The GREAT Dan Gurney: MOTORCYCLE ENTHUSIAST and ENGINE DESIGNER! The 280-hp Moment-Canceling TWIN!
American racing hero Dan Gurney's exploits in auto racing and car construction are legendary, but Dan was also mad for motorcycles. So much so he built his own feet-forward machine (the Alligator) with a few different production engines modified to his specs. But he also got his company All American Racers to design a compact 1800cc Twin that was projected to make 280 hp with perfect smoothness. Oh, the glory! Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief made many trips to All American Racers to interview Dan and see what was going on over the years, all shared here in this special Cycle World podcast.
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EMPIRE OF RPM: Learn How HONDA built its MOTORCYCLE BUSINESS ON REVS
Soichiro Honda visited into Isle of Man TT in 1954 and was shocked to see how high Italian and German racing machines revved. The company got to work! By 1958 when the Honda Cub and its 50cc four-stroke debuted, its engine made peak power at 9000 rpm with great reliability. Honda went on in racing to develop Grand Prix engines revving beyond 20,000 rpm. This expertise led to street bike 350 twins such as the CB350 that made all the power and more than the prevailing British 650cc parallel-twins of the 1960s. Kevin and Mark discuss Honda's origin and the path the company took to deliver exceptional performance at competitive cost.
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How Exhaust Pipes MAKE POWER (or KILL IT!)
How does your motorcycle exhaust system help your engine make more power, be more efficient, and sound amazing? Like many parts of the motorcycle, there are near-infinite variations. For exhaust systems Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer discuss: length and diameter of the tubing, collector size and shape, how long each element of the system is, overall length, silencer type, cam design, port length and shape, cylinder grouping, and so much more. We get into four-into-one vs. four-two-one, the "power bulge," what is reversion, stepped headers and, well, like we said, so much more. Join us!
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Makin' FLAMES! The ART and SCIENCE of mixing FUEL and AIR.
Sounds crazy but early engines ran on "city gas," generated by roasting coal. Liquid fuels like gasoline improved our lot in Combustion Life, but there have been many experiments to get the most out of it. How close are we to perfect combustion? How do we get liquid fuel--which will not burn--to turn to vapor that will burn? So many questions that Kevin and Mark set out to answer. Let's get into the molecules, shall we?
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Ninja! Kawasaki's brand within a brand and how it came to mean "Sportbike" to the masses.
How "Ninja" came to define Kawasaki and what it means to the company. The bikes that built this brand within the brand started in the early 1970s and Ninja just put a name on it. What's "it"? Listen as Kevin and Mark of Cycle World talk about where the Ninja ethic began and where it's taken Kawasaki, from screaming two-stroke triples to supercharged 1000cc sportbikes.
Join Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer for the weekly Cycle World podcast for lively conversations about motorcycles and the people who build and ride them. Cameron’s legendary knowledge and ability to describe highly technical subjects in ways that are easy to understand allies with Hoyer’s massive testing background and hands-on work in the CW garage.
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