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Does the 2013 Honda RC213V Have a 90° V4 Engine?

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The internets are a buzz today with photos from the MotoGP test a Sepang, which seem to suggest that the 2013 Honda RC213V prototype race bike has a 90° V4 engine configuration. The news should certainly come as a surprise for many Ducatisti MotoGP fans, as Ducati Corse’s front-end woes have often been attributed by couch racers to the Italian company’s 90° V4 engine configuration. Seeing how dominant Honda has been at the pre-season testing in Malaysia though, one cannot help but admit that the cylinder configuration is not necessarily to blame for Ducati’s troubles.

Talking to Spanish magazine SoloMoto, HRC boss Shuhei Nakamoto explains that the 90° V4 engine has benefits over the company’s previous 75° engine configuration, namely that the 90° engine doesn’t require a balancing countershaft. Nakamoto-san further explains that because of the balancing shaft’s absence, Honda’s 90° V4 runs with more power, and less vibration that its 75° predecessor, making the engine a formidable enhancement to the RC213V platform.

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Motus V4 Baby Block Gets $10,220 Price Tag

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When American motorcycle upstart Motus Motorcycles first began its undertaking of the Motus MST sport-tourer, the company from Alabama made it clear that its 1,650cc engine would be the centerpiece of the bike’s design. Hoping to build off the tuner culture that developed around push-rod engines in the automotive world, Motus even went as far to say that the Katech-designed KMV4 engine (now without GDI) would be made available as a crate motor for hobbyists.

With the Motus MST nearly ready for public consumption, the American company is making good on its other promise, and has released pricing on its “baby block” engine. At a cool $10,220 of your hard-earned cash, the turnkey 165+ hp V4 motor can be yours (along with the engine’s ECU, ride-by-wire intake, engine harness, and fuse box). A pricy sum for the small peppy engine, pricing on the Motus Baby Block at least puts the $30,000+ price tag of the Motus MST in perspective.

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Bikes

Are You The Honda V4 Street Bike? Probably Not

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This weekend, we reported on an interview that CMG Online did with Dave Hancock, Honda Motor Europe’s Head of Product Planning & Business Development, said that the Honda RC213 (unofficial name) street bike was going to cost £70,000-£80,000 ($110,000 to $125,000), which certainly lit up our comments section with enthusiasts who were hoping for a more affordable model from the Japanese manufacturer.

Today, Japanese tuner magazine Young Machine is reporting to have the first images of the “Honda RCV1” street bike, which is already making its way around the internets as we speak, with various forms of information vetting. Is this our first glimpse at the Honda V4 street bike? Probably not.

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Racing

Honda RC213 V4 Street Bike to Cost $100,000+

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After years of failed rumors about a V5-powered Honda street bike, this year we finally got confirmation that a true MotoGP-inspired machine would become available to the general public. The yet unnamed machine, which many are calling the Honda RC213, will have a 1,000cc V4 motor that will be based off the Honda RC213V MotoGP race bike.

A homologation special that will be produced in just enough quantities to meet WSBK regulations, the Honda RC123 street bike is not to be confused with the production racer variant that will be coming to MotoGP in 2014. That bike, essentially an RC213V without the pneumatic valves, seamless gearbox, and other trick bits, will cost in the neighborhood of €1,000,000 to buy.

However, according to an interview by Costa Mouzouris on CMG Online (a good read, check it out), the V4 street bike will cost significantly less. Talking to Dave Hancock, Honda Motor Europe’s Head of Product Planning & Business Development, the MotoGP “inspired” street bike will run in the neighborhood of £70,000-£80,000 or $110,000 to $125,000.

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Bikes

XXX: Ducati Desmosedici RR

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Before Honda started working on its road-going version of its V4 MotoGP race bike, there was the Ducati Desmosedici RR. A fairly close approximation to its namesake, 1,500 units of the Desmosedici RR were built by the Bologna Brand, with the coup de grâce being the hyperbike’s $72,000 price tag.

Despite its racing pedigree, with a MotoGP World Championship at the hands of Casey Stoner too boot, sales for the Ducati Desmosedici RR were surprisingly sluggish. You can even find a few remaining models still on the showroom floors of some select Ducati dealerships.

Maybe it was the price tag, maybe it was the public’s less-than-adoring relationship with the new MotoGP Champion, or maybe it was the fact that the production-based Ducati Superbike 1098R was said to be faster than the RR around certain tracks (Motorcyclist & MCN). Maybe it was a function of all the above.

However, in our eyes, the Ducati Desmosedici RR remains one of the most drool-worthy sport bikes produced in the past decade — after all, it really is as close as you’re going to get to a road-going GP machine…besides the Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC.

After Ducati completed its production run of the Ducati Desmosedici RR, many began to speculate as to the company’s encore uber-exclusive model. Despite Ducati’s internal belief that the Desmosedici RR was a relative failure as a model (it would be safe to say that Ducati didn’t expect sales of the RR to take nearly as long as they did), as far as halo products go, the Desmosedici RR ticks all the right boxes, and begs for a next-generation.

In many ways, the Ducati 1199 Panigale is the company’s follow-up to the Desmo, and interestingly enough, the Panigale is now also beginning to struggle with sales, admittedly not to the same extent as the RR.

Looking at the photos after the jump, you can see a lot of the Panigale in the Desmosedici, which is of course due to the Ducati 1199 Panigale’s MotoGP-inspired “frameless” chassis design that uses the motor as the basis for the motorcycle’s structure.

Building the headstock/airbox off the forward-facing cylinder head, and the tail/rear-subframe off the rearward cylinder head on the Panigale, we see the same design elements in the Ducati Desmosedici RR, except maybe one or two generations behind the current superbike (Ducati went from a steel trellis design, to a carbon design, to an aluminum design, and now rests on a aluminum perimeter-frame design).

Allowing Ducati to make a ridiculously light motorcycle, the design philosophy holds some serious strong potential. We don’t imagine the thought process on this chassis is over just quite yet, regardless of what is occurring in MotoGP right now, though Ducati Corse certainly has its work cutout for itself in that arena.

Is there a point to all this? Maybe not, beyond something to mull over on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Daydreaming fodder is after the jump.

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Bikes

Honda RC213 Concept by Luca Bar Design

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Our friend Luca Bar has been busy since the last time we showcased his work, and today the young Italian designer brings us his vision of the heavily rumored, and now confirmed, MotoGP-inspired V4 superbike that Honda will bring to market in 2014.

With Honda CEO Takanobu Ito drawing a distinct connection between the upcoming model and the Honda RC30, Bar has obviously chosen to dress his machine in the RC30’s livery, which has recently also made an appearance on this year’s Honda TT Legends machine.

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Honda CEO Confirms V4 Sport Bike Project is Underway

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It has been a long time coming with this announcement, but Honda has finally officially announced that work has begun on what is presumed to be a V4 sport bike. In the same vein as the Honda RC30 that was introduced back in 1987, Honda has apparently seen the light, and according to the company’s own words, the company has started “with a goal to create a new history.”

Announcing the new model in his end-of-the-fiscal year speech, Honda CEO Takanobu Ito was terse with his words in describing the new Honda sport bike, but referencing the RC30 project, along with heavy rumors that we have been hearing about a V4 street bike project in the works that was being based of Honda’s MotoGP program — this almost assures that the bike referenced is a V4 superbike based loosely on the RC213V race bike.

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2014 Suzuki GSV-R Spotted – The Inline-Four Cometh?

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The eagle-eyed camera’s over at Cycle World have caught Suzuki conducting tests for its MotoGP project, and the early indications are that the Japanese brand has dropped its V4 motor configuration in favor of a more traditional transverse inline-four cylinder arrangement — at least for this present stage of testing.

Cycle World‘s sources say that while the cylinder configuration may be fairly standard, the 2014 Suzuki GSV-R is anything but your typical four-pot. Showing the makings of a crossplane crankshaft via the bike’s exhaust routing, it would seem Suzuki has taken a page out of Yamaha YZR-M1‘s playbook, with rideablility being the name of the game. If you are keen for a good read, checkout Kevin Cameron’s article on Cycle World for more pictures and his analysis of what they mean for Suzuki’s MotoGP prototype.

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Suter 500 Factory V4 – Thank You for Smoking

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Asphalt & Rubber is based out of California, so that means smoking is akin to a cardinal sin out here, and on the hierarchy of egregious crimes against humanity, it ranks just slightly under torturing babies with hot pincers (heaven forbid you cause a baby to start smoking).

Smoking indoors in outright verboten virtually everywhere, while puffing some nicotine anywhere outside that is near a restaurant, bar, club, ATM, hospital, pre-school, or tobacco shop is liable to cause a citizen to go murder-death-kill on you John Spartan.

The issue is so pervasive here, that it has even extended beyond cigarettes and into the realm of motorcycling, with The Golden State leading the charge on the banning of two-stroke motorcycles.

We are now purely a “suck, squeeze, bang, blow” society, and while that suits many motorists just fine, there are some who enjoy the smell of pre-mix in the morning — you know who you are.

You enjoy the sound of angry bees following you from apex to off-camber. You think a displacement for “serious riders” starts at around 250cc. You like your engine compression low, and your powerbands narrow. You sir (or madam), are a two-stroke junky, and we have just the fix you need.

Just as MotoGP replaced 500GP, we know see Moto2 & Moto3 replacing the lower two-stroke classes that remained in Grand Prix racing. Leading the charge on this mechanical front are a slew of new companies, most notably the chassis manufacturers, of which Suter is perhaps the most well-regarded.

Making the weapon of choice for Marc Marquez in Moto2 this year, the Swiss company already had a sterling reputation before it went racing at an international level, but the firm’s success in the 2010 Championship exposed it to a whole new world of tw0-wheel performance.

Having a bevy of intriguing two-wheeled projects within its walls, the Swiss bike that catches our eye today is the Suter 500 Factory V4: a two-stroke, 500cc, V4, track weapon that puts out over 200 hp and weighs 284 lbs ready to race — no, that is not a typo.

We’ll let you take a moment before continuing past the jump for more.

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New Ducati Desmosedici GP12 is 90% New Says Preziosi – But Will It Be an L-Four?

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On what typically would be the formal unveiling of Ducati’s next GP race bike, Ducati Corse General Manager Filippo Preziosi stood alone on the stage at Madonna di Campiglio, and instead talked briefly about the “totally new” GP12, while fielding questions from the assembled press. Releasing very little information about the team’s off-season progress, Preziosi shared very few concrete details about the new Ducati Desmosedici GP12 (you could also read that sentence to mean that the assembled press failed to press for more detailed information concerning the GP12…it really could go either way). From what information could be gleaned from Preziosi, we now know that that the new GP12 is comprised of roughly 90% new parts when compared the previous iterations of the MotoGP contender.

Expected visually to look similar the GP12’s of the past, the finalized GP12 will have an aluminum perimeter-style frame, carbon fiber swingarm, and a better balance with the motor placement. Declining to state the angle of the cylinder heads, Preziosi added some more fuel to the fire and speculation that the Ducati Desmosedici GP12 will not have a 90° cylinder arrangement. At the very least, the GP12 will allow for greater adjustment with the engine placement specs, as well as the overall geometry of the motorcycle. This should help Ducati Corse develop the GP12 over the course of the season, and set it up better for each race circuit. However, Preziosi did caution that the team was trying to compress two years worth of R&D into three months, a daunting task to say the least.

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Motus KMV4 Motor Will Be Available as a Crate Motor

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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.

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