Roundup
ROUNDUP
POLITICAL PROGRESS THROUGH PRAGMATISM
Guarded optimism had better be the keynote here. The national election is over, the ballots have been counted. Ronald Reagan is the President and the Republicans have control of the U.S. Senate, for the first time since back when only elephants can remember. The major cabinet appointments have been announced and there are some general outlines as to the approaches the new administration will take to tackle the myriad problems facing the nation. This isn't the time to proclaim a new golden age or wallow in despair. As mentioned in this space not long ago we are not too awfully sad to see Reagan win, but neither is this the time to gloat. He didn't promise anything to us bikers, didn't even mention motorcycles pro or con during the campaign. For all we know the new team doesn't even know we're out there, much less that we were sort-of in favor of them.
This may be all to the good. Shortly after the election the political arm of the American Motorcyclist Association and some officials in the Motorcycle Industry Council and the Motorcycle Press Asso ciation held a seminar, for the discussion of what's going to happen, pro or con, to motorcycles and motorcycle enthusiasts as a result of Reagan's massive victory.
The forecast begins with the past. It was stated that President Carter never had a chance to be an effective President, a President for the country. This was so, the theory goes, because he just barely squeaked into the White House. He had the narrowest of margins. One vote diffe rent in each precinct in the U.S. and it would have been President Ford again.
Funny business, politics. Because Car ter's victory just barely happened, he was beseiged immediately by every special in terest group in the country. All the reform ers, the self-appointed spokesmen of every little gaggle who'd been on the record as backing Carter, jumped into the Oval Of lice saying that if it hadn't been for them, he'd never have made it. And now they wanted their reward.
The Carter team couldn't prove them wrong. They didn't dare. When you're talking one vote per precinct you need the backing of the Tree-Freaks of America and the Friends of the Moonbeam. So we were lumbered with overnment chosen not by merit, but by association. Carter became the creature of the Special Inter ests, admittedly not the Special Interests he campaigned against, and the Carter Administration was forced to act not for the U.S. but for political advantage.
And a fat lot of good it did them. We've heard-not at this seminar-that when Joan Claybrook earned the enmity of bikers everywhere the administration was ready to give her the sack she richly de served. But it couldn't be done. Already the White House was short of its quota of women. To can another would result in ire from the feminists. And so it's supposed to have gone.
But Reagan, now, is another story. Soon as he'd accepted the verdict of the voters, we're told, he got the same sort of visit. The New Right, the Moral Majority or whatever it is they call themselves, took credit and asked for a share of the spoils.
We hear they were told to get lost. We're talking millions of votes, not one per pre cinct. The Reagan people are reported to have said these groups didn't elect him, the voters did, so Reagan will answer to the public, not to this group or that.
From the actions taken thus far, this account seems accurate. We the people responded to promises of less government interference, less regulation with no regard to cost. The new Secretary of Energy says he'd like nothing better than to work himself out of a job. When we reflect that the DOE's budget equals nine cents per gallon, and is more than the profits of all major oil companies combined, and that even the feds now say the DOE made things worse during our last shortage, we tend to agree.
We'd like to see speed limits returned to the control of the sovereign states. Eet Massachusetts decide what's best for the crowded East and Montana set the rules
for the empty plains. The Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency may now have to balance, say, the benefits of quieter engines with the cost of water-cooling Triumphs and of having Flarley engines imported from Europe. In the old days, with the Naderites at the helm, EPA was planning to impose rules that could drive some motorcycles off the market, could have driven Harley out of business. But the expectation now is we'll have rule makers who are concerned with costs, with keeping jobs open and prices down.
Reagan is bringing people who are pragmatists. They want to know if something will work, rather than if it will sound good.
Emotions aren't part of this. We could imagine some entertainment. Suppose re porters ask Reagan if he plans to wall down Pennsylvania Avenue and he throw open the door of his barn. No, he says pointing to the Indian Four he's just fin ished restoring, I plan to ride.
We bikers would like that. We aren' going to see it. What we hope we do see is motorcycles that don't have catalytic con verters, enclosed engines, air bags and 55mph governors. We expect to be spared $3000 400cc Twins.
A bike nut in the White House would be nice. A President who's working for the country will be better.
HESKETH HOPES
Iklo financial angels stepped forward to back the lovely big V-Twin Hesketh described in CW for Sept. 1980, but the lOOOcc revival of the big English sports bike continues to take place on schedule.
To recap, Lord Alexander Hesketh last year unveiled a motorcycle, with 90° VTwin. The engine has twin cams, four valves per cylinder and is rated at 86 bhp. Dry weight is reported at 506 lb. and the machine looks wonderful, a fitting rival for other Vees, old and new. At the introduc-
tion Lord Hesketh said he hoped to find some industrial giant who'd help with the project.
None turned up. But the Hesketh created lots of interest in England and when the machine was shown in Europe it caused a stir there. Flocks of orders, requests for dealerships, etc.
So the lord has created a public company. Issued stock and is raising the money to hire workers, buy production equipment and so forth. The first examples are scheduled to be built this June.
That's the good news. The be-patient news is that for obvious reasons the home market will be served first. Because England and most European countries have generally alike vehicle codes, emissions rules and so forth, when first expansion will be across the channel.
Us? What with EPA rules and tests, we'll get a chance at the Hesketh some time in 1982. Watch this space.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
Motorcycling was started by a bunch of guys who thought that an internal combustion engine could take much of the drudgery out of bicycling. That idea has yet to die. Motorized bicycles (motorbikes, we used to call them) are still with us, and now there's another one.
Energy Efficient Vehicle Systems (304 Riverside Ave., Sugarloaf, Calif. 92386) is making an add-on motor kit for 20-in. bicycles and it can even be turned into a miniature roadracer. The motor is a 2 bhp, 40cc Xenoah two-stroke with automatic clutch. It mounts in the middle of the bicycle frame with the cylinder down and drives the front sprocket on the bicycle. From there a standard 10-speed dérailleur drives the rear wheel.
Dan Hanebrink of EEVS claims the machine is legally a moped, weighs onl) 45 lb. and can get up to 400 mpg. A little exaggeration never hurt anyone, now did it?
Cost of the motor kit is $250, with fiberglass roadracing fairing adding an other $190.
YAMAHA'S SECRET TURBO
Secret ago we Project got some time. hints Several of a hint. months We read in a European newspaper that they'd read in a Japanese financial newspaper that Yamaha was working on turbocharging, in particular a turbo unit for the XS11. The American offices of Yamaha knew nothing about the project.
That bit of news faded away, especially when BMW unveiled a turbo project and then Honda sprang the Turbo CX500. Next came more rumors, in Europe where they were told they wouldn't see the Yamaha turbo for some time but that the Americans—we get all the good stuff, they think—would have them early in 1981.
More calls from us to Yamaha's American office. Still no official word, except that American dealers have not seen the turbo XS11, and that the turbo is not going to be sold in the U.S., or anywhere else, this spring.
The Yamaha guys were interested, though, while also being a bit tired of these telephone calls, so they offered a deal: they would admit Yamaha is working on a turbocharging project, and they had some pictures of the engine from the head office. We could have them, on the understanding that we knew all those rumors found in the English funny papers are wrong.
This seemed fair. All the rumors actually said, when stripped of their exclamation points, was that the XS11 turbo used an integral waste gate rather than the simpler pop-off valve found in most add-on kits, that the turbo had some sort of reed valve to cure low-rev lag, and that the engine was reported to crank out 130 bhp.
We can tell some things from just looking at these two photos.
First, the magnifying glass tells us the turbo unit is an IHI, the latest from a Japanese firm which has expanded into turbochargers and is building turbos of the correct size for 500-1000cc engines. (Most of the add-on turbos are adapted from car units, which in turn came from aircraft turbos that were intended for engines with more displacement and slower engine speeds.)
The Yamaha's carburetors have been replaced with fuel injection. We'd guess it's electronic although all we can see is some sort of black box with an ND label on it.
Clutch and alternator covers say “Yamaha YICS”. YICS is a new Yamaha development, first seen on the 1981 550 and 750 Fours. Basically YICS is a sub-intake manifold, small passages cast into the cylinder head and linking the intake tracts between carbs and ports, with butterfly valves controlling intake on small throttle openings. The idea is to improve mixture by routing the incoming charge through the small passages and increasing their velocity. The 1981 production XS11 doesn't have YICS, so this would mean new head castings. If there are reed valves in or on this engine, we can't see them.
An advantage the factory has over addon engineers is that original equipment need not fit existing parts. Notice how nicely the turbo has been tucked away behind and below the gearbox, while bolt-on conversions must hang the blower off to the side.
The exhaust pipes appear tuned, with cylinders No. 1 and 4 routed to the left, No. 2 and 3 to the right, in a classic 180° system. We can't see if they join before they push hot air into the turbo or if there are two entrances and we don't recall ever seeing a tuned system like this on a turbo before.
Note also the length of the pipes. Standard engineering says you want the exhaust pipes as short as possible so they won't lose heat. This may be a compromise. Putting the turbo out of reach was reckoned to be more important than efficient pipes, especially since getting power from this project cannot have been a problem.
What comes next, we don't know. Putting a motorcycle-sized turbo on the XS11 motor must be a fairly easy exercise. It's hard to imagine anybody needing 125 or 130 bhp; more likely that Yamaha will put this experience to work on the 550 or 650 Fours.
Monster motors like the turbo XS11 do get attention, though, and all the intrigue and rumors have at least brought proof that Yamaha is working on turbos.
