forgotten Engineering

[ruck bodgers]

so we all know that technological advancements in engineering are a legacy .
progressive ideas built on ideas .
but in this process sometimes ideas and formulas are lost
my concern is that sometimes u get it rite first time

so my qeustion for you all is

what old inovations from old bikes that have been long forgotten or
left redundant would you like to see brought back or built on

it can be anything from fuel systems to suspension


https://www.MyspaceImageCodes.net/images/89660ariel-square-four-1938.jpg

[MarJay]

No one knows how to make a carburetted two stroke bike any more, and that is quite sad really.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F; Cheap project: CBR900RR FireBlade
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[stinkwheel]

Split single 2-strokes.

More bikes could have quick-detach rear wheels. They are still made but not many of them.

Enclosed final drive chains.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Moo.]

Dont really see pushrods much now, yet they wear better then camshafts/chain :o
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A2 Passed 18/6/10

[Paulington]

[HD]

I know I'm young but I love the sound of gear driven cams

Seems little/none around apart from older bikes.

And agreeing with Paulington, having newer 250/400cc bikes would open up the lower end of the market for us youngsters looking for after-test bikes.

Although very few would actually buy new so it would take a few years for the brand new bikes to become a bit more popular.

But like I said, only young so don't know what I've missed
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Rusty '02 Vito Camper + CBR600F3

[pepperami]

I cant think what it`s called but Scott-Squirrel did a slim crank on thier two-strokes, meaning a slimmer/smaller engine for the usual power output or more cc`s & ports in the same space a standard engine would fit into

I dont know about forgotten enginering, but missed opportunities are the as well.
Lambretta were working on a fuel injected two-stroke and from the few reports that did get out, it was very good and met emission regs
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[pepperami]

[The Shaggy D.A.]

Kickstarts.
Battery bypass switch.
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Chances are quite high you are not in my Monkeysphere, and I don't care about you. Don't take it personally.
Currently : Royal Enfield 350 Meteor
Previously : CB100N > CB250RS > XJ900F > GT550 > GPZ750R/1000RX > AJS M16 > R100RT > Bullet 500 > CB500 > LS650P > Bullet Electra X & YBR125 > Bullet 350 "Superstar" & YBR125 Custom > Royal Enfield Classic 500 Despatch Limited Edition (28 of 200) & CB Two-Fifty Nighthawk > ER5

[Stelmer]

I'd like to add the Oil Pressure Gauge. They're such a simple but very indicator of engine condition. I wish my bike had one.

[Ariel Badger]

Move on with the times people!
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Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[Paulington]

[Rogerborg]

Liking my belt drive, not really looking forward to going back to one of those oily rattly rusty stretchy chainy things.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[Quornholio]

https://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery%20B/Bimota%20Tesi%203D%20Concept%20%201.jpg

[MaybeGuy]

REAL sports 400s
IL4 engines with tappets
Bikes without catalytic converters/emissions bullshit
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Blue_SV650S wrote: it was a sh1te wheelie, but it proves that he can get it up in 3rd and can do angles. In summery, mattsprattuk is a gobby little sh1tebag, dopehead tw4t, but sadly for all of us, he probably isn't THAT full of sh1te!!
Kickstart wrote: Hi I tend to agree with Matt. All the best Keith

[Fisty]

Carbs. This injection malarky is far too fickle.
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Quietly and consistently taking the piss.
TL1000R | Hayabusa | ZXR400 | TL1000S | Bandit 400 V
Fatter and faster than Fret

[G]

[neil.]

[G]

[stinkwheel]

[N cee thirty]

[Teflon-Mike]

My Grandad, born in the 1920's & an aprentice Mechanic in the 1940's; used to tell me often "Nothing is 'New'; it just gets re-invented.... Usually by American's who market it well..... Japanese seem to be learning from them rather well!"

And its not far from the truth.

Yamaha's pinicle innovation was the two stroke 'reed-valve', a one-way 'flap valve', which placed between carburettor and crank case, stopped charge sucked in on the up-stroke, beoing squashed back out on the down stroke, hugely increasing the piston ported two-stroke's 'trapping efficiency' and heralding the era of the hi-po 2T.

Yamaha got the 'idea' from the valves they used in thier musical instruments; reed-organs... but it's essentially the 'Atmospheric' or 'automatic' Inlet-Valve used on early four stroke engines, and even there, merely the 'flap-valve' of ancient black-smith's bellows dating back to antiquity!

As a kid, I was given a book called 'Wiered & Wacky Inventions', which was full of old Victorian & Edwardian patent applications; each page had the patent application pictures, and you had to guess what it was, from a few alternatives; turn the page and they told you the right answer, then went on to tell you all about it..... fascinated me.

But, I was nine years old in 1980, when I really started to get 'in' to bikes with more than a 'Trumpton' awareness of the world, and having moved back to my Grandparents, aquired a 'Big-Brother' in the shape of my Uncle; with stacks of 'Motorcycle & Motorcycle Mechanics' magazines.

For ME, these were absolute GOLD. Most bike mags, and particularly these days, do nice reviews of whatever the manufacturers want to 'Launch', try out lots of gadgets and gizmo's and talk about racing or tourting and 'stuff'. Very few of them do propper hands on 'Mechanics'.... Classic mags do, but not the same thing. Motorcycle & Mechanics USED to take NEW bikes to bits, and tell you HOW THEY WORKED..... THAT was the bit that interested ME!

Still does.... taken more motorbikes to bits than I have ever ridden!

BUT.... it was 1980..... the Japanese were going technology CRAZY!

The Workers Co-Op over at Meriden, were still chucking out air cooled, push rod, parallel twins..... as the brit bike industry had for decades.

The Japs, had ONLY just started making 'fours'..... CB750 had been launched barely ten years earlier; Z1 seven previousely; but they were 'headline' models, expensive exotics. The 'every-man' fours, starting with the CB400/4 were barely three years old, and most people rode things like XS650's, twins with the novelty of over-head cam-shaft!

Kawasaki's Z1 offered Double-Overhead Camshafts, and Honda offered the CBX-6 not just with even MORE cylinders, AND double overhead camshafts, but four valves per cylinder!

All this, in the space of a decade... BUT, just as I started reading the magazines.... technology was about to go CRAZY!

Bike I am rebuilding now; 1978 Yamaha DT175MX, the 'first' of the mono-shock bikes.

That particular innovation, a cantalever swing arm, and single shock absorber was not THAT novel... precedents lay in the Vincent, that had a cantilever swing arm, and The Guzzi Falcone, that had a single shicl-absorber, AND cantilever swing arm, though 'upside down' compared to Yamaha arrangement.

But, pioneered on the Works 1973 250 Scrambles bike, it was offered on the 250 & 400 'production' YZ Competition Scramblers; and imedietly on to the 250 & 400 Street-Scramblers, late 1975, early 1976.

The technology was being 'put to the streets' in double time.

But, mono-shock suspension? People muttered about Vincents and Guzzi Falcone's and grumbled that yet again teh Japs were simpluy ripping off european designs, and then muttering that it might be 'allright' on a dirt bike, with big bumps, but on a road bike, you dont NEED lots of suspension.....

1981, Yamaha launched the legendary RD250LC, adding both water cooling AND cantilever mono-shock rear suspension to their market leading 'Sports' 250, following the production GP bikes that ONLY got the cantilever monoshock system in 1978, AFTER the production 'Street-Scramblers'.

It was like the Space Race of the 1960's, in the way that the big four Jap factories vied with each other for technological supremacy.

In 1980, Honda's Flag-Ship 'Sports Bike' was the CB900F... air cooled, double overhead cam, 8-valve inline 'Four' in backbone frame with twinshock suspension, 95bhp and about 135mph top end.

But MOST Honda Riders rode CB400N Super-Dreams, or more likely the 250, and the CX500 still had 'sporting' pretensions!

In the flurry of activity, from then until 1986, we saw, in no particular order, becouse it was so quick, blink and you missed one, and I probably have!

The RD250LC, water-cooling and mono-shock suspension; Kawasaki's GPz series with 'Uni-Track' rising rate multi-link rear suspension, and ultimately the 'Turbo' 750. Honda's Turbo 'Maggot', also gaining 'Pro-Link' multi-link mono-shock suspension; the VF & VT series of Honda V-Twin and V-Four engines, with water-cooling; water jackets suggested would make an 'inline' four already too wide, unmanageably so! Kawasaki's GPZ600 & 900, with box section frames, proving the doubters wrong; Yamaha's FZ750 'Genasis' pioneering the 'spar' frame, and slant four engine, and trying FIVE valves per cylinder! Honda VF's granading, proving the doubters right that they were TOO complicated; resulting in.... 1986! the first 'Jelly Mold' gear driven cam CBR600....

And they were STILL making Triumph Bonavilles in the workers Co-Op in Meriden!

https://www.realclassic.co.uk/bikepix/honda06101603.jpg
CB900F, in 1981, a mate of my Uncle's bought one, and it was simple AWESOME... first 'Super-Bike' I ever got a ride (on the back of) and probably my first experience going over 100mph on or in ANYTHING.

But in barely half a decade, the state of the art had moved on from THAT, to this:

https://www.boldormotorcycles.co.uk/images/HONDA-CBR600F-H.jpg

The real 'Credit' probably ough to go to these two:

https://www.bikez.com/pictures/kawasaki/1984/17141_0_1_2_gpz%20600%20r_www.3029.com.au-gpz600r-.jpg

The GPZ600R, really lifting the bar, proving watercooling need NOT make a bike too heavy or too wide, AND proving a 'large' capacity bike (500's were still considered 'BIG' bikes back then), could not just 'Handle'... (biggest critasism of Jap bikes... "too much power, too little composure!") but handle as well as the 250 & 350 two strokes, that had for a decade been dogging the old 650 twins, offering similar power, without the weight.

https://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic-bikes-2/gpz900r-ninja.jpg

The GPZ900R, 903cc, so it met the minimum displacement for 'Super-Bike' racing, where the 1100's were still 'King of the Hill'... went even further, providing a litre bike that handled too, and need not be relegated to the role of straight line boulivard bike, or 'tourer'.

https://www.yamaha-motor.ch/designcafe/en/Images/FZ750%201985%20sideR%20whitered%20PS%2004_tcm71-243025.jpg

FZ750 deserves mention as well, pioneering the 'spar' frame and slant four engine; though five valve heads probably one bit of technology more than needed.

Original Honda CBR6, gear driven cams, to deflect the doubters that the company could make an engine that didn't self destrict in the valve train.... blended pretty much the best of the best; Yamaha inspired spar frame; Kawasaki inspired In-Line four DOHC, 16v LC engine...

Things have NOT moved very far since!

That bike is twenty five years old, but apart from Fuel Injection, becoming the norm, (Introduced on Kawasaki's brutal Water-Cooled, accross the frame 1300 'six' in 1983, one of the GPz750's, ISTR and I think the Honda Turbo Maggot), 17" wheels becoming the defacto standard, telescopic forks oscilating in which way up should be the 'right' way up; more extensive use of aluminium and other exotic materials; catalytic converters being foist upon us all; and small year on year improvements seeing the bhp per CC ratio increase aproximately 25% on the cutting edge sports models...

The NUMBER of motorcycles now on offer, the range and diversity of styles and specialisms, has increased ENORMOUSELY.... but the technology has actually significantly stagnated.

In 1980.... Cruiser? Race Replica? Tourer? Sorry, WHAT plannet are you on? Its a z750 mate!"

If you want a 'chopper', we can flog you some ape-hangers; Sporyts, well, you could slap some clip ons on it? Tourer? We got soime Rickman paniers round the back!

Closes they got to variation was the 'Factory Custom' or LDT version of the regular street bike, with stepped king & queen seat, higher bars and possibly shorter shocks... more for the american Market, you know!

Now? Well, we have Cruisers, Super Cruisers, Sports-Cruisers; Commuters, Street-Bikes, Muscle Bikes, Naked Sports, Sports, Sports Touring; Super Sports; Competition Trials, Competition MX, Competition Enduro; Street Enduro, Duel-Purpose; Super-Motoard; Adventure-Sport.. [BREATH] and gawd knows what elce..... ALL straight out teh show-room!

But, oh so similar in the technology within them.

The ironic thing about the technology 'bubble' of the early 80's, was that it co-incided with a shift in motorcycling from working mans main means of transport, to become a leisure persuit, but was also in SERIOUSE decline!

The 'cheap' mass produced family car, had, finally, accross Europe, defeated the bike, as a practical means of cheap transport. the 60's 'Youth Culture' had given it a swan-song as a symbol of 'freedom' for commitment free young foilk with more disposeable income to enjoy, but it was all over bar the shouting, as anythinbg but a minority interest persuit.

The UK's 1982 125 Learner-Laws were almost a death knell.... faced with punative regulations, many gave up biking altogether. Many who had enjoyed perpetual L-Plating on a 250 as a way to work, HAVING to take a test, chose to take a car test instead; and 17 year olds, given the choce between a 70mph 125 and an 1100 Escort often chose the car.

ALL that technology, ALL those really exiting motorcycles were being built, at a time when NO-ONE was buying them!

New bike sales plumeted in that period; Honda had had a 50% market share in 1980, and over half the bikes registered for UK roads were under 250cc. and nearly half of them were between 170cc and 250cc, and a third, 50cc mopeds.

Overall, bikes in the 90cc to 125 catagory, pre 1982 was something like 1/6th of all annual motorcycle sales. Post 1982 they expected the 90 to 125 sales figures to rise, as 'learners' that had bought 250's bought 125's instead. In fact.... post '82 125 sales hardly rose above pre 82 figures, by numbers sold. But as a proportion of the market, represented about two fifths.

Ie no more people bought 125's after they became learner legal, than before, but sales of ALL motorcycles fell by more than half! Despite the rush of ever more exiting, ever more exotic machinary....

If you remember that era in biking, were involved in bikes at the time, reading the magazines, looking in the show room windows, going to races or meets... you'll smile fondly and remember how used we got to changes and advances; so much changed so rapidly, we BELIEVED what MCN wrote... becouse so much was 'credible'....

In 1984, Honda said they would not develop another in-line four, they had taken the 'concept'... with lots of Corporate Cock-Swinging, 'THEY' invented to its natural conclusion.... for the NEXT generation of high performance motorcycle, water cooling was essential, to achieve higher power outputs, but also meet noise and emmission regulations.... the V-4 concept was the way forward, as slim as a twin, it need not make the bike undult wide, and with advanced materials (Aluminium) and processes (Thin wall pressure casting) no heavier than an air cooled engine......

Two years later? CBR600! Water cooled, in-line four! And lots of hyperbole about the enclosed bodywork, and advanced frame structure, proving that a 'wide' motorcycle need not be 'unweildy', with yet mnore references to the CB750 'Four' and thier 4 cyl RC race bikes, that THEY proved whey back when....

Meanwhile rumours of resergent British companies were always cropping up; Hesketh being a common one; The Rotary Nortons being yet another, all of them 'never' quite happening, so that in 1989, when we 'heard' that some Builder was going to try and market a 'new' range of Triumphs, NO-ONE believed it!

And, weened on 'change' and technological advance, in weekly bullatins, the lack of design diversity, and change in modern motorcycles IS rather bnoring.....

For those too young to remember, or doing other things, its hard to explain; but we had people like Royce Creasey, making things like the Quasar

https://www.special-classics.com/Archive/bikes/bruce.jpg

Which wasn't just a styling excersize, or concept bike; He had concieved a completely 'novel' front suspsension & steering arrangement, using a spericial bearing so that the wheel could actually 'steer' in the wheel spindle, much like later Bimota Tesi concept, and following a lot of 1920's & 30's innovations, was attempting to not just design but actually make, for paying customers, a veichle that combined advantages of both car and motorcycle, and which performed better than either.... DIDN'T really succeed... but the creativity was there, in products we could BUY!

And I'll mention that bit of biking cheese, David Essex's 'Silver Dream Racer'!

https://cf1.imgobject.com/backdrops/226/4bc97a2e017a3c57fe038226/silver-dream-racer-original.jpg

Released in 1980; Story is rather poor; Nick Freeman, Storeman in London Garage, and weekend Cub-Racer, campagning tired old Suzuki GP500, scraped fairings with Arogant teeth with attitude American, Bruce McBride (looseluy based on Randy Mamola, but composite of rising US racers, of the era) played by Bo-Bridges. Underdog Freeman, hasn't a hope of beating the arogant American on the track, becouse he has a crap bike and needs to work for a living.... only his Brother, an aerospace engineer, has been building a bike..... and when he is killed falling of a dirt bike in a quarrey, his widdow bequeths it to Nick... who teams up with McBrides ex girlfreind, in the love triangle sub plot.... and goes on to 'take on teh world', on this back garden special.... and of course Wins the Silverstone GP.... but crashes and is killed on the wind down lap.....

Bo Bridges, is an excellent actor in almost everythinbg he has done; and looking back on the film, the way he played the 'American Ass-Hole', was very very good, it really did encapsulate the early Mamola, Lawson and Co riders coming over for the Trans-Am superbike races each easter!

But real star was THE BIKE..... supposedly 'revolutionary' becouse of a Carbon Fibre Frame.

This sinspred me as a youngster.... Carbon Fibre is everywhere now, but back then, could have been 'invented' for the film, for all most of us knew of the stuff!

Incredibly though; it was in use on aircraft, but the real technology behind it was 'honey-comb' micro-section. Bit like corragated card-board; but you know that a beam's strength comes from how 'thick' it is, more than how strong the metal is, Right? Well, in THEORY, you could make a 9" girder from baco-foil, and it would have the same 'structural stiffness' as 1/2" steel... at least in bending... trouble is it would twist fold up and tear at the first hint of twisting....

BUT micro-section honey-comb, was just that, basically baco-foil or incredibly thing sections of Carbon fibre, formed into honey-comb tube sections to help stiffen each other in torsion, but INCREDIBLY stiff in bending, and stunningly light weight.

Stuff was only 'just' being pioneered in open wheeler racing car construction, YET at the time the film was made Honda were experimenting with it for the NR oval piston 4-stroke GP bikes, and many others were trying to construct frames from it.

Heron Suzuki were the most advanced, constructing aluminium honeycomb frames for RG Square four engines, but not quite getting as far as skinning them in Carbon.

Thier Italian partners, Galini, though had a carbon fibre over aluminium, ready for I think the 1983 season, for the 'new' Suzuki V4, before Suzuki decided not to release it to 'privateers'... so they took it to Cagiva.... whre about five years later, evolved to carbon over carbon, it was the frame Randy Maomola battled against the engine it was supposed to have, in Schwantz fabrictaed Aluminium V4.....

Curiousely UK ordinance manufacturer Armstrong had a full Carbon over carbon framed 250 GP bike up and running by 1984, but lackj of funding stopped them campagning it internationally, and they ended up selling their motorcycle manufacturing operation back to Clews (CCM) who they had bought it from, selling rights to the military MT350/500 that had bought CCM out for to Harley Davidson.

That frame I believe became the Higera Rotax, available to house Rotax tandem twins for GP priveteers, or more often the belt drive OHC Single used ion the MT500, for Singles racing.

The technology in that bike was FAR from 'science fiction' it was actuall science fact!

Idea that some boffin in his back yard could take on and beat the world, was far fetched.... yet, in the poress at that time, were lots of sheddologists coming up with ideas of that sort.

Back to that Yamaha DT and its cantilever monoshock rear suspension; THAT was a Dutch Shedologists design! Suzuki's Full Floater, was another from an american Dirt Rider. BMW's 'tele-lever' front suspension is yet another.

One that sporings to mind was the 'Exactweld' a quad carb, quad disc valved tandem two stroke 250 based on the Rotax engine, built by a couple of broithers in thier Dad's cylinder boring workshop!

And of course we get ultimately, barely ten years later to the completely 'Scratch-Built' Carbon Fibre 'Britten'

https://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery/Britten%20V1000-1995.jpg

Sometimes fact IS stranger than fiction.....

Yes, the age of discovery does seem to have been some-what forgotten......

BUT, like my Grandad always said; "Nothing is 'New'; it just gets re-invented.... "

The dogma of the modern industry, the lack of daring; the reliance on staid, tried and tested principles... all very reminiscent of the era of the Brit-Twin......

Maybe something will come out of CHINA to shake them all up a bit again, and we'll have a new renaisence in Motorcycle Design, and again see all these 'new' old ideas re-invented.....

Like TWO STROKES
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[Teflon-Mike]

[Redoko]

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"Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing."
Sudika Sportsman SK50QT > Gilera DNA50 > Honda CBR125 RW7 > Kawasaki Zephyr750 > Suzuki GSXR600 > Honda Hornet CB600F '51

[Charlie]

I enjoyed reading what Teflon-Mike posted. Sent a link to my Dad and he said that he really enjoyed it too.

Thank you for posting that Mike
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Past: Honda x8rs, Honda City fly, Honda Hornet 250, Honda VFR750, Yamaha xt600e.
Current: Honda CBR929RR & Yamaha XT660Z Tenere