Funny you should mention motorcycle aerodynamics, Thomas. Watch out for the next Insider early next week…

Michael

Thanks for the comments Chris. I landed in NZ 1 month after John Britten passed, and then through good fortune, and a fantastic wife, and great mentor-ship, followed somewhat in his footsteps by building my own 1200 cc turbocharged, intercooled, injected liquid cooled 90 degree V-Twin for a snowmobile (from Alberta…Mountains calling!). 2000 hours, pattern making, machining, designing and engineering resulted in a couple of fantastic bangs of combustion. Too bad the last one was fatal. Never got back to it, but still have all the parts. Family is now in the way, but the mind is still running at 110%.

I have held all of the #7, 9, and 10 Britten’s in my hands before completion, and when building my engine I talked to Lenco who built the original Britten engine in the pictured bike at the beginning of the article. Very cool, but decided to build my own. Met the guy who designed the first 3 Jag XJ220 engines (V12, V8, TTV6), with all the blown up bits in his shop (as well as a few turbo NSX engines for testing) to prove it. All that exposure took me to designing a governor controlled VVT system for a Ducati 2V/4V twin based upon the 900 series engines. No production history due to many factors…Had a hoot, but family has taken precedent.

Now the mind (and my SolidWorks is working) on a Tularis type bike based on a 916 chassis and a Rotax 800 twin, that is designed for 375lbs and 165hp. Should be a giggle, but have a bit more work yet. Someday…

Cheers,

Mike

Thanks Mike for your comments. I shall indeed keep going. This time around I will not be held back. The GSA ‘red label’ engine is a beautiful little thing. All aluminum, and well balanced. As we come to the end of the internal combustion engine’s development we are left with just a very few left-over air-cooled car engines from the past that fit the motorcyclist’s bill. The GSA engine was installed in a motorcycle, the BFG, but was short lived because it was not (in my view) correctly developed. But here is a gem of a motor waiting for a modern frame and running gear. Wheelbase should be kept short of course. It will need four injector TB’s, lots of porting and cam work, plus a four into two into one tuned length exhaust system, which I already have the pipes for. And it can already rev right out of the box at an easy 8,000 rpm. If I can get it to work it will be less brutal than the Quad Four, and thus more a biker’s kind of sport bike. I shall keep going on the project. Have a look at ‘Nessie’ by the way. The ideas behind it were phenomenal and the two gentlemen who started it were at the cutting edge in their time. The Laverda 180 degree triple was perfect for the job and hurled the beast forward. Great engineering.

Chris

Chris

I wasn’t familiar with either your Oldmobile engined project, or that Laverda (which being a long time Laverdista makes me a little ashamed). Thanks for sharing.

Your project is pretty impressive, especially given the dimensions and weight figures mentioned. I am not, however, surprised that you found no takers on the finance front. I am sorry to say that is not uniquely Canadian. In the US, UK and everywhere else people are not ready to invest in low volume motorcycle companies, not even ones with tremendous publicity or polish.

But keep going! It is such a worthy endeavor.

M

Hi Mike.

Good observations. And a great article. I tried something different, here in Canada, and it made its way onto KneeSlider. It was the 2300 cc Oldsmobile Quad Four motorcycle I began building some years ago. I got places with it alright, but money became a major worry. Bang your head against a wall, why don’t you. It can happen in the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, but not here. Maybe its the climate, or maybe its just that Canadians don’t want the bother. Anyway, I am busy building another bike right now, using a French boxer four cylinder 1300 cc ohc engine. This time I am doing it for the sheer joy of doing it, and the hell with any opinions – from banks, financial advisors, sceptics, scoffers, and so on. If it works, good. If not, I will have tried once again and with a lot more direct experience to back it up. I will continue (to some extent) from where the Brit Laverda-powered ‘Nessie’ left off. An excellent starting point in my view. Prototype 2 is a supersport bike, once again.

Chris