Talking to Lee Conn when Motus was on its US tour here in California, the Motus founder revealed that part of Motus’s business plan incorporates selling the Katech-designed KMV4 motor as a crate motor for enthusiasts and tuners. Though the Motus MST motorcycles will be using a 1,645cc 160+ hp version of the gasoline direct injection (GDI) motor, Katech and Motus have left plenty of beef to the KMV4’s cyclinder housings, allowing the V4 lump to be bored out to a 2L displacement.
Motus owners are of course being encouraged by Motus’s compact pushrod design to hotrod their bikes as they see fit (Motus is hoping that the KMV4’s roots to the muscle car movement will encourage a market of tuners and enthusiasts around the MST & MST-R). This flexibility and upgradability also makes the KMV4 adaptable to a variety of applications, and accordingly Motus will sell the V4 motor separately as a crate motor option, allowing hobbyists and shops to build virtually anything they want with powerplant (we’ve heard rumors of a KMV4 dune buggy already terrorizing off-road courses).
Experiencing the KMV4 first-hand in the Mountains above Redwood City, Katech’s work has that visceral sound you’d expect to hear from something that is over a liter and a half in displacement. The jusxtposition of the “antiquated” pushrod design with new technologies like GDI takes some time to wrap your head around, but in regards to horsepower & physical footprint, the KMV4 is about one of the most potent packages one can find. Time will tell if the crate motor side of the business gains traction, but the one thing that is for certain is that if you don’t like the MST as a motorcycle, you have all the tools you need to make your own 1,645cc-2,000cc V4 motorcycle.
Source: Motus
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