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Our Belgian friends at MaxxMoto continue to have the pulse on the upcoming Ducati V4 Superbike, posting today what appears to be th first sounds of the four-cylinder machine as it’s being ridden around a test track.

The sound of the V4 engine can be clearly distinguished from that of Ducati’s v-twin platform, with the bike sounding very similar to the Aprilia RSV4 – a nod that Ducati will be using a “big bang” or “long bang” cylinder firing order, rather than a “screamer” or “twin pulse” arrangement.

We do know that Ducati’s V4 will be a hybrid design of Superquadro and Desmosedici engine designs, and it will of course feature desmodromic valve technology

We expect to get more details about the V4 superbike’s engine technology at a media event in two weeks’ time (the Thursday before the San Marino GP at the Misano World Circuit), and of course we expect the bike itself to debut at this year’s EICMA show in Milan, Italy.

Until then, keep checking back to Asphalt & Rubber for the latest news on Ducati’s V4 superbike project.

Continuing to build the buzz around its newest sport bike, Kawasaki has sent us a sound clip of the new H2 motorcycle, which the company will debut at the upcoming INTERMOT show.

Team Green has been pretty tight-lipped about the Kawasaki H2, though there have been plenty of clues sprinkled around for us to suss out that it will be a sport bike with a supercharged inline-four engine.

Listening to the provided sound clip seems to confirm our notion that Kawasaki’s new supercharger system is at work.

Ok, so we here at Asphalt & Rubber may sort of have a growing crush on the Pierobon X60R, an Italian-made sport bike that features an 1,078cc air-cooled Ducati v-twin motor that is wrapped around the company’s custom aluminum tube frame.

Your answer to a light air-cooled track weapon, the Pierobon X60R is quite the looker too, and given its power plant pedigree, sight and touch aren’t the only senses it pleases. Check the exhaust note (powered by Termignoni) after the jump.

The KTM Moto3 racer is a thing of beauty, and for bonus points, it comes in two varieties. One is the orange-trellis framed factory-built KTM, which will be campaigned by the three-rider factory team of Sandro Cortese, Danny Kent, and Arthur Sissis for 2012.

The other variety is the one engineered by Kalex Engineering, which features the same 250cc KTM motor as the factory version, but takes the German company’s prowess at chassis design, and uses a twin-spar aluminum frame instead of the factory team’s trellis variant. The venerable Team Aspar is one of the teams signed on to use the Kalex/KTM, and will have riders Alberto Moncayo & Hector Faubel aiming to beat the factory KTM squad at their own game.

With no Americans in Moto3, the entry-level GP series won’t get too much attention here in the US, but the machinery certainly looks pretty good to our eyes. Still clad in carbon fiber for the testing season, the KTM and KTM/Kalex machines are like tiny pieces of motorcycling art.

Though some are lamenting the passing of the two-stroke era, and its unmistakable buzzing sound on the track, we think the newest four-stroke GP class will please motorcycling’s audiophiles. Listen to the KTM Moto3 race bike warm up after the jump, and enjoy some eyecandy.

MV Agusta brought out its new three-cylinder sportbike, the 2012 MV Agusta F3, to its annual international gathering of owners and enthusiasts, and as you would expect in this digital age, the cameraphones and video cameras were in full-swing as it rolled out of the truck. The F3’s design was clearly not complete in-time for the 18th annual gathering, as parts of the bike noticeably looked un-finished or were inoperable (there are no turn signals in the mirrors for instance, and we hear the LED tail light didn’t work).

But that all matters for not, as what we really want is to hear that triple purr, and these videos don’t disappoint in that regard. If anything actually, the MV Agusta F3 sounds subdued, likely because of noise and emissions standards in the EU becoming more and more strict. We imagine some aftermarket kit will help put some life into that exhaust note, but we’re sure MV fans will enjoy the silky smooth sound of the MV Agusta’s new three-cylinder lump. Two videos await you after the jump.

The next hot-button issue concerning the EPA and motorcycles is not gas and particle pollution like you might expect, but instead simply noise. There’s always been a battle between the straight-pipe running motorcycle contingency (you know who you are), whose loud pipes have been an earsore for both regular citizens and motorcyclists alike. With the EPA cracking down at a federal level, and states like California adopting similar provisions, it would seem the day of the straight-pipe are going the way of the dodo, but the issue doesn’t stop there.

Take the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R, the would-be superbike of 2011 (if Kawasaki ever sends us one from the press fleet), which boasted an astonishing 207hp at the crank with ram-air. Motorcycle enthusiasts of the United States were disappointed when the machine arrived on American soil, and learned that the new ZX-10R had been de-tuned to meet EPA standards. Losing roughly 10hp, the presumption was that the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R had failed to meet emission standards, but the reality is that Kawasaki had to de-tune the bike in order to make it quieter.

Shortening the rev range by 750 RPM, Kawasaki basically gamed the system on how the EPA measures sound, which is based off a percentage of the total rev range. Perhaps the first to comply with this new standard, American motorcyclists can look forward to different performance spec-sheets on sport bikes from those found abroad in the soon-to-come future. Of course as is the case with the Kawasaki ZX-10R, bypassing the changes made to meet EPA compliance is a simple matter of modifying the electronics package, and then Bob’s your uncle. However would-be tinkerers may want to think twice, as a new device known as the Noise Snare is set to make its debut on catching overly-loud motor vehicles.

Our poor friends down under are about to get a further crackdown on what can and cannot be done out on the asphalt. The Aussies are set to put into place a series of roadside microphones to crack down on offending and unrestricted exhaust pipes. Similar murmurs are also being made back on the Queen’s Island. 

The fully automated systems have been in development for the last three years and are now set to be rolled out in several states and territories down under. According to a report in Australia’s The Newspaper, the camera-based system utilises a set of microphones to record noise levels and, when the set threshold is exceeded, a ten second video is stored and a ticket automatically generated. Apparently the machine can hold data for up to 10,000 tickets before it needs to be reset.

Source: PistonHeads via RSVzone

There are rumors that soon even thinking about a wheelie will be illegal. Ok, George Orwell…you win.