I've read right through this thread and I can't find the part where Dazzle said anything factually incorrect although theres maybe a 50% hit on the digi dash cos its sort of a half and half.
Is he just receiving flak cos he's a whippersnapper and wasn't there maan?
Personally I couldnt thand those bloody production NR's (BBbut, its got an Iridium coated screen!!!! And looks like a pair of 1980s Oaklys) although I did see the point of the racebike version as it was to get round racing rules that didn't exist for the roadbikes anyway.
Therefore, racebike? Yay.
Roadbike version? It looked tacky as soon as it rolled off the production line and its reason for being, didn't really wash for a roadbike.
IMO like.
I remember seeing the NR750 at the bike show when I was a kid too. Was like a space ship and proper WOW at the time. Now it doesn't look so good but definitely a special thing.
I either didn’t know or had forgotten about the oval piston Honda having heads up display. It’s not the sort of thing that fires my imagination. Not what I call major anyway.
Everyone knows it had oval pistons. Most of us sneered a bit.
Even Dazzle would have known that, even if he didn’t write it down for everyone and has a beard.
Potter wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:46 am
When your source of information is urban myths and whatever the big lads down the pub told us, then lots of stuff was exotic.
inewham wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:23 pm
Late response due to being wiped out with covid
Was the oval piston really that innovative? As I remember it they wanted to build a V8 because it's the optimum config for a 4T but the regs in racing limited them to 4 pots so the just merged cylinders to make a v4. Technically difficult yes but based in Honda's obsession with 4T engines its not exactly without precedent it's just making a V8 fit the regs at the time.
It didn't work because the NR500 was no match for 2 strokes and it was never likely to catch on commercially
From what I remember - the main issues were things like piston-rings.
inewham wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:23 pm
Late response due to being wiped out with covid
Was the oval piston really that innovative? As I remember it they wanted to build a V8 because it's the optimum config for a 4T but the regs in racing limited them to 4 pots so the just merged cylinders to make a v4. Technically difficult yes but based in Honda's obsession with 4T engines its not exactly without precedent it's just making a V8 fit the regs at the time.
It didn't work because the NR500 was no match for 2 strokes and it was never likely to catch on commercially
From what I remember - the main issues were things like piston-rings.
Bit of a bitch to bore and hone anything which is not a circle too. Machining the bores might be OK, but can you imagine honing them? There are plenty of more mundane reasons you'd want to make a (slightly) non circular bore though so the knowledge would have been useful to Honda either way.
VW actually made oval piston diesel engines too, but never put them on sale. Their idea was to "squash" the whole engine up axially so you could fit the capacity of a big engine into the length of a small one.
Sometimes at least.
