The Magic of Moto3?

[bestfit]

It appears likely that the 125s will be replaced 250cc single cylinder 4 dtrokes from 2012. Story Here

Unlike Moto2 there will be no single engine supplier, allowing manufacturers to develope there own engines.

I think the writing was on the wall that this move was coming. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. I love the 125cc class but 4 strokes are the way ahead if they are to be a true feeder class to Moto2 and then MotoGP.

Thoughts?

[jhansen]

So are these like Moriwaki MD250's? Or faster?

[Gerrit]

Once again, it shows how much Dorna/Ezpeleta will do to please Honda. Last year there was an article in "Motor Sport Aktuell" about a Honda patent describing a 250 GP four-stroke single. Now, it is suddenly "necessary" to kick the 125s out. It also proves once again just how much (or rather how little) Ezpeleta's word is worth- when KTM were considering entering the 250 class, Ezpeleta guaranteed them that the 250 class would remain as it was until at least 2012, and probably remain unchanged after that. Similarly, Ezpeleta saw no need to consider a change to 125s before 2015, if at all. On the strength of this guarantee, KTM decided to invest in a 250- only to have Ezpeleta suddenly pull the rug from under the 250s, and replaced with (guess what) a Honda engines only four-stroke class. Small wonder that KTM were so annoyed that they immediately withdrew from both 125 and 250.
A small series of special 250 four-stroke singles costing no more than 10,000 Euros each? Dream on. No manufacturer can make such engines unless they absorb much of the cost themselves- meaning only one or two manufacturers will actually be interested in supplying such engines. And as noted above, Honda has already patented a design LAST YEAR- I wonder why?
As Harald Bartol said, "Those in power simply don't like two-strokes." Oh well, with live broadcasting of the GP races having pretty much disappeared, I can find something else to interest me. The past decade has seen Dorna pretty much destroy GP racing, with costs spiralling out of control thanks to the appearance of four-strokes. But has the RACING improved? Hardly- and replacing the 125s won't improve the racing either.

[ghinzani]

I thought the engines would be open to all not spec? Dont quote me on that though.

[bestfit]

Originally Posted by ghinzani

I thought the engines would be open to all not spec? Dont quote me on that though.

That is my understanding. There will be no single supplier. Teams are free to use the engine of their choice as long as it the regs.

[jhansen]

Yes, that was in the Dorna release. No spec engine.

[chunder]

I get fed up of Bartol moaning to be honest, he has done it for years!! Anyone with that many jobs cant be doing something right, you dont see Burgess moving around that much now do you! He is and always has been a moaner and is only *****ing because he is only a 2 stroke man, he hasnt a clue about 4 strokes compared to most current tuners, so I take little from his comments.

250 4 stroke is superb, theya re basically the direct replacement for 125's in motocross so KTM, the big 4, and a few others can have engines.

I dont know so much about Motocross. DO people like Aprilia, TM, CCM Husqvarna, Husaberg make 250 4 stroke singles aswell?

[Dani Filth]

outside the big jap factories and KTM only TM and Husqvarna have a presence in the MX2-3 classes

[chunder]

Well after doing some research that is fair enough really. Its pretty much the same in teh 1000 and 600 classes as even the Far East people making 600's are using old big 4 cast fofs in their bikes.

I think Honda, Yam, Suzuki and Kawasaki with perhaps KTM is a fair start if that can be got at.

Problem is I am strugglign to imagine those engines pushing out the 50+ bhp a 125 manages!

[jhansen]

There is interest in the States of doing a GP style budget class based on MX250 motors. Mat Mladin was very against it saying that the class would see a lot of blown engines during racing and crazy drafting. My understanding is most of the MX style motors are not designed to run full tilt for long periods of time, such as wide open down a front straight like Catalunya.

[BootsOntheSide]

Would KTM have withdrew from this year's 125cc World Championship if they had been advancing last year? Even Marquez couldn't do much with their bike against the Aprilia onslaught.

125s is in a much stronger position than 250s was, but it's still becoming a single-make series rapidly, and the big difference between 125s and Moto2 could make it harder to graduate to it (note how WSBK riders started replacing 250 guys as a the preference for MotoGP teams when the 500s went).

Moto2 has been a great series - opportunities for great chassis manufactures who'd found modern championships too expensive such as Moriwaki and Suter plus an expansion for Pons and Tech3, and an awesome grid with 19 previous Grand Prix winners. The on track action has been fantastic too, with a real variety of frontrunners. If Moto3 can imitate that, brilliant.

[chunder]

My only real gripe with the new rules is that the engines are too small

As J said in an earlier post a 250 single will not be able to produce similar power to a 125 unless it is stressed beyond belief. A factory 125 is maybe 50 bhp?

A factory 250 two stroke perhaps had 100-110 hp and that was a fairly highly stressed machine when you consider that in 94ish Aprilia/Honda first broke through the 100hp barrier, there is only so much power you can get from a type of engine.

Even a 450 thumper single can only produce perhaps 50-60hp in factory MX, so a 250 single will only be maybe 30?

I just think they should have maybe gone bigger and had rules in place to prevent the Moto3 class becoming a sort of factory Supermono series, its been ndone in 2, so why not 3!

[Gerrit]

In the early 1970s Yamaha pretty much owned 250- nobody suddenly decided a rule change was "necessary" because Yamaha was the only company supplying privateers with competitive machines at the time.
Now, 125 has to go because it's a one-brand class- yet Ezpeleta happily made 600 a Honda engines only class. So according to Ezpeleta's logic, it's quite OK for 600 to be a Honda class, but totally wrong for 125 to be an Aprilia class???
KTM officially withdrew from both 125 and 250 at the end of 2008 in protest against Ezpeleta breaking his word about the future of 250. KTM invested a lot of Euros in developing their 250 on the basis of Ezpeleta's guarantee re the future of 250- no wonder the KTM management were annoyed (to say the least)- I'd have done the same as they did. Marquez was riding what was basically a 2008 bike in 2009. And what's wrong with Bartol being a two-stroke man? So is Witteveen, for example. And Bartol wasn't somebody who was hardly doing something right- KTM's GP wins in both 125 and 250 proved their bikes were competitive until their withdrawal.
Finally, what's the big difference between 125 and 250 versus 125 and the 600s? If anything, the difference between 125s and 250s was bigger, yet nobody complained about the transition being too difficult. Lots of riders moved up quite happily from 125 to 250- Capirossi, Rossi, Melandri, Pedrosa to name but a few. And, despite over double the displacement and some 40 hp extra to play with, the 600s have not broken any 250 lap records anywhere. So the argument of the gap being too big between 125s and 600s is nonsense.
Oh, and I can also quote Witteveen who stated in an interview a few years ago that "HRC decide everything."

[chunder]

the different my man is that 2 strokes are not made by anyone with any impact in motorcycling anymore and much as I love them (probably more than you in fact) theya re outdated, bad from a PR point of view and the lease costs that Aprilia were offering on all their bikes were utterly insasne

You only have to see this year that there are very many levels of Aprilia 125 they grid is spaced out to stupid degrees.

Please remember Honda saved the 125 class in the late 80's and made it what it was. They could have built an NSR125 but they never did.

I grieve for the loss of 2 strokes, but they are simply dinosaurs, MX made the change years go and it has done them no harm.

I agree that Hodna call the shots, but if not them who else? Ducati? Yamaha? KTM? It should be more unified but WSBK is no better with the Aprilia/Ducati manipulation fo the rules to make Biaggi win!

Bartol has always thrown his teddies out. He did it at Yamaha with their 125, then with Derbi and also with the Gilera 2 stroke. Its what he does.

[Gerrit]

Nobody called the lease costs HRC were charging in the early 1990s for an NSR250 insane- even then they were charging over 1 million Swiss francs. Teams happily coughed up. Add inflation for some 18 years and Aprilia's 2 million Euros for the RSW250 does not seem our of line. It's the price of victory.
Four-strokes wil simply multiply those costs, as they have proved ever since the 990s were introduced in 2002. Did they make for BETTER, closer racing? Hardly.

If not Honda calling the shots, who else indeed? Certainly not Dorna/HRC though. As long ago as 2000, the Spanish magazine Il Mondo Deportivo called Dorna "La Mafia Española" and rightly so. The only body that should decide the rules is the FIM- nobody else. Granted, the FIM made its fair share of mistakes in the past, but at least they did their best to act in the interests of the sport as a whole, not in the interests or at the beck and call of just one manufacturer. Sadly, the FIM sold the management of the sport for 30 pieces of silver to an organization that isn't interested in the sport, only in its own pockets.

And if you really think two-strokes are dinosaurs, boys and girls, I suggest you start reading the SAE publications concerning two-stroke development that are still being published each year. Or, take a look at the practical side of two-stroke engine development such as the Skidoo 600 ETEC engine- could be adapted for the 600 class. Be a lot cheaper than running CBR600s too.

[chunder]

Sorry mate but if you think 2 strokes are the future you are very much mistaken! Many factory teams tried to make them clean. HRC spent millions with the EXP2 motocross bike before giving up with it. And Bimoto went bankrupt trying to get fuel injection (the answer to cleaner running 2 strokes) working.

It's called evolution. You may not like it and neither do I, I would much rather be watching and hearing an NSR or V593 howling round Assen, but NOONE makes 2 strokes anymore apart from for the scooter and MX market and even they are moving towards 4 stroke. It's easier to clean up the exhaust gasses and limit the emissions. If you were still largley 2 stroke you would have the EU all over you and motorcycling as a whole would suffer.

AS for the lease costs, HRC were doing this in the 80's to make money pure and simple. In 91 they wanted to limit NSR build but guys like Cornu and HB were coming with open books of fag money to lease them, what are you going to do turn them down! Times were good then, money was easier! Its different now Im afraid.

[Gerrit]

How about this then.......
http://www.hybridcars.com/news/bill-...ine-28242.html

And two-strokes CAN be cleaned up; H@#&a abandoned two-strokes for political reasons- they have always had an anti-two-stroke bias so they can hardly be considered impartial. Even so, I suggest you read SAE papers 960742, 980757 and 2000-01-1836, all by H@#&a R&D Co. Ltd engineers- these deal with Activated Radical Combustion.
Or SAE paper 2003-32-0007 "Optimization of the E-TEC Combustion System for Direct-Injected Two-Stroke Engines Toward 3-Star Emissions" by Bombardier engineers.
SAE paper 2002-01-2758 "Colorado State University Clean Snowmobile Challenge 2002" is another interesting one; a quote: "in summary, the CSU snowmobile has reduced emissions by 99%, reduced fuel consumption by 35%, reduced noise by 8 dBa, and increased overall performance and rideability."

Interestingly, Motobécane achieved significant reductions in fuel consumption and emissions as long ago as the early and mid-1970s with their direct-injection engines. They even ran some of their 350 two-stroke triples with direct injection, using the Bosch L-Jetronic system (the 500 triple with direct injection that Motobécane exhibited at the 1973 Paris show was actually one of their direct-injected 350 triple prototypes with "500" emblems on the sidecovers). Unfortunately Motobécane went belly-up before their injected triples were ready. Yamaha took over the remains of Motobécane in 1981, but strangely never made use of Motobécane's work, though they did equip the 1983 RZ350 with catalytic converters for the US market.
The Bimota V-Due failed for several reasons, the injection system being only one part of the problems. It was Bimota's first engine design and it was rushed into production before being sorted. There is, however, a French outfit that rebuilds the engine, modifying the lubrication system (eliminating the design faults) and adds a better engine management computer and injectors, achieving what Bimota originally intended. In short, it was Bimota's execution which was at fault, not the concept.
As for having the EU over you if you were still largely two-stroke, the EU don't care what engine type you use, as long as it can meet emission targets. They even partly funded the ELEVATE two-stroke car engine project, see SAE papers 2000-01-1899 and 2003-01-0403 for instance, also involving Lotus Engineering and QUB among others.

In short, there is no technical reason to ban two-strokes at all. Racing should allow ALL engine types- two-stroke, four-stroke, Wankel or other- to be used and developed. Under Dorna, the rules have been drawn up to suit the views/wishes of one manufacturer- and this will remain so until Dorna is removed.

[chunder]

Mate, you can keep banging your head against the wall as much as you like but the bg 4 are never going to make 2 strokes again, simple as.

You can blame Dorna and Honda as much as you like, but they are NEVER going to change the way they build bikes and market them to the public.

2 strokes have a bad image, even if it ccan be proed theay can be made clean.

I am with you, I prefer strokers, I am from that era, but move on, everyone else has.