V3 engined bikes?

[Moxey]

Was just musing the other day as to why this engine configuration isn't used more often in motorcycles, what with the 'relatively' fresh ideas coming from Yamaha of late and the frequent discussion of stagnation in bike design.

The only example of such I know is the NS 400R (was talking to somebody who had one of these in the mid 90's, hence it coming to mind), so why did the idea not flourish or expand into 4 stroke design? I'm having a rough guess of a mixture to do with technical limitations of such (performance & balance) along with cost effectiveness (why build a V3 for the cost a of a V4 or a IL4). Still would have been more interesting to see Honda (or any manufacturer) do a V3 500 or something rather than say that Vultus thing they just released .
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Current: 02 FZS 1000 & 51 Moto Guzzi California Some Bike Pics...
'I was too busy paying attention to pay attention'

[Northern Monkey]

[Scythe]

3 cylinders require balancer shafts to balance out the secondary forces of the crankshaft. Producing a V3 will probably have no advantages, but make it even heavier, and difficult to package compared to an inline 3.
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2009 Yamaha YBR125 -> 2000 SV650S -> 2005 Kawasaki ZX6R 636

[Moxey]

What I was thinking, no gain for a lot of expense, would pretty much work out as an engineering exercise and manufacturers haven't done much like that since the 80's (i.e. Honda NR), the lack of pointless but ingenious engineering nowadays from major manufacturers is a shame.

Still Allen Millyard or other back garden shed engineer may surprise one day.
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Current: 02 FZS 1000 & 51 Moto Guzzi California Some Bike Pics...
'I was too busy paying attention to pay attention'

[Scythe]

[MarJay]

Bear in mind that Two strokes have their own set of problems meaning that an inline four is more difficult to make than on a four stroke. Exhaust routing, port positioning and intake alignment are more complex on a two stroke.

With a V3 you've got at least two heads, two different castings for barrels and you've got an 'interesting' crank design with a weird balance. It's a hard engineering problem to solve. A two stroke is kind of worth it, but a four stroke V3 would be vibey and pretty pointless.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[weasley]

[331X2]

That's the coolest looking engine I've seen in years!

[27cows]

The NS500 motor was an absolute beast. Always loved the eccentric nature of this configuration. Kind of ironic that Honda produced a radical design that knocked Yam off their perch considering their previous reluctance to embrace the 2 stroke.
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The RXS100: vehicle of choice for Chuck Norris

[Kickstart]

Hi

There was also a Laverda V3 2 stroke in the mid 1980s that got a long way towards being launched.

Can't think of any 4 stroke V3 bikes. Not sure any major advantages (suppose a very narrow angle V3 could be produced to have a slightly narrower engine). But expensive to manufacture, probably fairly heavy and no real advantages.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[27cows]

But for ridiculous emissions regs, limits on the number of gears, cylinders, plugs etc...we'd probably be seeing 19 speed V32 500cc 2T race bikes with 3 spark heads and 580bhp by now.
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The RXS100: vehicle of choice for Chuck Norris

[Philly46]

Proton KR3?

https://riviere67.free.fr/Championnes/KR/proton_macw.JPG
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