Virgin Yamaha themselves claim that they have not yet had a technical failure using this engine, and boast 1500 km of testing without any problems. The crank-shaft only has to deal with one big pulse, which Scott believes would be caused by the middle two cylinders.
"The probable way they have gone is to fire both middle cylinders together as these are pretty well reinforced with bearings all around them," explained Smart.
The stress on the cam drive is also greatly reduced, compared to a conventional two groups of two 'Big-Bang' engine. The closing of the valves of the first cylinder being fired releases some of the force that it takes to open the inlet valves of the following two-cylinders.
This effectively means the cam arrangement is only trying to open one set of the twinned cylinders inlet valves, thus getting round the problem which has previously stopped teams using any kind of 'Big-Bang' engine.
Not only this but the 2005 R1 engine already has, as standard, a relatively large cam chain - making the engine ideal to test this configuration upon.
After the three separate engine pulses that this engine produces, there is a long 'dwell' which is the fundamental reason this type of engine is used in racing. With modern Superbike engines creating so much power - in excess of 210 bhp, which is a similar level to that seen by the leading
MotoGP teams - teams have had to find new ways to translate the power to the track.
The problem with four-cylinder bikes in their conventional even firing arrangement is that once the rear tyre starts spinning, because of the nature of the engine, it's hard to stop.
When using a 'Big-Bang' engine, the rear tyre has a certain amount of time, in terms of crank rotation, when there are no power pulses trying to spin it up. This allows the rear tyre to effectively slow down between pulses and find grip again by correcting its speed to the speed of the track.
The Virgin Yamaha system, operating as a 180 degree triple with one effectively oversized cylinder, has the benefit of giving the rear tyre a large gap - 360 degrees of crank rotation - whilst doing away with a lot of the stresses involved in the big pulses.
The Virgin team also claim that they have managed to find more bhp on top of the 200bhp+ they had last season, despite using the 'Big-Bang' configuration.
But, as Smart points out, the proof is in the racing: "It may be all well and good on paper," commented Smart. "But it is going to be very interesting to see what this engine does to the rear tyre wear over a race distance."
You said it Scott!
The first race of the British Superbike season kicks off on Saturday 26th March at
Brands Hatch, with the races being held on Bank holiday Monday 28th March.
Crash.net will be there putting your questions to the riders you have never had the chance to meet.
If you have a question for a particular rider email your suggestion to adam@crash.net.
Those questions deemed suitable will be put to your desired rider at the test on Sunday, the Brands Hatch test on Tuesday 15th or the official launch of the 2005 BSB season on 16th March.
