hpras wrote:The idea behind this was some inspired thinking. Anything more than four cylinder engines were banned. Honda wanted to take on the 2 strokes with 4 stroke technology. They had to do this with the same displacement as 4 strokes weren't given any allowance against the 2 smokers (500cc). The engineers at Honda decided they needed 2 things, lots of valve area and lots of RPM. So they really built a V8 with 4 oval cylinders. To get the revs, it was ultra short stroke and superlight flywheel. It wasn't unusual for the engine to stall on the downshifts. Cylinder sealing was an issue, getting the rings to work in an oval required some thinking. Ten years after the 500cc GP machine, they produced a limited edition 750cc production bike, rare as hen's teeth now, as well as a 750 cc endurance racer.
Yeah, it was a classic example of Honda's ideological hubris.. ..& a colossally expensive failure..
Even Honda, although semi-pathologically 4-stroke bent, had to admit defeat, & went to their MX-tech
to build a lightweight V3 2-stroke, which was good enough for F. Spencer to win the 500 G.P. W/Championship.
Of course, changing the rules, throwing decades of 500 G.P. history down the crapper by building Moto GP
4Ts, having 2Ts banned & getting current total domination of Moto 1 race wins this series is fine by Honda..
Honda would love to build a 4-stroke chainsaw to go with all their other agricultural stuff, but for Honda,
getting a 4T to be cost competitive - while matching the 2-strokes performance-wise.. ..is too big an ask..
Transverse mounted V5 motoGP engine. There is actually one of these running road legal in my area
