Interesting four-valve V11 at the Quail this weekend

[Surj]

I was shooting / covering the Quail Motorcycle Gathering on Saturday, and saw this V11 with what seems to be a very similar replacement engine with four-valve heads. I'm honestly not sure what, if anything, is re-used below the heads. More information on the engine here.

 

 

 

There was another nice near-stock V11 on display too, and I got to meet the original owner of my Rosso Mandello, who was in from Texas as a judge at the show. We'd never met in person.

Funny thing is, I'd thought of submitting my Rosso for inclusion in the show, and I think I actually will next year. 

More photos from the Quail here if you're interested, as well as the full-size versions of those above, which got a little funky in the downsize to post here.

 

[Chuck]

Wow! Now, *there* is a guy with too much time on his hands.. 

[BLIGHT]

I saw that bike at the show, and just thought it was a set of aftermarket heads for the V11... didn't realize until now they went with a clean-sheet design and went to water cooling on the cylinders as well.

 

What turned me off visually was that the right head was reversed from the left head.

 

To me, the two curved cam-gear 'humps' on top should both face forward on both sides, but that won't work with how they used a countershaft to drive the cams from the back-side of the right cylinder head (as you sit on the bike).

 

Maybe they could just change the casting or billet machining to make some 'faux' humps so both heads are symmetrical visually?

 

Interesting project though... I wonder what other inline drive platforms would accept this engine, mebbe the BMW boxers?

 

Looks like they have put a lot of time and money into this project!

 

And what is the cost to buy their engine to put into a 15 year old bike.... $10,000? hmmm...

 

BLIGHT

[Surj]

I thought it was just heads at first, too. Interestingly, the V11 is just a test mule. Their plans for the engine are way bigger / beyond that, and that's part of the reasons the heads are like that: the idea is that a head will work on either side. 

I don't love the look of it, but there's some interesting stuff on their site, theory-wise.

[swooshdave]

The reason to use that bike is to show off the heads. :-)

[footgoose]

The reason to use that bike is to show off the heads. :-)

exactly.

[BLIGHT]

I thought it was just heads at first, too. Interestingly, the V11 is just a test mule. Their plans for the engine are way bigger / beyond that, and that's part of the reasons the heads are like that: the idea is that a head will work on either side. 

I don't love the look of it, but there's some interesting stuff on their site, theory-wise.

A different, more pleasing symmetrical shape to the cam covers could fix it to look good on either side.

Guess the V11 is a just a test mule as you say.

Curious to know what their ultimate goal is... an entirely new motorcycle?

They would need to develop a transmission & clutch, chassis, and all the other bits & pieces that make up a complete motorcycle...whew!

Motus did it, but they are really expensive bikes, and only sell a few hundred bikes per year.

They do sell a 'crate motor' 1650cc (no transmission) for $10,220.

https://thekneeslider.com/is-the-motus-v4-baby-block-crate-engine-the-future-of-old-school-hot-rodding/

We'll stay tuned!

BLIGHT

[docc]

Aero engine for unmanned drones?

[swooshdave]

Aero engine for unmanned drones?

 

Too heavy. Most drone engines tend to be air cooled because of the abundance of... cold air. And weight.

[BLIGHT]

I love the liquid-cooling, but I'd also add some fins to the heads and barrels.... water-cooled engines keep their cool, but don't look all that great.

 

The biggest eye-catcher on the big-block Guzzi's are it's massively-finned jugs poking out there for everyone to see... a design masterpiece!

 

Without them, it just looks like any other non-descript motorcycle. Honda has done this with many of their models.... finning water-cooled engines.

 

Same for the new water-cooled Triumph twins. They finned the water-cooled barrels & heads for a traditional look and tried to hide the radiator.

 

Harley did fins too on their new 500 & 750 liquid-cooled twins made in India. (at least on the heads)

 

Here's my little 35 year old Honda VT500 (Ascot) custom 'cafe style' I built a few years ago.

 

It has finned barrels and heads, but is water-cooled!

 

A skinny rectangular radiator with twin fans fits in between the twin front down-tubes.... barely noticeable.

 

On the other side, the fins actually bolt onto the barrels!

 

Notice the valve covers are pretty symmetrical, even though the sohc drives chains & sprockets are on opposite sides of the engine (it's a 3V engine) 

 

 

BLIGHT

[BLIGHT]

Something like these Ducati symmetrical cam covers 'styling' are what I was thinking would make the MOTIONTEKV engine look more appealing either 'coming or going':

 

 

 

BLIGHT

[Surj]

I get everything you're saying, Blight, but designing a new engine is mostly about function—style (or "style") can be added later, as you've shown with the Honda V-Twin. But the Harley and Triumph examples you mentioned are being marketed to traditionalists in the extreme, and require that look. From what I can tell, these guys aren't designing an engine for fashion, but function. Like I said, there's a lot more information on their site (link in my first post). 

Motus shortcutted this by starting, at least conceptually, by sort of downsizing a Katech engine (that's the extremely short version of the story). I've ridden their bikes, including Motus #5, which was at the Quail this year and last. 

The H-D Street models don't have real fins, but rather the appearance of fins, much like the Z900RS and many other black engine / silver "fin" bikes. 

I'm gonna have to disagree with you that Guzzis would look like any other "nondescript" bike without the big air-cooled jugs.    No one is gonna mistake that four-valve bike for a UJM, for example, even though it lacks cooling fins. 

[BLIGHT]

I get everything you're saying, Blight, but designing a new engine is mostly about function—style (or "style") can be added later, as you've shown with the Honda V-Twin. But the Harley and Triumph examples you mentioned are being marketed to traditionalists in the extreme, and require that look. From what I can tell, these guys aren't designing an engine for fashion, but function. Like I said, there's a lot more information on their site (link in my first post). 

 

Motus shortcutted this by starting, at least conceptually, by sort of downsizing a Katech engine (that's the extremely short version of the story). I've ridden their bikes, including Motus #5, which was at the Quail this year and last. 

 

The H-D Street models don't have real fins, but rather the appearance of fins, much like the Z900RS and many other black engine / silver "fin" bikes. 

 

I'm gonna have to disagree with you that Guzzis would look like any other "nondescript" bike without the big air-cooled jugs.    No one is gonna mistake that four-valve bike for a UJM, for example, even though it lacks cooling fins. 

 

True enough, just doesn't appeal to me visually, and that's why I walked past it and didn't even shoot a photo.

 

I went to their site with your link, and read as much as they posted there...and most of what you say is not disagreeable.

 

Kind of depends on how, and to who they want to market this engine to.... and how they should proceed, eh?

 

The 80's Honda CX500 was a Guzzi-style engine placement, water-cooled and no barrel/head fins... kind of a bland looking motor IMO... even with protruding jugs!

 

The rocker covers looked good though....on both sides of the engine, and that's my only real objection to the MOTIONTEKV prototype.

 

 

BLIGHT

[Surj]

Kind of depends on how, and to who they want to market this engine to.... and how they should proceed, eh?

Oh, definitely. Look at Motus again, though: outside of their own motorcycles, they're selling crate engines to people and companies for boats and small four-wheeled vehicles, but very few of their engines have been put in motorcycles that I'm aware of, even though the Motus engine has significant cachet. Outside of the S&S—essentially a direct replacement for Harley engines, which still make up a massive portion of bike sales in the US, and have for a long, long time (i.e. a significantly-sized market)—I can't think of another replacement motorcycle engine that has succeeded at any kind of scale, and the realistic market size for a cross-frame v-twin replacement motorcycle engine is probably this one motorcycle.    

 

That said, I have doubts about the marketability of the engine even in other applications. Their concept trades on things like flexibility, "sophisticated engine control software," and so on. This sounds a lot like a small production version of Ford's excellent Ecoboost engine, which is a way of saying OEMs already have engines like this. Unless there's a significantly sized crate engine market (questionable) then their best hope is that their secret sauce and IP are attractive enough for an acquisition, and given the move to hybrids and electrics this seems unlikely, especially given that OEMs have already developed very advanced small gas engines. 

 

The 80's Honda CX500 was a Guzzi-style engine placement, water-cooled and no barrel/head fins... kind of a bland looking motor IMO... even with protruding jugs!

 

The rocker covers looked good though....on both sides of the engine, and that's my only real objection to the MOTIONTEKV prototype.

This is an interesting conversation. I do look at the aesthetics of engines and all other bike components in isolation—and I agree that Guzzi engines are wonderful-looking, but I guess I mostly care about overall aesthetics with heaping helping of function. For example, I own a Buell Ulysses and a BMW GS, both arguably ass-ugly motorcycles that derive their "attractiveness" from function-driven aesthetics. The Buell is an extreme example of this, while you could say that the Beemer's looks are at least partly pure style now, even if BMW created the beginnings of that look decades ago.

 

To wit: I think Honda's CX motorcycles are stupid-looking and visually awkward, and that the recent use of these for custom "cafe" bikes is more about bottom of the barrel desperation than the platform's inherent goodness or attractive aesthetics. That engine looks spindly and wimpy, as does the front suspension. The tank is at a weird angle that looks wrong to my eyes, the radiator shroud is too prominent, and so on. Compare the bodywork to the tank and tail section of a V11, which are both classically gorgeous. The CXes looked like a slightly Dali-ed version of a late-Seventies / early-Eighties Honda CB, much like most Japanese cruisers in the Eighties looked roughly like the basic shape of a Harley, but where things had gone wrong in several places. 

 

Perhaps ironically, my feelings about the CX500 basically echo what you're saying about your feelings toward the MotionTek engine. The difference I think is that if either were in an overall good motorcycle, I wouldn't care very much, if at all, about the form factor of the engine itself. For example, if either engine were in a sporty tall-rounder like a Ulysses or MV Agusta Turismo Veloce—short wheelbase; upright, natural ergonomics, sporty handling, luggage—and the engine itself didn't detract from the bike, I'd be all over it, even if the engine wasn't aesthetically beautiful. 

 

I would say that the success of Triumph's carefully and classically-styled, retro bikes points to market demands for "authenticity" and accuracy, and it does, but Ducati's Scrambler and BMW's R Nine T lines both lack those qualities and have done quite well. 

[docc]

Did someone say "MV Agusta Turismo Veloce" and "aesthetically beautiful" in the same sentence?