Demon Twin
DEMON TWIN
—PRESS INTROS '02—
HONDA RC51
Sharpening a track tool
Mark Cernicky
WILLOW SPRINGS, California— TRY REINVENTING VELCRO, DUCT TAPE OR ZIP-TIES, ALL GREAT INVENTIONS. OR MAYBE BUBBLE GUM— that way, there's at least room for a change of flavor and color.
Or try taking the Honda RC51, winner of the 2000 World Superbike Championship in its debut season, and making it better. Sound easy? You must be crazy! Top-of-the-line sportbikes are so good these days, the best you can hope for are
small changes that might add up to a second per lap. Doesn't sound like much until you consider that the first three rows of starting grids are sometimes separat ed by less than this seem ingly meaningless measure of time. Honda's most tal ented engineers spent count less hours of research and development to find that 1second improvement-that 1 second that may very well mean pole position or a con-
vincing victory over race distance. For 2001, Cohn Edwards had to make do with an unchanged RC5 1 while Troy Bayliss and the Ducati 996R with its new Testastretta engine took back top honors for the Italian marque. So
Honda's R&D types went back to the drawing board to bring us a new-andimproved V-Twin. How did they do this? By starting from the ground up with an old RC5 1 and a finetooth comb. When they were done, they'd made a pletho ra of changes, all of which could be easily overlooked beneath the unchanged bodywork. Two of those hidden changes are the EFI's throt
tie bodies, which grew from 54 to 62mm, while each intake's two injector tips sprouted eight additional laser-drilled holes for a total of 12 apiece. More precise injection and igni tion mapping make for smoother throttle response, particularly when cracking open the throttle, which makes it easier to get on the gas sooner at full lean. Believe it or not, the frame was upgraded to what was
once provid ed in the HRC race kit, and held to the same zero-toler ance specs as the works machines. Chassis stiff ness was optimized for improved front-end feel with less deflec tion off those pesky surface imperfec tions, while an increased front-end weight bias improves steering.
steering. After scraping ounces off every bolt and bracket to the tune of a claimed 11pound weight-savings, the engineers turned their atten tion to Mr. Swingarm, strengthening and lengthen ing it to stretch wheelbase from 55.5 to 55.9 inches. Not only is the swingarm a piece of aluminum art, italong with a new shock link-greatly improves rear end feel and grip. Fashion or function? In racing, func
tion is the fashion. The Showa shock's piggyback reservoir was relo cated to allow for the fit ment of a high, race style exhaust
system, as well as expedit ing adjustments during the heat of battle-hotted-up qualifying sessions, for example. If you haven't guessed by now, there are serious signs of race breeding here. The HRC pedigree winds around the RC5 1 `s gear-driven cams, fires past its iridiumtipped sparkplugs and churns through its closeratio six-speed gearbox before escaping through new oval-shaped head pipes. A select group of moto journalists was invited to sample the reworked RC5 1 at Willow Springs Inter national Raceway in the company of factory racers Miguel Duhamel, Nicky Hayden and Kurtis Roberts during their final shake down before Daytona. After spending much of the day making sure I didn't get in the way of the missile-like Superbikes, I had the most fun during the last session, when I finally was free to use the entire racing surface and exploit the RC5 1 `s strengths. The crisp power, precise handling and firm yet-compliant suspension never let me down. As many times as I went around, this razor's edge never dulled.
