then conjure money
out of nothing to pay for it all?
- Aprilia. Kind of like Yamaha. They go racing with an RSV4-R in SBK and
an RSV4-Moto1 in MotoGP. Somewhere in there Aspar finds the money to run
their team
- Ducati. Spin off a corner of the industrial estate to make replacement
engines for Desmosedici owning track day addicts. Spend enough money and
they'll build you a full on MotoGP engine good enough to match Kallio.
Speak nicely to them and have the right friends and they'll sell you a
replacement frame made from CF. That story begins to look like one of
those car or powerboat series for European playboys where everyone races
a Ferrari! It's almost believable. And I think more so than any of the
other scenarios above.

 

At this point somebody is going to point out that a GSXR1000 SBK bike is
quicker round Philip Island than the MotoGP Rizla GSVRs. Oh. Wait.

 

Suzuki's best result of the year was at PI, Neukirchner finishing 2nd
and 0.032 second behind Haga in race one, and his race fast lap was a
1:32.877. Vermeulen finished last at PI in MotoGP and his best lap was
a 1:32.815, and Capirossi, who finished 12th, had a 1:32.555. Kagayama
finished 3rd in that race and did a 1:32.801, but Corser did race fast
lap, at 1:32.726. The MotoGP fast lap was Rossi at 1:30.085.

Now PI is a very fast track, and acceleration probably means less
there than almost any track, with it's flowing nature. But peak
horsepower probably does matter more than a lot of places. It's also
the one place where the WSB track record actually bested the 500
record at one point, about ten years ago, IIRC.

So this shows that under optimal conditions (PI) the Suzuki superbike,
which has been very fast, can lap almost as fast as the Suzuki GP
bike, which hasn't been nearly as good, relatively-speaking. Even
though the tires aren't as good. But what happens when the GP bikes
move back to 1000cc? In 2006 the fastest warmup lap (the race was wet)
was Stoner's 30.32, and qualifying best was a 29.02 by Hayden; in 2007
at 800cc Stoner's best in the warmup was a 30.86 and the Q best was
Pedrosa's 29.20. Even this year's warmup best was a 30.8, and top
qualifying was in the 30s (with no Q tires). That leads me to the
conclusion that the new 1000s will make a jump there over the 800s.

That said, the current WSB regs on motor modification are notably more
restrictive than what almost anyone would do with a MotoGP motor
derived from a production motor, even at relatively modest cost. I
wouldn't be all that surprised if a decent rebuild could get one up to
240-250 horsepower or very close to that.

 

You'll have to go and find it. But an Aus National championship race ran
at the MotoGP. The fastest Suzuki in that race ran a faster lap than the
fastest Suzuki in the MotoGP race. Or maybe it was practice. Or
something.

 

I think the two biggest barriers for such a team, once you get beyond
the budget to build this machine, are having a rider good enough to
run that high and to have an electronics package sufficient to result
in that sort of performance. Really those two things come down to
money as well, but any independent team with that sort of budget is
almost certainly going to be running a satellite factory bike or maybe
a factory lease prototype motor in their own chassis (like KR). So the
basic performance of the motor probably won't be that much of an
issue, you give this sort of team a factory motor (sans electronics)
and they still end up at the back end of the grid. Which is why it's
worth opening things up for these kinds of efforts, it's just ends up
with the inevitable impact of expanding the grid, last place is lower
in the order than it used to be...