best classic jap

"The Older Gentleman" wrote

Big deal, yank bikes in the 20's & 30 built multi cyclinder inline engines,
true inline as to the transverse engines your talking about.

Norton & Triumph used manually controlled exhaust butterfly valves at the TT
in the 50's and early 60's

As I said, nothing original from Japan.

 

Said Mr Kettle to Mr. Pot!

 

The earliest four cylinder (inline) seems to have been the FN of IIRC
1904. The earliest known four cylinder machine was the Holden,
designed in 1897 and produced for about four years. While no firm put
an inline six into production there were one or two built in the 1920s
and 30s. Disk valves and resonant exhausts for two strokes, were
largely developed by MZ, though DKW did do some research on exhaust
systems. A lot of later two stroke development was based on the work
of Scott. Separate lubrication including throttle controlled pumps
were first used by Scott and later by Levis and Velocette. Scott
introduced water cooling.

Broadly speaking just about every innovation in motorcycle design was
tried once, failed to sell or work, or was not profitable enough at
the time and was later reintroduced successfully. Velocette used leaf
valves on the Viceroy scooter.

The major advantage the Japanese had was the size of the Home Market
something like a million sales a year. In the UK cheap cars largely
killed of the bread and butter market. Even so I remember one book
listing about half a dozen Japanese motorcycle firms that went bust.

Ken Young

 

And their butterfly valves were on two-strokes, were they? You really
*do* talk amazing bollocks.

 

Champ says...

You've not seen the pic of me taken in 1984 then?

 

says...

It may not have been original, but it was well made and reliable. Not
something that could be said of any offering from Britain.

 

Yes, and they all seized horribly on the rear cylinders. Stunning
design, not.

 

Wasn't that developed at Queen's Uni, Belfats?

 

Not AFAIK. Yamaha original, I thought.

Google suggests that several tech tems there make EXUP-type systems for
four strokes, though.

 

Thus spake Champ unto the assembled multitudes:

A mate of mine bought an XS750 when it first came out. Weeks after buying
it the gearbox locked up while on a trip to Cornwall.

I thought it was a handsome-looking bike, mind. I was quite tempted to
get one myself, but quickly changed my mind after my mate's experiences.

 

I owned one briefly. Handled surprisingly wel, and the torquey engine
was a delight to ride. Enormously heavy though. Really, really very
heavy indeed.

 

The essence (or lack therof) CBX, followed closely by YDS-1, followed
closely by XS 650,GPZ 550, 400-4, RD 400, S-90, Kawa H1-2, Katana, the
X-6, Lilacs, BS175s, and my favorite, the Hawk/Super Hawk (in no
particular order).

 

Istr that one of the QUB blokes developed a 2T power system for one of
the big Jap makers, but it was under contract and he didn't get any
kudos for it publically. Whether it was the PVS or otherwise, I don't
know for sure. It's not as if the maker stole the idea, he and the uni
were paid for it.

 

RT fumbled, fiddled and fingered:

I'll give you something original from Japanese bikes compared to the
shite old Brit stuff...

Reliability, day to day, get on it in any weather and it'll start,
perform and get you to your destination. It won't piss oil everywhere,
it won't rattle itself to oblivion, it'll accept loads of abuse and
mistreatment.

I for one could'nt give a flying **** if anythings left to invent, what
I do care about is that they take stuff that eluded British
manufacturers for years, stuff that they could never get to work, but
the Japs take it as a concept and get it to work in excess of the
wildest dreams of the former UK bike industry.

Norton ... shite
Triumph ... shite (I'm talking of the old Triumph here not Mr Bloors
revamp)
and any other shite old Brit manufacturer that went pop 'cos they could
stand the economic reality that their products were utter crap.


--
Steve Parry
K100RS SE & F650
and a 520i SE Touring for comfort

(not forgetting the SK90PY)

http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk

 

Grimly Curmudgeon fumbled, fiddled and fingered:

No that was the reed valve "torque induction system" by Professor Blair
(I think) ... BSA told him to piss off cos they were'nt interested in it
.... Yamaha gave him big hugs and the rest is history .....

--
Steve Parry
K100RS SE & F650
and a 520i SE Touring for comfort

(not forgetting the SK90PY)

http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Steve Parry

Ah! But how many of the wily little yellow fuckers ended up with a
gold-plated Daimler? Eh? Eh? Answer me *that*!

Couldn't afford one, could they? Frittering all their money away on R&D
and quality! And just look where *that's* got them!

Err... Hang on...

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Manufacturer of the "Champion-105" range of rearsets
and Ducati Race Engineer.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel says...

I think sir needs to read this again:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.rec.motorcycles/browse_frm/thread/f
ef63da8e21b1bc0/801a87ad47bf5b87?hl=en&lr=&rnum=6&prev=/groups%3Fq%
3Dblue%2Bdanube%2Bgroup:uk.rec.motorcycles%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26selm%
3Dafeli2%2524jkq%25241%2540newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk%26rnum%3D6#
801a87ad47bf5b87

It always makes me laugh.

 

Yep, that's the bloke.

 

How fking typical of the far-sighted British motorcycle industry.

Didn't MZ develop reed valves in the 50s or 60s for the competition
bikes?