The age of diesel engines for motorcycles, some believe began (and ended) with the Royal Enfield Bullet Taurus. It needed a backbone made of steel, and teeth of titanium to bare the vibrations and harshness of riding one. If you were driving near one, you needed ear plugs.
While diesel engine have evolved to such a level that it terrorizes the gasoline engine’s existence, its application has began widening. Now Yamaha has put its head out and it could be the first manufacturer to offer diesel engines of 2-wheelers commercially.
Yamaha has filed patents for a new family of motorcycle-size turbodiesel engines in both inline-four and twin-cylinder layouts.
Obviously a diesel engine is heavy and big. Packaging needs to be thought out and that’s what these patents deal with. The arrangement of the different parts is matched to a 2-wheeler’s structure, for example the intercooler is placed above the engine saving space and the bike’s fuel tank is moved backwards.
Hit the jump to read the pdf document that explains this innovation in detail
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If this isn’t an April Fool it does seem a interesting development. Bikes often use MORE fuel than a car today, and that bodes ill for motorbikes, sometime, somewhere, the major industrial countries will ban them. However, I am wary that Yamaha deem to make a ‘muscle-bike’ as their flagship diesel. I like the 460cc Hatz diesel used by several firms in Germany, they are tip-top up-to-date designs, but I feel they lack power, only driving the bikes they are installed in to about 60mph (100kph). Ok, this isn’t so bad, I would not hesitate to buy and ride one, but I do feel a bike should be able to match the pace of the trafic, and this is 70mph (110kph) in Britain and some other places and around 80mph (140kph ) on the continent. A V-twin or parallel-twin Hatz of 2×460cc, or 920cc, giving 22bhp should be able to manage this without incurring to much weight penalty. Maybe Hatz make one, I don’t know. Then wrap a purpose-designed bike around it, with ditto gearbox, and there is what we need to get out on the roads. The day of the rip-snortin’ superbikes is over, it is just to accept it.