U.S. Government to Limit Motorcycle Engine Output to 75 Horsepower

[Moontanman]

U.S. Government to Limit Motorcycle Engine Output to 75 Horsepower

 

 

Acting preemptively in light of the European Union's recent push towards limiting motorcycle horsepower to 100, Congress has quietly passed a transportation bill that will cap motorcycle engine output at 75 hp.

 

U.S. Government to Limit Motorcycle Engine Output to 75 Horsepower

[lawcat]

Scary that this was considered and horrible that it passed. (April 1)

[JMJones0424]

In instances where owners choose to retain the mechanical authenticity of their motorcycles, a banana can also be slipped into the exhaust pipe(s).

 

Hehe, too funny

[Moontanman]

There has been no comment from Harley-Davidson, though Forbes reports that Harley stock has jumped 12 percent on the announcement.*

 

HD would seem to be benefiting from the law :shrug:

[CraigD]

The linked story is an April Fools joke (not the story’s date). There seem to have less believable variations of it, such as Motorcycle Chrome to be Banned by January 1, 2011! - Honda VTX forums for Honda VTX 1300 / VTX 1800 motorcycles (“chrome is the silent killer” :hihi:), some with a common feature of quoting “DOT spokesman Melvin P. Meyers”.

 

American’s rights to have bikes with more powerful motors than their neighbor’s trucks’ are, for the time being, safe. :shrug:

 

The hoax story’s mention of the EU considering a law limiting all street motorcycles in Europe to less than 100 HP is not a hoax (see The facts behind Europe's pending 100 HP motorcycle limit - Hell For Leather). This story is complicated, however, by various European country’s complicated (by US standards) scheme of requiring successively more difficult to get riders’ licenses for more powerful bikes. Were the 100 HP limitation to become EU law, it would likely apply to present “unlimited” licenses holders, requiring that they get a more advanced licenses for bikes with more than 100 HP, not the outright banning of such machines.

[C1ay]

This story is complicated, however, by various European country’s complicated (by US standards) scheme of requiring successively more difficult to get riders’ licenses for more powerful bikes. Were the 100 HP limitation to become EU law, it would likely apply to present “unlimited” licenses holders, requiring that they get a more advanced licenses for bikes with more than 100 HP, not the outright banning of such machines.

 

YouTube - Y2K Superbike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uoATZMJrao

 

This bike has a Jet Ranger Helicopter engine with 320hp. It's top speed is 260mph. I wonder what it would take to get a license for it :shrug:

[Moontanman]

How about this one? 500 hp, 400 mph!

 

 

Dodge Tomahawk motorcycle concept car in review

[maikeru]

A 75-hp motorcycle would make me a very unhappy man!

[CraigD]

This bike has a Jet Ranger Helicopter engine with 320hp. It's top speed is 260mph. I wonder what it would take to get a license for it :eek2:

As far as I can tell, all you need to ride a MTT Turbine Superbike bike on a public road in the US is a motorcycle licenses from your state of residence. The main obstacle to actually doing this isn’t its legality – it’s said by its maker to be truly street legal – but the US$180,000 price, and what appears to be zero used/cheap market. I’ve a serious racer/collector friend with $100,000+ worth of bikes who put serious effort into trying to get one of these, ultimately giving up because he just couldn’t afford it.

 

MTT motorcycles (though built by a boat engine company) are safely rideable bikes that have actually been ridden at 247+ MPH on smooth, straight tracks (ie: airport runways – see this video. Other than it’s turbine engine and high price, they’re not dramatically unlike a typical high-performance sportbike, with a 60” wheelbase vs. a more ordinary 55”, and a wet empty weight of 500 pounds vs. a more ordinary 350-450.

 

On the other hand …

How about this one? 500 hp, 400 mph!

 

 

Dodge Tomahawk motorcycle concept car in review

This “vehicular sculpture” is sold (at least a few of them, at $500,000 each) with express instructions not to ride them, and as best I’ve been able to tell from the few videos of them actually being ridden, have never been ridden over perhaps 60 MPH. Having 4 wheels in closely spaced pairs and a riderless weight of about 1500 pounds, the Tomahawk would be, if any effort to actually license it for street use were made, a car. I don’t see any evidence of it having a system to allow it to lean when turned by raising and lowering the suspension of its left and right side wheels, so I suspect attempting to turn an ordinary street corner at speeds much faster than 20 MPH would result in a tip-over. I strongly suspect a crash would be unavoidable even if it were ridden in a straight line down a runway at much over 100 MPH, let alone it’s theoretical top speed of 400 MPH*.

 

As Dodge admits, the Tomahawk is intended as a work of art, a full-scale Hot Wheels toy (no disparagement intended – I love Hot Wheels :lol:) capable of having its huge engine started (making a beautiful sound) and being driven carefully to its display spot at car shows.

 

* 400 MPH, BTW, would be over 30 MPH better than the 2-wheel non-jet land speed record held by the 500+ HP, 1600 pound, 21 foot long BUB Seven Streamliner. Check out this link to see what a motorcycle that can really go nearly 400 MPH looks like!

[C1ay]

As far as I can tell, all you need to ride a MTT Turbine Superbike bike on a public road in the US is a motorcycle licenses from your state of residence.

 

In the U.S. I only posted it because of the EU conditions you cited making it harder and garder to get licenses for higher HP cycles because I wondered if you could even get a license for it there.

[Moontanman]

This “vehicular sculpture” is sold (at least a few of them, at $500,000 each) with express instructions not to ride them, and as best I’ve been able to tell from the few videos of them actually being ridden, have never been ridden over perhaps 60 MPH. Having 4 wheels in closely spaced pairs and a riderless weight of about 1500 pounds, the Tomahawk would be, if any effort to actually license it for street use were made, a car. I don’t see any evidence of it having a system to allow it to lean when turned by raising and lowering the suspension of its left and right side wheels, so I suspect attempting to turn an ordinary street corner at speeds much faster than 20 MPH would result in a tip-over. I strongly suspect a crash would be unavoidable even if it were ridden in a straight line down a runway at much over 100 MPH, let alone it’s theoretical top speed of 400 MPH*.

 

As Dodge admits, the Tomahawk is intended as a work of art, a full-scale Hot Wheels toy (no disparagement intended – I love Hot Wheels :eek2:) capable of having its huge engine started (making a beautiful sound) and being driven carefully to its display spot at car shows.

 

* 400 MPH, BTW, would be over 30 MPH better than the 2-wheel non-jet land speed record held by the 500+ HP, 1600 pound, 21 foot long BUB Seven Streamliner. Check out this link to see what a motorcycle that can really go nearly 400 MPH looks like!

 

Actually, the Tomahawk was tested both by a magazine and on a motorcycle TV show, it does indeed lean by a scissoring motion between each set of wheels a process for which I think Yamaha owns the patent. The bike was described as uber scary the first time it ridden but after a few miles the testers described the huge power as

feels about right.

It handled resonably well, both in curves and in parking lots,

I think the tests were limited to test tracks.

Straight line acceleration is Difficult to describe

All the testers were in love with the bike by the time the test was over describing it as a wonderful motorcycle a lot like a Yamaha V-max times 1000 Most people who rode expected it's top speed to be more than 500mph, speeds of 150mph were almost instantaneous. It's acceleration was (much like many very powerful bikes) limited only by traction which it's dual wheels at each end helped immensely.

 

There are other huge motorcycles with V8 engines that weigh ungodly amounts an they are ridden on the highways, the reason Dodge advised people not to ride it was due to it's lawyers being afraid of law suits not from the bike being unridable.

 

Here is another V8 bike, it weighs 1600 pounds+

 

Boss Hoss Cycles : Product Specifications

 

I think I'd rather ride a Tomahawk!

[CraigD]

In the U.S. I only posted it because of the EU conditions you cited making it harder and garder to get licenses for higher HP cycles because I wondered if you could even get a license for it there.

A quick internet search (sources: The French Motorcycle Test & Requirements - The Biker Forum; Getting a motorcycle license in Germany) shows differences from country to country.

 

In France, scooters under 125 cc displacement and 15 HP can be ridden by anyone who’s had a car drivers license for at least 2 years. If you are at least 18 years old, you can get a “progressive A” motorcycle license that lets you ride bikes up to 34 HP. If you’ve had a progressive A license for at least 2 years, or are over 21, you can get an “direct A” license that allows you to ride a bike with up to 100 HP. No street bike in France can legally have more than 100 HP. So you can’t get legally ride an MTT Turbine on a French street.

 

In Germany, you can get an A1 license at 16 for scooters up to 15 HP, and “A limited” at 18 for up to 34 HP. After having an A limited for at least 2 years and being at least age 25, your A limited automatically renews to an A unlimited, which allows you to ride any motorcycle, including, I assume, an MTT Turbine.

 

Those are the only 2 countries I checked.

 

I gather from my earlier reading that the EU is considering standardizing motorcycle laws among its member countries, which has bikers who feel the need for speed worried that such standardized laws would include the French 100 HP restriction.

 

A side note: Since 2000, Japanese manufacturers, who makes some super-powerful bikes, electronically restricts their top speed to 186 MPH (300 km/h).

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

funny.

 

Now as to if hp were actually limited to 75....meh....my ride only makes 52 BHP according to the manufacturer. Which is more than enough to get me and the mrs. up to highway speeds (70-85MPH) quickly and safely, it also climbs hills without needing to downshift ....top speed 100mph. So t'would be no big deal to me.

[CraigD]

Actually, the Tomahawk was tested both by a magazine and on a motorcycle TV show, it does indeed lean by a scissoring motion between each set of wheels a process for which I think Yamaha owns the patent. The bike was described as uber scary the first time it ridden but after a few miles the testers described the huge power as I think the tests were limited to test tracks. All the testers were in love with the bike by the time the test was over describing it as a wonderful motorcycle a lot like a Yamaha V-max times 1000

I’d love to read or watch some of these reviews and rides.

 

The main observation I’ve found from a hour or two of browsing is that while the Tomahawk leans – Chrysler’s webpage (the first one Moontan gave) says 45%, enough for a racing-speed 1 g turn – many folk are suspicious at the lack of any video of anyone actually turning this beast at speed, speculating the reason for this lack is that even pro test riders can’t manage it without too much risk of a fall.

 

This Norwegian video (which I barely understand a few words of :() appears to show how the Tomahawk leans. It seems to be a passive system. The suspension is sufficiently light and far-traveling that the usual body shifting depress one side (track) of the 4 independently suspended wheels while raising the other, rather than an active system that adjusts the suspension arm force based a system such as a mechanical linkage with the handlebars or accelerometers and/or gyroscopes, of an electronically controlled “fly by wire” system.

 

My guess is that this it’s damn tricky to lean a Tomohawk – a suspension is, essentially, an motion dampening system, while turning/leaning must be sensitively responsive, so involving a suspension in leaning seems to me fundamentally a bad engineering idea. Because the suspension must be loose enough to make leaning at least vaguely doable, I think you’ll notice, as I have, that it appears sloppily pitchy over even small bumps in the videos of it being ridden in a straight line. Combined with its tremendous power and torque, I suspect that it’s a scary, rocking horse of a machine under acceleration and breaking.

 

From all this, I think speculation that the lack of videos showing a Tomahawk in a turn is due to

1. fear of crashing a $500,000 polished aluminum bike
2. because it would be obvious in such a video that the rider was struggling to avoid said expensive crash

is justified.

Most people who rode expected it's top speed to be more than 500mph ...

While the people who rode it may believe a 500 HP unfaired 1500 pound motorcycle can go 500 MPH, any engineer can tell you this is just silly.

 

Assuming zero rolling resistance and perfect transmissions, a given wheel-driven vehicle’s top speed is related to the cube root of its power. So, for the present day fastest wheel-driven 2-wheeler record speed of 367 MPH to be increased to 500 MPH, it’s 500 HP would have to be increased to [imath]500 \cdot \left( \frac{500}{367} \right)^3 = 1234[/imath]

... speeds of 150mph were almost instantaneous.

Top speed aside, a very fast 0 to 150 MPH time seems reasonable for a 500 HP, 1500 pound bike-like 4-wheeler. The 320 HP 500 pound empty MTT Turbine Superbike has recorded a 0 to 199 MPH (320 km/hr) time of 5.4 s.

 

The allpar page lists a 0 to 60 MPH time for the Tomahawk of 2.5 s – the same as the 987 HP, 4162 pound, $US1.7 million Bugatti Veyron

It's acceleration was (much like many very powerful bikes) limited only by traction which it's dual wheels at each end helped immensely.

The Tomahawk does seem to have a decent size contact patch, though only the rear pair are powered

There are other huge motorcycles with V8 engines that weigh ungodly amounts an they are ridden on the highways, the reason Dodge advised people not to ride it was due to it's lawyers being afraid of law suits not from the bike being unridable.

I’d love to see evidence of this, but, ‘til I’ve actually seen it (at least on video), have to agree with the people that suspect there’s no video of a Tomahawk behaving decently under ordinary street riding conditions is because, as presently built, it just doesn’t.

Here is another V8 bike, it weighs 1600 pounds+

 

Boss Hoss Cycles : Product Specifications

Very pretty!

 

In fairness to these beautiful small-block Chevy powered bikes and trikes, the ZZ4 bike weights 1110 pounds empty. 1675 is its GVW – that is, it can carry a max load of 565 pounds.

 

Car motors in motorcycles reaches something approaching a zenith, I think, in the one-of-a-kind, 1000-1200 HP (belt blown!), 1000 pound Rapom V8 Monster Bike.

[Moontanman]

I used to ride a bike that had 350cc and could do 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds, 1/4 mile in 13.10 seconds, yes I drag raced it at the track, that's an official time. You'd be surprised how easy it is for a motorcycle to embarrass the so called super cars. I honestly do not think you can figure 1/4 mile time or 0 to 60 with math. My 1100 was very fast 0 to 60 or even 100, no car, even things like Porsche and corvettes (one Lamborghini) could hope to best me in short run accelerations. I wasn't beaten by other motorcyles more than a hand full of times either BTW. (cus i was good, lol)

 

I do know the scissoring motion is patented and Yamaha is fighting, or was anyway, in court to produce four wheeled motorcycles with this motion. Another person cliams to have invented the process first and Dodge can't produce them either till it's sorted out.

[C1ay]

My 1100 was very fast 0 to 60 or even 100, no car, even things like Porsche and corvettes (one Lamborghini) could hope to best me in short run accelerations. I wasn't beaten by other motorcyles more than a hand full of times either BTW.

 

Be careful. There's at least one car out there that might surprise you :(

 

YouTube - Electric Drag racing: White Zombie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrHXdM9f13k

[Moontanman]

Be careful. There's at least one car out there that might surprise you :(

 

YouTube - Electric Drag racing: White Zombie

 

All that is many years behind me now but i still enjoy the speed!