Rizla Suzuki - Tech talk: Part two.

Tuesday, 14th December 2004

Simon Green, Rizla Suzuki's Team Coordinator, recently held a technical lecture for the students of Kingston University's Motorcycle Engineering Design course, covering all behind-the-scene aspects of top level Superbike racing.

In the second instalment of a series from the lecture, Simon details the work that goes into making a 207bhp British Superbike engine...

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So depending on which race circuit we are going to, depends on what exhaust configuration we will use. For instance somewhere like Snetterton, which is two drag strips connected with some fast corners, we will use the four-into-one to get the maximum speed possible, and we can hit somewhere in the region of 195mph. We will use the four-into-two-into one at somewhere like Mondello or Cadwell, where the bike has to be dragged out of some slow speed corners.

Sometimes we will get special stuff from Japan, which we will test on the very good Dyno we have back at Crescent. We may find that one particular system will give us an extra 10BHP, but the engine will blow after half an hour. It is a very fine balance between getting a performance increase and what implication it has in the whole package. We have to evaluate these increases on what they do to drivability, which is very important on a bike, what it does to engine longevity and whether or not it fits within the regulations.