History repeating in BSB
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History repeating in BSB Julian Bond 05-19-2008
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Posted by Julian Bond on May 19, 2008, 2:34 am
- The teams agree to supersports level engine tune in SBK which means
stock conrods and pistons
- Ducati asks for kit rods and pistons to be competitive, the other
teams refuse
- The Ducatis are down on top end and equal on acceleration while the
Suzuki is the fastest bike out there. The lead Ducati is being ridden
well with no screwups and that as much as anything is why it's leading
the championship by a country mile.
- Yamaha and Suzuki have engine failures
- The teams demand kit pistons and rods "for safety reasons".

This is almost exactly what happened at the start of the 1000-4 era when
Suzuki had a couple of blow-ups after they couldn't handle the revs they
were using to create the fastest bike.

There's a strong whiff of hypocrisy there. But the irony is that despite
the lower engine tuning allowed, the only way to get the engines to
survive is to reduce the engine rebuild interval. At least for the
fours, it might actually be cheaper for them to use more aftermarket
parts.

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ skype:julian.bond?chat
No Bits Of Pulp

Posted by Mark N on May 19, 2008, 10:34 am
Julian Bond wrote:
> - The teams agree to supersports level engine tune in SBK which means
> stock conrods and pistons
> - Ducati asks for kit rods and pistons to be competitive, the other
> teams refuse
> - The Ducatis are down on top end and equal on acceleration while the
> Suzuki is the fastest bike out there. The lead Ducati is being ridden
> well with no screwups and that as much as anything is why it's leading
> the championship by a country mile.
> - Yamaha and Suzuki have engine failures
> - The teams demand kit pistons and rods "for safety reasons".
>
> This is almost exactly what happened at the start of the 1000-4 era when
> Suzuki had a couple of blow-ups after they couldn't handle the revs they
> were using to create the fastest bike.
>
> There's a strong whiff of hypocrisy there. But the irony is that despite
> the lower engine tuning allowed, the only way to get the engines to
> survive is to reduce the engine rebuild interval. At least for the
> fours, it might actually be cheaper for them to use more aftermarket parts.

I don't understand. Ducati sells a $55,000 racing homologation special
and the pistons and rods are crap? SB stock rods and pistons are causing
failures, but they don't fail on SStock machines? Why the difference,
are they revving them further? SStock machines over here seem to survive
SB races just fine. If rods and pistons are the weak link now, what does
that shift to if they allow in aftermarket items?


Posted by Julian Bond on May 19, 2008, 11:58 am
>I don't understand. Ducati sells a $55,000 racing homologation special
>and the pistons and rods are crap? SB stock rods and pistons are
>causing failures, but they don't fail on SStock machines? Why the
>difference, are they revving them further? SStock machines over here
>seem to survive SB races just fine. If rods and pistons are the weak
>link now, what does that shift to if they allow in aftermarket items?

It's not rocket science. BSB SBK allows the same sort of tuning as World
Supersports. So that's aftermarket cams with the same lift but altered
duration along with head work. So a lot of the extra power has to come
from revving the engine further. As the revs rise, the rod and pistons
get marginal. Push it too far or don't rebuild often enough and they
fail. Pay the extra for aftermarket items and you can run a higher rev
ceiling and still get the reliability.

Superstock (throughout the world) allows no engine top end tuning so
there's no gains to be had from over-revving the engine. With the stock
redline, the stock rods and pistons can survive.

Ducati's view was that road going 3 ring pistons (needed for oil control
on a road bike) caused too much friction for a racing engine and would
limit their power. With the restrictions they now have on top end work,
they were down on max power anyway despite the extra capacity. They
wanted 2 ring pistons with more compression to stay competitive on top
speed. They wanted aftermarket rods so they could run more revs without
making rebuild intervals stupidly and expensively short. This is all
further confused by them having intake restrictors in WSB which again
only really affect top end.

Right now the end result in BSB is that the Suzukis are pulling away
from everyone on top speed and from the Ducatis a little under
acceleration. But in the process they've had at least one blow up. Same
with the Yamahas. While the Ducatis are handling better and are more
usable and Shakey Byrne has made no mistakes. The Hondas are somewhere
in the middle.

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ skype:julian.bond?chat
If Unobtainable Press Again

Posted by Andrew on May 19, 2008, 1:37 pm

>>I don't understand. Ducati sells a $55,000 racing homologation special and
>>the pistons and rods are crap? SB stock rods and pistons are causing
>>failures, but they don't fail on SStock machines? Why the difference, are
>>they revving them further? SStock machines over here seem to survive SB
>>races just fine. If rods and pistons are the weak link now, what does that
>>shift to if they allow in aftermarket items?
>
> It's not rocket science. BSB SBK allows the same sort of tuning as World
> Supersports. So that's aftermarket cams with the same lift but altered
> duration along with head work. So a lot of the extra power has to come
> from revving the engine further. As the revs rise, the rod and pistons get
> marginal. Push it too far or don't rebuild often enough and they fail. Pay
> the extra for aftermarket items and you can run a higher rev ceiling and
> still get the reliability.
>
> Superstock (throughout the world) allows no engine top end tuning so
> there's no gains to be had from over-revving the engine. With the stock
> redline, the stock rods and pistons can survive.
>
> Ducati's view was that road going 3 ring pistons (needed for oil control
> on a road bike) caused too much friction for a racing engine and would
> limit their power. With the restrictions they now have on top end work,
> they were down on max power anyway despite the extra capacity. They wanted
> 2 ring pistons with more compression to stay competitive on top speed.
> They wanted aftermarket rods so they could run more revs without making
> rebuild intervals stupidly and expensively short. This is all further
> confused by them having intake restrictors in WSB which again only really
> affect top end.
>
> Right now the end result in BSB is that the Suzukis are pulling away from
> everyone on top speed and from the Ducatis a little under acceleration.
> But in the process they've had at least one blow up. Same with the
> Yamahas. While the Ducatis are handling better and are more usable and
> Shakey Byrne has made no mistakes. The Hondas are somewhere in the middle.
>
> --

Shakey Byrne has made tons of mistakes, he's just been able to overcome
them.
I feel bad for Sykes, that was a big blow up!


--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Kiddo


Posted by Mark N on May 19, 2008, 3:19 pm
Julian Bond wrote:
> Mark N
> >I don't understand. Ducati sells a $55,000 racing homologation special
> >and the pistons and rods are crap? SB stock rods and pistons are
> >causing failures, but they don't fail on SStock machines? Why the
> >difference, are they revving them further? SStock machines over here
> >seem to survive SB races just fine. If rods and pistons are the weak
> >link now, what does that shift to if they allow in aftermarket items?
>
> It's not rocket science. BSB SBK allows the same sort of tuning as World
> Supersports. So that's aftermarket cams with the same lift but altered
> duration along with head work. So a lot of the extra power has to come
> from revving the engine further. As the revs rise, the rod and pistons
> get marginal. Push it too far or don't rebuild often enough and they
> fail. Pay the extra for aftermarket items and you can run a higher rev
> ceiling and still get the reliability.
>
> Superstock (throughout the world) allows no engine top end tuning so
> there's no gains to be had from over-revving the engine. With the stock
> redline, the stock rods and pistons can survive.

So what happens in Supersport? Sounds like world SSp rules have a
fundamental imbalance between top end and bottom end, the head mods
allow a higher revving motor to make more power, but more restrictive
head mods would take care of that problem. And now that's been
transfered over to SB. So it's either a poor set of rules or you have
tuners stressing parts past the breaking point. If the real issue is
too much cost because of too-regular stock parts replacement, then
they need to tackle this at the head, it seems to me.

> Ducati's view was that road going 3 ring pistons (needed for oil control
> on a road bike) caused too much friction for a racing engine and would
> limit their power. With the restrictions they now have on top end work,
> they were down on max power anyway despite the extra capacity. They
> wanted 2 ring pistons with more compression to stay competitive on top
> speed. They wanted aftermarket rods so they could run more revs without
> making rebuild intervals stupidly and expensively short. This is all
> further confused by them having intake restrictors in WSB which again
> only really affect top end.

Sounds like the same problem again, an ill-conceived set of rules
creating an obvious weak link, and a factory wanting that eliminated
with more aftermarket stuff (or factory "unobtainium"?). Sounds like
Ducati is conceding that a twin race homologation special costing a
ridiculous amount can't cut it with just 20% more displacement. Too
bad.

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