New turbocharged V strom in the works | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

New turbocharged V strom in the works

Lightcycle said:
Interesting seeing how each manufacturer is trying to push their bikes past Euro 5 regulations.

Turbo-charging, increased displacement, larger cats, variable-valve timing... haven't seen a spate of development this rapid across so many manufacturers in a long time.
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Let's face it, for their relative size and weight, motorcycles other than 125 cc and below are gas-guzzlers. Yes, I said "gas-guzzlers". Why? Because they may get great mileage but have little or no modern mechanicals that address fuel consumption (and pollution) other than maybe twin spark plugs per cylinder and fuel injection. I've got a 1.8-litre turbo car that weighs 7 times my bike's 475 pounds and has 3 times the hp of the bike, and with my bike having about 1/3rd the displacement at 650 cc's.

Highway, which is most of my driving, I get 5.8 litres/100 kilometres in the car; the bike I get about 4 litres/100 kilometres (steady 100 km/hr.). So I'm pushing 7 times the weight and probably 3 times as much wind in the car as the bike with only a small improvement in fuel mileage for the bike, something doesn't add or seem reasonable.

Turbo is the way modern engines' fuel standards, probably Euro 5 directly or indirectly, are being improved. It has and is happening with cars and will likely happen with bikes, with huge improvements in the V-Strom 650 likely being reduced to a turbo 400 cc (with perhaps double the fuel mileage and reduced emissions) but having the punch of a naturally aspirated 650. Electric is coming but gas will still be king for another 30 years.
 
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I hope Suzuki keeps the value going somehow with the added cost of a turbo, think I paid 8k for a new DL650 back in 2012. Still have it, still ride it. 60k on the OD with 0 costs for repair just regular maintenance. No issues in the rain, I do have a bash plate and a fender extender. If you like to ride on gravel/dirt roads you kind of need them anyway.
 
Our family has found that - aside from diesels - downsized turbo petrol engines aren't a fuel-saver in the real world.

And I know why. In the official emission certification tests, acceleration is very gentle, no hill climbing, no high speed driving, the engine can run around at part load (even in downsized form) and not under boost. It never encounters thermal limits of pistons, exhaust valves, and catalysts and it never gets into any areas where the calibration has to be compromised for detonation control.

Real world driving isn't like that. When it's running under heavy load, more heat is generated, in a downsized engine there's limited surface area and mass for that heat to be dissipated. Pistons, exhaust valves, catalysts run hotter and the engine has to protect itself from meltdown ... rich. If it gets into a detonation-limited area, it has to delay ignition timing and run even richer. It's hard to calibrate a turbo gasoline engine so that it doesn't have to run rich in the higher-load part of its operating conditions.

My van vs my buddy's Ford Explorer (which he recently returned at the end of its lease largely because it was such a pig on fuel). Mine, 3.6 Pentastar, no turbo. Normal driving 11 - 12 L/100 km and it can be coaxed to 10 if one is careful, towing a moderately-sized enclosed trailer 14-ish L/100 km. His ... 3.5 Ecoboost. Never used less than 14 L/100 km and if anything whatsoever was attached to the tow hitch, 20 plus. The inside of the tailpipe on my van has a light amount of black inside it if swiped with a finger (and this is after 80,000 km). His ... Pitch black. RICH.

Motorcycles, aside from the small-displacement tiddlers, aren't calibrated for optimum fuel consumption - it just isn't a consideration. They're geared too low and the engines aren't tuned to operate efficiently at low revs. And they all confine the closed-loop catalyst-friendly operation to lower revs and part throttle. Anything outside it, forget it. And I'm betting that even the newfangled Euro 5 compliant bikes will still be like that.
 
Brian P said:
Our family has found that - aside from diesels - downsized turbo petrol engines aren't a fuel-saver in the real world.

And I know why. In the official emission certification tests, acceleration is very gentle, no hill climbing, no high speed driving, the engine can run around at part load (even in downsized form) and not under boost. It never encounters thermal limits of pistons, exhaust valves, and catalysts and it never gets into any areas where the calibration has to be compromised for detonation control.

Real world driving isn't like that. When it's running under heavy load, more heat is generated, in a downsized engine there's limited surface area and mass for that heat to be dissipated. Pistons, exhaust valves, catalysts run hotter and the engine has to protect itself from meltdown ... rich. If it gets into a detonation-limited area, it has to delay ignition timing and run even richer. It's hard to calibrate a turbo gasoline engine so that it doesn't have to run rich in the higher-load part of its operating conditions.

My van vs my buddy's Ford Explorer (which he recently returned at the end of its lease largely because it was such a pig on fuel). Mine, 3.6 Pentastar, no turbo. Normal driving 11 - 12 L/100 km and it can be coaxed to 10 if one is careful, towing a moderately-sized enclosed trailer 14-ish L/100 km. His ... 3.5 Ecoboost. Never used less than 14 L/100 km and if anything whatsoever was attached to the tow hitch, 20 plus. The inside of the tailpipe on my van has a light amount of black inside it if swiped with a finger (and this is after 80,000 km). His ... Pitch black. RICH.

Motorcycles, aside from the small-displacement tiddlers, aren't calibrated for optimum fuel consumption - it just isn't a consideration. They're geared too low and the engines aren't tuned to operate efficiently at low revs. And they all confine the closed-loop catalyst-friendly operation to lower revs and part throttle. Anything outside it, forget it. And I'm betting that even the newfangled Euro 5 compliant bikes will still be like that.
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When my wife crashed her ES300 we opted for cheap replacement, a Chev Cruze. The ES300 had a 3.0 an delivered 12.5l/100 in 70/30 city/hwy driving. I Could get to 10 on the highway. The little 1.4T Chev consistently gets 7, and on the highway I have dipped below 6. When she was doing 300km/week commute the savings in fuel added up to almost $100/month.
 
Mad Mike said:
When my wife crashed her ES300 we opted for cheap replacement, a Chev Cruze. The ES300 had a 3.0 an delivered 12.5l/100 in 70/30 city/hwy driving. I Could get to 10 on the highway. The little 1.4T Chev consistently gets 7, and on the highway I have dipped below 6. When she was doing 300km/week commute the savings in fuel added up to almost $100/month.
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IIRC the es300 was only made until around 2005 and the Cruze started after. Tech has changed a lot. My experience is the smaller turbo engines can be more economical but under average driving conditions typically are not. YMMV


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