By Peter McLaren
The screamer's distinctive high-pitched engine note, similar to an
F1 car and present during the early years of the four-stroke
MotoGP class, stood out clearly from the rougher sounding 'big bang' engines, favoured in recent seasons due to improved handling characteristics.
"Yes, Serizawa is running a screamer engine," Kawasaki communications director Ian Wheeler told
Crash.net. "It's more of a test bed for some ideas that we've got. Jacque will be using it later today as well, but we've no plans for John [Hopkins] and Anthony [West] to try it here. They'll stick with the big bang engine. The test riders are generally trying out concepts that may or may not be used by the race riders in the future."
Jacque duly gave the screamer engine its second outing during the afternoon session, with 'positive results'. Both test riders will continue evaluation of the bike during the second Sepang test in early February.
Meanwhile, at a time when Honda is struggling to extract performance from its new-for-2008 pneumatic-valve engine - and Yamaha is throwing its weight back behind a gas-operated valve system of its own - Wheeler reflected on Team Green's experiences with the technology which, like Suzuki, Kawasaki has used since the start of 2007.
"We've had no real problems with our pneumatic-valve engine," he said. "It was developed in-house with the aid of a third party. Rather than taking an F1 engine and trying to make it fit a motorcycle, we took the concept of a pneumatic-valve engine and designed it from the ground up specifically for a MotoGP bike. Maybe that's why it's worked so well for us."
In terms of the benefits, Wheeler explained that a higher rev ceiling - the most regularly quoted advantage - is far from the only improvement.
