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baggerman said:
Everybody uses a V4 except Yamaha and previously Suzuki right? I believe it's at least 25 HP from the terminal velocity on the long straights. If we actually knew the drag coefficients we could calculate it.
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Ok. So you were speculating?

You might consider that speculating ambiguously as if we are asserting fact doesn’t tend to cause others to consider us credible.
 
baggerman said:
Think about this way. Drags goes up by the square of the velocity. So to go 200 vs 190 is 20 squared over 19 squared or 400/361= 1.108 or 10.8 percent more power. More like 30 HP.
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Are drag and hp the only variables that effect trap speed?

What about traction and drive out of a low speed corner onto the straight?
 
The V4 has better traction and power, so we’ve seen the last few seasons the v4s beat the snot out of the I4s on corner exit and max speed. The Suzukis and Yamahas used to have better turn in and corner speed. But that’s been negated once the V4s got that working too.
 
V4 + aero package is best of both worlds that’s why I4 is lagging behind. I4 turns better but V4 has better acceleration and decreased frontal area. The rear cylinders shift the Cg rearward and if you can manage to keep the bike from wheelie’ing (wings and ride height), you’ll have more weight, more grip, and more acceleration out of the corners. The narrower frontal area means you have a slipperier shape which can then be offset with larger wings therefore decreasing wheelie and can add grip in the corner.

I’d bet there’s marginal difference in raw HP between engines. I’d bet they’re all running as close to stoic as possible and getting max performance and efficiency from 999 cc. It’s the V4’s packaging that’s winning the war.
 
If I were the Yamaha, I’d be strongly lobbying the MSMA for the removal of aero and ride height. In fact, I’d bet that aero and ride height were one of the factors that drove Suzuki out. What’s the ROI on this aero and ride height R&D? Nada.
 
craig bush said:
Ok. So you were speculating?

You might consider that speculating ambiguously as if we are asserting fact doesn’t tend to cause others to consider us credible.
Click to expand...

Well it's a rough calculation. If the I-4 's can turn harder they enter the straight faster right. Anyway I don't claim to know I'm just contemplating the cause of the difference. The google says its pumping loss and friction loss due to the length of the crank and crankcase. I would think you could engineer away the pumping loss. And a heavy crank to overcome rigidity issues would help if it were spinning backwards. I have a hard time believing that two extra hydrodynamic bearings would cost that much but then I haven't looked up the shear losses in a plain bearing at 16,000 rpm.
 
bp_SFV4 said:
Back to back championships in WSBK and MotoGP.
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Championships are expensive. A MotoGP campaign will cost $10-20M/year (maybe more with the way Ducati leads R&D) along with rider salaries of $5-12M/year. Ducati’s operating profit in 2023 was around $110M, which is great, but $20-30M in racing wipes out about 20-30% of that profit. And that’s only on the GP side. WSBK probably cuts another $10M in profits. I’d guess sponsors and partners probably cover 10% costs.

To put this in perspective, Ducati is about a 20th of the size of Honda’s motorcycle division which earned $2B in profit. Honda has a lot more money to play with and it’s GP and WSBK teams are just a drop in the bucket. Yamaha is similar with $1.6B in profit off of $17B in sales.

I’m having a hard time seeing the rationale on developing extraneous GP tech won’t be used on the road especially considering the superbike market is dwindling. Ducati may be digging it’s own grave by heading down this path.
 
baggerman said:
Well it's a rough calculation. If the I-4 's can turn harder they enter the straight faster right. Anyway I don't claim to know I'm just contemplating the cause of the difference. The google says its pumping loss and friction loss due to the length of the crank and crankcase. I would think you could engineer away the pumping loss. And a heavy crank to overcome rigidity issues would help if it were spinning backwards. I have a hard time believing that two extra hydrodynamic bearings would cost that much but then I haven't looked up the shear losses in a plain bearing at 16,000 rpm.
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Ducati also have removable i.e adjustable flywheels on the v4 which gives a track by track advantage. No-can-do on an I4
 
Different flywheels gives Ducati the ability to fine tune engine braking and acceleration requirements. On the i4 the crankshaft is too wide. The basics of a MotoGP (or any bike) are engine characteristics, the rest of the bike is built around that. The wide i4 is really stable, at 20,000 revs its generating all these gyroscopic forces that make it hard to flick but that also allows great corner speed whereas the v4 is very quick to turn and naturally favours point and shoot. Where Yamaha have lost their sweet handing advantage is through all the aero which allows the V4's to turn like an I4 i.e Aprilia which has the most advance aero behaves like the Yamaha of old. Ducati can change the flywheel weight to make the bike more flickable or more stable, its a huge advantage. In high school physics holding a bike wheel and playing with gyroscopic forces, its pretty incredible how the forces interact so imagine whats involved with a spinning mass of metal at 20k or more!
 
I think it's a bit of everything in the end with the I-4's. So Yamaha is the last I-4 on the grid. They've given them some development allowances and a big pile of tires but in the end like Suzuki will they disappear or switch to a V-4 like everyone else. When this happens I think the formula should change. These are making so much power they're hard to hang onto anyway.
 
Yamaha Racing management has said if the I4 doesn’t work that they will move to V4. This is probably one of these things that kept FQ in the team
 

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baggerman said:
.. I think the formula should change. These are making so much power they're hard to hang onto anyway.
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I’m inclined to agree. I’d like to see less mechanical restrictions (cylinder count, layout, etc.), less power, less aero, and less electronic intervention (especially TC and real time corner-to-corner changes).
 
because we are talking about 100ths and extreme aero. The entire grid is barely a second or two apart but also the M1 was world champ a couple of years ago. Aero has made the biggest difference, the V4's can now use a lot more of their power and they turn. Think of the M1 like that guy on a V2 that laps as fast as you despite being a lot slower.
 
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baggerman said:
Everybody uses a V4 except Yamaha and previously Suzuki right? I believe it's at least 25 HP from the terminal velocity on the long straights. If we actually knew the drag coefficients we could calculate it.
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Why V engine produces more power than I ?

Is it all related to ability to use different cam profiles at high rpm?

Does V design inherently more revvy than I design?
 
Maybe a V produces more because the crank can be lighter and less is needed for primary balance. I think this was one of the reasons Honda went with V5 initially because they figured a way to do it without having to balance it primarily
 

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