In light of all of the V4 discussion surrounding Motus, here’s some interesting engine news from Swissauto and Polaris. Richard, one of The Kneeslider’s readers, pointed me to this press release I missed from back in February. Polaris Industries acquired the powersports portion of Swissauto, a company that designs and develops high-performance and high-efficiency engines and some pretty interesting vehicles. Polaris has been using engines from Swissauto in their snowmobiles and previously in personal watercraft. Looking over their engine lineup, it’s a little hard to say what engines would be included or excluded from the powersports segment sold to Polaris and whether it goes beyond the engines Polaris already uses since the engines seem to have a lot of different applications depending on configuration.
Swissauto works closely with Weber Motor, a German company that develops many interesting engines. It’s fascinating to compare their MPE (MultiPurpose Engine) V4 to the Motus KMV4, the MPE V4 is a 70 degree dual overhead cam 4 valve, the engine’s displacement can vary from 1.8 to 2.2 liter with an output from 150 to 300 HP. The base engine is 75 kilograms or 165 pounds. It’s 20.2 inches wide. They also promote their “Unique V8-like sound.” Looks like there’s some activity in the compact V4 engine arena, though Weber didn’t go the pushrod route, this V4 is actually based on their OHC parallel twin engine used by Polaris. Although the MPE V4 is considered an automotive, marine or recreational vehicle engine, after all, their test vehicle was a Chrysler Crossfire, why not repurpose the 4 banger for motorcycle use? There is absolutely no indication of any efforts to do that but with Polaris already owning a portion of Swissauto, perhaps they could find a use for that V4 in a 2 wheeler.
From the MPE V4 spec sheet:
TheWeber Motor V-4 takes advantage of commonality with the new MPE-850 design by sharing the cylinder head, twin mono-block aluminium cylinders and combining them with a new 70 degree V-4 aluminium crankcase and a stroked crankshaft for an increase in displacement to two liters. This provides for an incredibly compact and lightweight solution providing 200hp. Marine, automotive and recreational powersport versions will be available with series delivery planned in 2010.
Recreational powersports? Like I said, is this part of the package Polaris picked up?
From the Polaris press release:
In addition to recreational vehicle engines, swissauto also has a strong tradition of developing top-tier racing engines for World Motorcycle GP. The company’s V4 2-stroke 500 cc engine drove 29 wins, 41 Poles and 3 World Championships during the 1990s. A completely new racing bike was also developed by swissauto and competed aggressively against larger Japanese OEMs during the late 1990s. This bike achieved the pole position twice during its first season of racing and ranked in the top ten several times.
“Swissauto has industry leading powertrain design and development capabilities and a strong understanding of turbo-charging and high-performance engines,†said Polaris Chief Executive Officer, Scott Wine. “This acquisition directly supports our stated objectives to be the best in powersports and a global market leader.â€
Polaris acquired the powersports portion of swissauto and will continue to operate in the current swissauto facility located in Burgdorf, Switzerland. The automotive division of swissauto was not involved in this acquisition and will continue to operate autonomously.
Greybeard says
Looking at these V 4’s and wondering when Eric Buell is free to roam.
todd says
Motus might already have direct competition. It’s compelling to wonder if anyone knew about this motor before setting off to design another. I’m sure it would have cost a whole hecka lot less to use this motor than to develop a new one. I guess the only problem is, it doesn’t have push-rods.
-todd
Scott says
Victory motorcycles don’t have push rods anyway. Maybe they could work on a sport bike or dual sport, that would be a smart direction. I might trade in the Kingpin if something cool come along. American motorcycles shouldn’t be stuck into just cruisers, lets diversify!
rohorn says
This engine would result in a powertrain a LOT heavier than the Motus’s. It doesn’t take an engineering degree to figure that out.
Phoebe says
I agree with what Scott says. The last thing we need is more cruisers. I’d love to see something new and different on the road, maybe with a motor we haven’t seen before.
Max says
Hasn’t Honda made some pretty amazing, title winning V4 engines for a while?
cyclox says
I’d be more excited if they made that 500cc V4 2 stroke engine available…
mxs says
This might be exciting for car buffs looking for an engine.
If they can scale it down, then we could really find it useful in bikes. Otherwise any bike with half or third size of those engines will just be a lot more fun to ride around. Who cares about sound, unless you plan to pose at coffee shop.
Scale it down!! If you cannot how can this be good for motorcycle application. Unless you plan breaking a record at the salts by riding as straight as you can …
Mule says
mxs, It’s sound doesn’t mean anything posing at the coffee shop. But there is a direct link between that sound and tire smoking, chain stretching horsepower which you can flaunt as you leave the coffee shop in a cloud of smoke, chinks of rubber and cruisers being blown off their sidestands!
Every time I ever went 160mph it was in a straight line. If you’ve ever been over 140-ish, you would know that there isn’t much bending over at that speed (except on a race track and there aren’t many where you can go 140+ cornering), and my experience at that speed tells me that it’s plenty exillerating just going striaght. Going 180-210mph? I’m sure that would definately keep your eyeballs busy. For sure not to be taken lightly. Just sayin’.
Jacquie says
The first V4 motorcycle I ever saw wasn’t a Honda it was a Ford motor froma Saab Sonnet put in Moto Guzzi Ambassador frame.
kink says
Honda’s take on all of this
http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2007/07/30/honda-st1300-streetfighter/
Dudel says
RE: “Victory motorcycle… maybe they could work on a sport bike or dual sport”
Won’t happen. I’ve had conversations with a few P-V people, and they are firmly of the opinion that the usa market is cruiser driven and that building cruisers (i.e., nibbling at the Harley market share) is the only way to make money on motorcycles.
Scott says
@ Dudel Thats disappointing ! I’m not sure what p-v people are, but that would be very short sighted. They will be making the same mistake H-D is making. We as Americans should show the world what we can do when we put our creativity into action!
mxs says
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Going 180-210mph? I’m sure that would definately keep your eyeballs busy. For sure not to be taken lightly. Just sayin’.
***
I am sure the eyeballs would be busy, I just don’t care about straight line, sorry. Regardless how fast you go. If the posts were directed as drag strip application, be it, but at that point I wouldn’t bother posting, because it is not my thing. The problem is that these engines are somehow to be believed to be great for sport touring application on two wheels …. please.