Sean Malone
06-16-08, 02:20 PM
Has anyone caught the docudrama ‘Birth of a Racer’? It was on some HD channel last night. The show chronicles the story of Motoczysz, an upstart motorcycle shop with aspirations to compete with their hand built sportbike in Moto GP.
Evidently, the Czysz family comes from a long line of motorcycle enthusiasts, from engine builders to racers. Now the son is producing his vision of a longitudinally mounted engine.
It was an interesting show at the beginning. The guy gathered engineers, an Italian who worked with Ducati, a French guy a couple of English guys and German lady who did the carbon fiber body work.
The current transverse mounted 4 cylinder engines produce a very strong gyroscopic effect which takes a LOT of effort by the rider to counter balance the effect in the turns. The ‘visionary’ son thought that a longitudinally mounted engine may negate that effect. They even went so far as to have two of the cylinders rotate clockwise and the other two cylinders rotate counter clockwise. The end result was a bike that the rider could lean into the corners with very, very little effort.
I tired of the ‘custom bike’ shows that were on practically every cable channel the past three or four years. Let’s be honest, most of them were using out of the box frames, out of the box ‘turn key’ engines, out of the box suspension parts and then CC’ing some doo dads and gee ga’s and hot gluing them to the bike and calling it ‘custom’. Basically like arts and crafts for guys with tattoos and black t-shirts.
The Motoczysz project is different in that they are trying to execute a paradigm in racing bikes. Every piece of the engine and suspension were designed, engineered and manufactured by the team. Just bringing the engine, whose design had never been built, to life was quite an accomplishment.
The show ended rather abruptly with the original engineers leaving and the bike having many issues that need sorting out. Wikipedia says that they have back burnered the Moto GP plans and are shooting on entering WSB.
Ok, now my counterpoint. While I was watching I couldn’t help but wonder if this was really just an attempt at garnering millions from investors so this guy could break into a custom bike biz. Or, even just make a couple of prototypes, get some investors to drop millions, claim the bike can’t compete and pocket the money. The show made the departure of the original engineers seem as though they left because of a lack of performance when I believe they were probably paid to do their piece and left once it was done. The engine guy designed and made the engine, the suspension guy made the suspension, the carbon fiber lady made the molds. Once those things were finished they moved on. The money probably wasn’t there anyway. They said the whole thing was done on 3.5 million. Salaries can eat up money faster than blown engines. But once the engineers were gone it was a rag tag team of a couple of wrenches and a pretty transporter. The ‘brains’ of the operation were gone which is why I think this thing still hasn’t gotten off the ground.
They had some champion test riders shake the prototype down and the first rider (McWilliams) low sided it which was blamed on a dusty track. The show didn’t have what the riders thought of the bike. Was the low side actually due to the new engine? Maybe the gyroscopic effect actually helps the bike get through the turn without lowsiding. It was glossed over without much commentary.
I wanted to hear about the testers feedback on the suspension, riding position, throttle response (which they did mention as being an issue along with the ambiguous “chatter”) etc all I got was a sound bite from the riders saying how ‘easy’ it was to turn into the corners.
At the end of the show I got the impression that the thing was basically a hunk of junk and the goal of Moto GP was a pipe dream. Which it is.
I wish the team the best, I applaud innovation in this world of mass produced refinement of old ideas. If the guy were smart it sell the entire thing to some billionaire so that the resources are there to bring back engineers who can work through design issues and he stays on as president.
I don’t know if they have entered any competition yet. Wikipedia didn’t say they had.
Link (http://www.motoczysz.com/main.php?area=home)
Evidently, the Czysz family comes from a long line of motorcycle enthusiasts, from engine builders to racers. Now the son is producing his vision of a longitudinally mounted engine.
It was an interesting show at the beginning. The guy gathered engineers, an Italian who worked with Ducati, a French guy a couple of English guys and German lady who did the carbon fiber body work.
The current transverse mounted 4 cylinder engines produce a very strong gyroscopic effect which takes a LOT of effort by the rider to counter balance the effect in the turns. The ‘visionary’ son thought that a longitudinally mounted engine may negate that effect. They even went so far as to have two of the cylinders rotate clockwise and the other two cylinders rotate counter clockwise. The end result was a bike that the rider could lean into the corners with very, very little effort.
I tired of the ‘custom bike’ shows that were on practically every cable channel the past three or four years. Let’s be honest, most of them were using out of the box frames, out of the box ‘turn key’ engines, out of the box suspension parts and then CC’ing some doo dads and gee ga’s and hot gluing them to the bike and calling it ‘custom’. Basically like arts and crafts for guys with tattoos and black t-shirts.
The Motoczysz project is different in that they are trying to execute a paradigm in racing bikes. Every piece of the engine and suspension were designed, engineered and manufactured by the team. Just bringing the engine, whose design had never been built, to life was quite an accomplishment.
The show ended rather abruptly with the original engineers leaving and the bike having many issues that need sorting out. Wikipedia says that they have back burnered the Moto GP plans and are shooting on entering WSB.
Ok, now my counterpoint. While I was watching I couldn’t help but wonder if this was really just an attempt at garnering millions from investors so this guy could break into a custom bike biz. Or, even just make a couple of prototypes, get some investors to drop millions, claim the bike can’t compete and pocket the money. The show made the departure of the original engineers seem as though they left because of a lack of performance when I believe they were probably paid to do their piece and left once it was done. The engine guy designed and made the engine, the suspension guy made the suspension, the carbon fiber lady made the molds. Once those things were finished they moved on. The money probably wasn’t there anyway. They said the whole thing was done on 3.5 million. Salaries can eat up money faster than blown engines. But once the engineers were gone it was a rag tag team of a couple of wrenches and a pretty transporter. The ‘brains’ of the operation were gone which is why I think this thing still hasn’t gotten off the ground.
They had some champion test riders shake the prototype down and the first rider (McWilliams) low sided it which was blamed on a dusty track. The show didn’t have what the riders thought of the bike. Was the low side actually due to the new engine? Maybe the gyroscopic effect actually helps the bike get through the turn without lowsiding. It was glossed over without much commentary.
I wanted to hear about the testers feedback on the suspension, riding position, throttle response (which they did mention as being an issue along with the ambiguous “chatter”) etc all I got was a sound bite from the riders saying how ‘easy’ it was to turn into the corners.
At the end of the show I got the impression that the thing was basically a hunk of junk and the goal of Moto GP was a pipe dream. Which it is.
I wish the team the best, I applaud innovation in this world of mass produced refinement of old ideas. If the guy were smart it sell the entire thing to some billionaire so that the resources are there to bring back engineers who can work through design issues and he stays on as president.
I don’t know if they have entered any competition yet. Wikipedia didn’t say they had.
Link (http://www.motoczysz.com/main.php?area=home)