Forged pistons Now: Ceramic Engines.

[Chris Pronios]

> Does anybody recall somewhere around the mid to late
> 80's when there was a ceramic engine motorcycle made?

Honda NR 750 - 1979. It was a V4 with Oval pistons (they tested those in the
NR500 4-stroke that were trying to run in GPs but withdrew them early) made
until 1992.

Believe it or not, I actually rode this bike (was working on the hotshot
greek moto-magazine back then)!!!

> It rev'd to something like 20k, IIRC, and was on some
> test bike produced by a major japanese motorcyle
> manufacturer.

Peter, it was not only a test bike, it was sold to mere mortals (full of
cash of course but the production 750 was just a bit more expensive than a
Bimota back then).

Its production redline was at 15K and top hp at 14K (20K was for the 500cc
GP bikes) . It had 8 valves per cylinder (32 in all!!!) and (did I already
mentioned it?) OVAL pistons. I do not recall if the entire block was ceramic
but the psitons were all ceramic.

BTW, several mass production high performance motorcycle engines now use
ceramic parts and coatings. Just search the web for "motorcycle ceramic
part" and you will get a lot.

Chris