Engine Development
Discussion
I know the Speed Six engine has taken a significant amount of abuse on here for several months, but I watched a show this weekend (Discovery Channel) on the development of the new Harley V-Rod.
Harley sent a team of engineers to Porsche to develop the engine, and then they showed a couple of the tests they did to establish reliability. One was called the Dusseldorf test which simulates the drive from Weissenbach to Dusseldorf (flat roads, hills, curves etc) and then a heat test in Arizona with idling and riding for 8 hours straight. Porsche uses the same test for all their engines.
They ran the Dusseldorf test for 500 hours straight. Yes 500 hours. Unbelievable. It took them months to get it through that one.
The heat test was pretty funny as they rode the bikes for an hour, then parked them in a metal shed for 45 minutes then repeated the cycle 4 or 5 times. Bikes ran this with no issues. The funny part was the humungous Harley rider sweating like a waterfall waiting for his bike to finish idling !!!
I just thought it was interesting the amount of time, money and effort that goes into the development of an engine. Obviously Harley has a much bigger pot of money to dip into to develop the thing than TVR does !
If TVR is intent on using Racing as a testbed for engines, endurance racing is obviously the way to go. Hopefully we'll see a Speed Six at Le Mans !!
And that's it.
Harley sent a team of engineers to Porsche to develop the engine, and then they showed a couple of the tests they did to establish reliability. One was called the Dusseldorf test which simulates the drive from Weissenbach to Dusseldorf (flat roads, hills, curves etc) and then a heat test in Arizona with idling and riding for 8 hours straight. Porsche uses the same test for all their engines.
They ran the Dusseldorf test for 500 hours straight. Yes 500 hours. Unbelievable. It took them months to get it through that one.
The heat test was pretty funny as they rode the bikes for an hour, then parked them in a metal shed for 45 minutes then repeated the cycle 4 or 5 times. Bikes ran this with no issues. The funny part was the humungous Harley rider sweating like a waterfall waiting for his bike to finish idling !!!
I just thought it was interesting the amount of time, money and effort that goes into the development of an engine. Obviously Harley has a much bigger pot of money to dip into to develop the thing than TVR does !
If TVR is intent on using Racing as a testbed for engines, endurance racing is obviously the way to go. Hopefully we'll see a Speed Six at Le Mans !!
And that's it.
Unfortunately I didn't, but it's on again on Sunday Oct 21.
Here's the link to the website
http://dsc.discovery.com/tuneins/harley.html
It was pretty interesting.
Here's the link to the website
http://dsc.discovery.com/tuneins/harley.html
It was pretty interesting.
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