Aussie Stoner draws first blood in MotoGP 2007

Ducati's Casey Stoner holds off Yamaha's Valentino Rossi to record his
first-ever MotoGP win at the season opener in Qatar.

http://tinyurl.com/22cld6

 

Are there any known reasons why the Ducati engine is so good? The BBC
commentators mentioned the Desmo valve system several times. But if it
was just the Desmo system itself, the patent on that must be long gone
and the other teams could just duplicate it. Unless the real benefits
of the desmo valve system are dependent on more recent refinements,
which are still secret.

Or is it that the Ducati engine is just a good design and well refined
all round?

 

I think that's correct, but I also think that friction plays a big
part. When you have a mechanical return spring, you eat up a LOT of
power rubbing the cam lobe across the valve tappet due to the high
spring rate required of the return spring. There's almost none of
that with a Desmo design as the return springs are extremely light and
not really used as return springs. I'm sure there's added friction
elsewhere, though.

On top of the friction, you eat up a lot of power simply compressing
the spring as there's always some loss in the compression/expansion
process due to historesis.

 

On Mar 13, 2:13 am, ""

Because its MADE IN ITALY......

 

hence the question

 

Now THAT hurt...

Julian presents a lot of "reasonble analysis", but if you look
closely, there tend to be weaknesses in much of what he says. For
instance, recently he said, "Ducati apparently do a lot of wind tunnel
testing (through their mates in the car world)", favorably comparing
them to Honda and Yanaha in this regard, yet in the same post he said,
"On any machine built for speed the rear aerodynamics
are much more important than the front. But many years ago the FIM
severely limited what you can do at the back. this has led M/C design
well away from anything remotely efficient and we see a nice smooth
dolphin front with nothing behind it as looking right. When from an
engineering point of view it's about as affective as a brick." Now
those notions don't sit well together to me. He also said, "By
contrast Honda seem to have gone for minimising frontal area and
aerodynamics can go hang. I also think they've left the sides of the
engine uncovered to try and lose heat. The lower part of the fairing
is not really a fairing at all but more like a radiator shroud." Now
that seems an obvious overstatement to me, as well as clashing some
with his general statement on aerodynamics. Finally he says, "the
Yamaha is also neither one thing or the other on aerodynamics. Big
enough to cover the comparatively lanky Rossi and Edwards but not very
efficient." Here he's willing to talk about bidywork relative to
riders, something he steadfastly stays away from on the Honda,
assumedly because he doesn't want to be seen to be accepting the
notion of the 212 being a Dani-bike that penalizes Hayden.

Regarding the motors, the reality is that Ducati has had the most
powerful motors in MotoGP since they arrived. It seems likely that
their desmodromics have something to do with it, allowing for
acceptable flow with very oversquare motors running at very high revs.
So why don't the Japanese do it this way? Well, can you see them
copying Ducati, showing they don't have a better way? What does that
say abouit their engineering from a marketing standpoint?

Regarding my R&D point, Yamaha did use five valves in both their
streetbikes for years and their original M1 (I believe), and now
they've abandoned that. The five-cylinder 211 really doesn't matter
regarding the street stuff, it's just another cylinder and gave them a
competitive advantage ans well as a unique approach appealing to the
Honda sensibility (think 3-cylinder NS500 and single-crank NSR500).
The 212 uses a V configuration, which they don't use in their street
hypersport stuff. But making valve springs work at very high revs does
have an application to furture street technology and there are reasons
that they'd want to work this problem, rather than resorting to
pneumatics like Suzuki. Same goes for all the electronics they've all
been pursuing with a vengeance. It's easy stuff to sell to the
internal budget guys.

Consumed with winning? Is that why they allow guys race their bikes
who are selected by sponsors eying only nationality? They want to win,
of course, but not to the exclusion of all else. Marketing is also
vitally important, and often clashes with just winning. So does R&D,
which is also very important. There's a balance on all three of these
things, and I think valve springs on the Honda and Yamaha is driven by
R&D and marketing, with winning taking a back seat. But that's just a
guess. Suzuki seems to be doing what they're doing because they are
tired of losing badly and see that as a marketing disaster, so an
inline-based company runs a V4 with pneumatic valves - and employ
American and Australian riders. Just win, baby.

And I have nothing against Ducati, btw, although I also don't cheer
them as an underdog. Someone here suggested that they do what they do
with a lower budget than anyone else, and I think that's wrong. I've
read that Kawasaki's GP racing budget is much less than Ducati's
(pumped up by big Marlboro bucks), and probably Suzuki's as well. This
isn't David vs. Goliath...