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Why not more motorcycle engines?

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Georden

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2006
Messages
165
Location
Calgary, AB Canada
A 1000cc sport bike engine weighs 150lbs dry and produces 170hp. Why not reduce rpms to bring it down to ~125hp and have a package that weighs under 200lbs?

A suzuki 1300cc weighs 20lbs more an gets another 20hp running at a lower rpm for an extra 20lbs. And people modify those to over 500hp, seem like 150hp and ~220 lbs would be doable.

Is it the rpm or packaging issues? Stock motors are used for racing, so they should be fairly durable. Maybe not 2000 hours durable, but they are also cheap to replace. the built in transmission could even be used as a psru.

What issue am I missing?

I know some smaller engines (eg BMW) have been used in lower power applications, but haven't seen the newer high power ones used.
 
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