Why don't we see factory turbo/super charged bikes anymore?

[Itchy]

From the recent thread about the CX650 and me remembering fondly a turbo version of the bike for sale once. (Everybody said NOooo! Because of the lack of parts and complicated maintenance of the turbo)

Simply why don't we see more factory installed turbo bikes anymore? I mean there is often a war between the big 4 Japanese more powah! Less weight etc... seems to me one of the big 4 could say stick a turbo on a CBR600RR or a GSXR or something, since Geri/Pete and kickstart appear to have been able to get massive performance increases by sticking turbos on bikes.

With nigh on 27 years development from the laggy and harsh powerstep of the CX500s surely 27 years of development would make it smooth and even more powerful?

What do you think?
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[MarJay]

Because if you want more power out of your 750cc sportsbike, you buy a 1000cc?

Gone are the days of capacity related insurance groups, so having a 650cc with the power of a 1000cc is no longer relevant.

Sportsbike manufacturers have difficulty positioning the rear shock and the radiators, let alone a turbocharger and all of the associated pipework.

Tell me the BMW S1000RR doesn't have enough power!
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Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[chris-red]

Because there where crap
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[hmmmnz]

it would probably be another part they would have to "buy" in from an outside supplier, and turbo's aint cheap, then there is the whole redesigning the engine to suit, and keeping a turbo engine reliable is pretty tough,
i think it all comes down to cost, how much power do you really want?? they can't race in any of the major events with a turbo, so if they did do another bike with one, who are they competing against??
what purpose does it really serve

don't get me wrong, i had a ride on a gpz750 turbo, and that was pretty damn impressive, scarily so i would like to own a turbo bike,
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[Carvel]

Peugeot supercharged the jetforce pretty recently

https://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/Peugeot/jetforce.jpg

I hate scooters but this has me tempted.
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[hmmmnz]

[Spit-Fire]

a thou has more then enough power for the road,
a 220+ bhp turbo bike for the road seems a bit over kill unless you have a landing strip on your commute
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[Itchy]

Haven't we had this debate before though? Or rather others had this debate. More power more progress? In that in the 1980s 50ish bhp was a lot of power. People would cream themselves for bikes of such 'immense power'

1987 Then came things like the RC30 which had 78bhp and made people go out and sell their grannies for it.

Then 1992 the Fireblade came out with 124bhp which made people sell their grannies again to buy it. 100bhp was still considered a lot for years. Now 100bhp is considered in the middle somewhere and completely normal with things like Fazers, hornets all around this level lower end bikes, now with exotics being 184bhp being the top of the line.

So following this by 2020 or there abouts 100bhp will be 'low' 184bhp will be consigned to sports tourers and new 1000cc motorbikes will be pushing 300bhp.
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[Spit-Fire]

[stevo as b4]

Race classification rules road bike development now. Even Moto GP has had to scale back in costs somewhat, and some of the technology from this premium level is being passed down to road bikes now. The Yamaha M1 is responsible for the new R1's cross plane crankshaft for example.

If you want more power on a road bike, then more capacity is quite easy route to greater performance. It would probably add less that 10kg at the most to a Fireblade if Honda stroked the engine to 1100-1150cc, and you'd have another 25bhp+. Basically a 1200cc IL4 doesn't have to be huge or heavy anymore, and they don't have to weigh much more than a 180bhp 1000cc sportsbike engine. So if say Honda wanted to make a 1200cc Fireblade it would be relatively easy to do and get a fair bit more power and torque from it. It would also be lag free and very responsive and almost linear throughout at least 2/3 of the rev range. You might be looking at 200-220bhp and 100ib/ft for example.

There is in this respect no need or reason for a manufacturer to have to look at developing a turbo 1litre IL4, as the extra cost is prohibative and there is no need for massive increases in power and as already said, there are no race classes that are eligable for FI litre bikes, making the development costs of such machines totally pointless.

I don't doubt that modern tech could make a turbo bike very much better and extremely responsive, reliable and smooth, along with huge performance. I don't think motorcycle chassis and tyres are ready for 250bhp 140ib/ft circa bikes either, so from a manufacturers point of view turbo's are probably still a dead duck, until petrol bike engine cannot pass new emissions laws without them.

[G]

Remember the b-king? The prototype used a turbo'd engine, the public said yes, but it lost the turbo.
They haven't really been trying to massively push peak power in hyper bikes as far as I know.

In superbikes, as well as class limits, there's weight and size to think about. Sure you can get lots more power, but you've suddenly got a load more complexity, extra weight/gubbins and a decent chunk on the price.

There's the Vyrus 987 C3 4VV (I had to copy and paste the name ) which is supercharged; but take your GSXR to big cc and they'll stick a turbo on, no doubt take some stuff off and give you some carbon tat along with a big pile of change for the price of one of them.

I think it's going to be interesting if Japanese manufacturers started adding an extra 100/200cc to their four cylinder sports bikes - or even more so, BMW!

I do think sticking a turbo on a small bike would be silly.
However, I've thought a nice concept would be too have a bike that could grow with you. Yes, it's going to be expensive to start with, but you have basically a litre bike; initially it maybe runs at 33hp (shorter gearing etc), then it can be derestricted to say 120hp, or a set of stock 'fast' parts can be added (bigger rad, ecu change, gearing, etc) to make it to a full blown superbike level bike. Then finally, a bolt on charger for those that would spend loads at tuning shop to eek out a few more horsies for a lot of money.

Of course, not many people buying their first big bike are going to want to splash out the amount of cash needed for such a project; which would be even more expensive considering the extra R&D needed; when these days even accessories are farmed out to other companies.

[kawashima]

There was an newspaper article last February.
"Kawasaki is investigating into adopting turbocharger to large size motorcycles
in order to better emission and fuel consumption.
They already started developping motorcycle with turbocharger, they decide when to
sell them watching economic trends.
Motorcycle manufacturers sold turbo motorcycles in 80s but didn't sell well.
Honda and Yamaha say they develop electrically-powered motorcycles for environmentals,
Kawasaki which mainly makes large sized motorcycles aims tubocharging technology as
environmental eye-catcher."
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But we don't hear about this news recently anymore.
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https://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/kawashima_/nikkan-1.jpg
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owned: 2012 YB125SP, 2008 TDM900, 2005 W650, 2002 LS125R, 2002 CB400SF, NS50F, C50 / Trip to UK(2009), Hokkaido touring(2013)

[Kickstart]

Hi

Turbos seem to be getting common again on cars, and part of that I suspect is to get around CO2 emission based taxes. With a turbo I suspect it is quite easy to get something that can have decent performance but when driven carefully can have very good fuel consumption / CO2 emissions. Just that in real life without being ultra careful the fuel consumption isn't great.

Bikes do not have the same issue with being taxed on CO2 emissions (they are not even tested for it, nor do many care in the slightest), so the need to fiddle around to provide apparent decent figures for it isn't there.

I suspect the makers could quite easily get far more power from normally aspirated engines if they wanted, just that it ramps up the costs and none of them gain. Far easier just to all keep around the same power output, with a small gain each year and get decent sales. Ramp the power up suddenly and they might get decent sales for a year or so but the competition can catch up rapidly and all that has happened is that the production lives of the current basic designs have shortened (so their complete new engines design costs can only be shared over 5 years rather than 2 or 3 times as long).

Adding a turbo adds a hell of a lot of cost and isn't likely to give particularly user friendly power delivery. Packaging a turbo on a bike isn't going to be easy especially if you want to squeeze in an intercooler.

By the way, wasn't the original B King prototype mechanically supercharged rather than turboed?

All the best

Keith
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[Itchy]

[G]

Probably was supercharged, don't remember the specifics.
And yes, in the end the majority of issues for a 250hp engine aren't from whether you use a bigger capacity or a charger to get that extra power; you still need something to contain the big bangs and to transfer 250hp to the rear wheels reliably.

[Kickstart]

[chris-red]

[robbieguy2003]

I'd love a turbo bike, but really just because they're not common. If all the manufacturers done them as standard, the novely would go.

Also, when performing high speed cornering having a consistant linear power delivery is essential, especially when trying to keep the rear loaded.

If the turbo spooled suddenly giving a spike, I could imagine it being a bitch of a bike to manage.

At the end of the day, you can easily overwhelm current tyres with the engines and bikes available today, so these monsters would be mental.

I'm all for pushing forward technically though, so would like to see it, however i cant see accountants signing projects like this off at the moment.

I'd quite like a turbo on a high revving 600 just because I think the sound would be quite nice, thinking of the noise of an IL4 turbo at 15k?
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Old Bikes: Suzuki Intruder 125 LC - '2001, Honda CBR 600F - '92, Honda CBR 600RR - '03

[Kickstart]

[Robby]

No turbo bikes currently because there is no need. You can have around 200bhp with 200kg without using forced induction, and have predictable power delivery.

They may come along again one day, particularly if there is a moved towards ethanol based fuels with their impressive octane rating.

A few years back one of the bike mags had a feature on a fazer 600 with a supercharger fitted to make similar power to a fazer 1000. He may as well have just bought a fazer 1000, but the 600 with a supercharger is cool.

[phogroian]

Hi, I just found this forum and since I have a few Honda CX turbo models I thought I'd drop in.
Turbocharged bikes may come back but they add weight and expense, and today's sport bikes already have gobs of power.
In the late 70s-early 80s Honda, Kaw, Suzuki, and Yamaha all came out with turbocharged bikes. Most were mildly boosted inline fours, and were good streetfighters. Honda's CX500 and 650 turbos were sport tourers- shaft driven, water cooled, transverse mounted v-twins with fuel injection. My 650TD has fierce power on demand, a reliable on-board computer, gets 50 MPG, and is nice and quiet under boost as it tears up the road. The turbo makes a great sound, too. But it is very heavy and cost twice as much as a normally aspirated bike when it was new.

[Pete.]

Bah - who wouldn't want to do it when it meant you could post pics like this

Gratuitous turbo engine whoring pic supplied
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132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[Frost]

Though there is no real need to turbo most bikes, especially as there is no racing benefit, it seems when compared to turbo diesel cars, bikes might be missing a trick... I know diesel engines are heavier and power to weight ratio is important on bikes, but surely the commuter / tourer market is there? Look at the Goldwing or pan euro, a diesel one would be no heavier really, and with a turbo may produce the same power with a smaller, lighter and more efficient engine too.

[Itchy]

I do like the sound of this one though

https://thekneeslider.com/archives/2008/02/12/rotohak-325hp-twin-turbo-rotary-engine-sidecar/
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[Kickstart]

Hi

A diesel engine with a turbo in a bike really doesn't appeal in the slightest! Still got lag issues and weigh a lot more, plus a very hot turbo to try and keep away from those touring. You would need about the same capacity engine but a lot stronger (and heavier) for about the same performance. Added to which you need half a ton of sound deadening to reduce the noise of a washing machine full of rusty spanners (at least the car is already insulated from outside noises).

And with a bike, winding the throttle open after running slowly for a while with the resulting massive cloud of soot is going to result in a load of it being sucked forward and covering the rider and passenger.

Main reason diesels make much financial sense is that the fuel is treated advantageously for tax (ie, it is taxed on volume at the same rate as petrol rather than on energy value).

All the best

Keith
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