Australian Motorcycle News May 2015

Let me introduce you... YOU’RE ABOUT TO witness history. Our story on Australian Paul Maloney’s homemade 2000cc V8 production bike is not only the world’s first test ride on the most brilliant piece of two-wheeled engineering ever to come out of this country, but it’s AMCN revealing the bike to the world. For the last seven years, a down-to-earth country bloke has been tinkering away in his small but effi cient shed behind his house to realise a dream. And when you’re a bloke that’s spent the best part of 25 years building engines for MotoGP and world Superbike teams, your dreams are probably going to be a little bigger than the Average Joe’s. For many years Paul Maloney dreamed of building a naturally-aspirated V8 motorcycle that he could produce…

Golden Tid Bit Introduced in 1974 as a one-litre flat four, the Gold Wing has grown into an 1800cc flat six HONDA’S NEXT-GENERATION GOLD WING could ditch conventional front suspension in favour of an unusual leading-link arrangement. This latest patent from Honda certainly suggests it is thinking along those lines. The Japanese patent reveals some of the company’s brightest minds have been working together on new technology for an updated suspension set-up, which appears to incorporate anti-dive. Applying the new design would also allow more flexibility when setting up chassis geometry. The drawings clearly show the set-up attached to an existing Gold Wing, and while that’s unlikely to be representative of the final appearance of the new model, the patent’s text confirms the motorcycle will feature the Gold Wing’s flat-six…

THE CHANCES OF Suzuki's turbocharged Recursion concept reaching production seem to loom larger every issue as Suzuki files more patents which suggest the 2013 show bike is far more than a pipe dream. We’ve already seen how the Recursion’s intercooler is arranged (AMCN Vol 64 No 20), and how it’d need additional front air intakes and alterations to the headlights. New paperwork from Suzuki shows new details of the engine itself. The parallel twin, single-cam, 588cc engine is a long-stroke, low-revving design developed with superbike-crushing torque in mind. Suzuki claim 74kW of power at 8000rpm and 100Nm of torque at just 4500rpm. By pursuing torque rather than power, Suzuki should have useable performance and impressive economy, while avoiding some of the heat problems associated with powerful, higher-revving engines. The Recursion’s…

BUSA The fastest motorcycle on the salt this year was Ken Robinson's 2008 Hayabusa. Running in the 1350 MPS-G class, Robinson reset the record to 232.89mph (372.62km/h) FOR A QUARTER of a century racers have been making the trek to the inhospitable Lake Gairdner salt flats, six hours north of Adelaide, to see just how fast, fast really is. The annual Dry Lake Racers Australia-hosted event is known simply as Speed Week. This year the salt flats offered up almost perfect racing conditions for around 200 comptitors - about three-quarters of them on bikes. Here are some of the highlights from this year’s Speed Week.…

What happens when you take a Honda CRF100F, cut it to bits, rebuild it as a salt racer, then add a supercharger with 20psi boost and slip a couple of litres of methanol in the tank? You go much faster than a 100cc motorcycle should be able to go. Jean-Paul Afflick and brother Mitch punished their little bike this year by entering both the unfaired (ABF) and faired (APSBF) classes – resetting the Aussie record for both. Mitch (ABF) recorded 106.69mph (171.70km/h), while Jean-Paul used the fairing to go 109.59mph (176.36km/h). Both pushed their respective Australian records passed the ton for the first time. The brothers now have their eyes set on the outright 100cc land speed record – 110.09mph (177.17km/h) set in 1997 at El Mirage in the Mojave…

The Suzuki GSX-R750 Shane Gaghan and the Rock Racing Australia Team have used to claim a fistful of speed records is no normal Gixxer. The turbocharged beast runs on VP C16 leaded oxygenated gas. However, and as Rock Racing discovered, going fast on the salt isn’t simply a matter of bulk horsepower. Getting all that power to the ground can be a tricky science. Even at 198mph (320km/h) the back wheel of the Suzuki was still spinning wildly – adding extra weight failed to completely cure the issue. When the team lost its data-logger, old-school tuning practices of spark plug, exhaust gas and engine temperature reading were called into action. No records for Rock Racing this year, but the bike will be rebuilt and tuned ready for a crack on…