Author Topic: Royal Enfield conceptualizing twin Cylinder 750 and 1000cc motorcycles!  (Read 20297 times)

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nigelogston@gmail.com

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Sidecar was exactly what I was thinking:  That combo would be absolutely terrific!.   And who would objuect to a liitle more oomph solo. Gents (adressing Ice and Ace) ,there are going to be a lot more UCE owners in the months and years ahead looking for a performance enhancement.  (And there will also be some "impulse" bikes on Craig's list from brief owners who didn't really know what they were buying, that would be suitable donor bikes for conversion which could keep the total cost pretty reasonable)  In fact you have really got me thinking:  I was determined to get the UCE due to a combination of it's performance edge and , yes , less maintanance than the Iron Barrel, but now that I understand what you are doing, I might even reconsider that and look for a used Iron Barrel to modify.  Incidentally, there is a writeup in Kneeslider that gives a very good rundown on the whole package:   Here I go with the links again....

http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2010/09/09/ace-fireball-535-royal-enfield-high-performance-kit/     

Incidentally, I am not up at this time the morning on this formum  becaue I am  a craven addict to the Bullet ....well, OK I guess I am a bit.....but really, had to be up for work.    Nigel.   


nigelogston@gmail.com

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Just a quick afterthought:  If it is possible to shiskebobob a closed big end on the crankshaft (which must meea that the cranshaft is a press together articulated link) , why do the production models use a bolt on?  Nigel.


ace.cafe

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I didn't know the Fireball was also designed for good manners on the street, I thought it was an all out performance package.  I'm really excited to see if the same will be done for the UCE now.  Since I'm planning to put a sidecar on in the future I'd welcome some extra power while maintaining easy driveability.

Scott

Hi Scotty and Nigel,
I have not made any attempts yet to do anything with the UCE.  However, something of a similar nature could be done to the UCE, of course.
I don't really have a plan or funds to get into that right now, but it's something in the back of my mind for the future, if the need arises.
If it responded anything like the Fireball, it could pull a sidecar very easily.

At this point, I'm sort of leaving that task up to the people who are "higher up on the food chain" than Ace. I am just a "privateer" effort that's funded out of my back pocket, and Chumma works together with me, and we enjoy the development facilities and expertise of Joe Mondello's shop, since Joe  is involved in a strategic relationship capacity, and he's our buddy.
We are sort of a little "club" of performance enthusiasts at Ace.  The basic idea is that we come up with things that we design to do certain jobs, and the small group of enthusiasts can buy them if they want to. It really all began as me wanting to build my bike, and seeing that the available products were insufficient. And so, instead of me just having the items made for myself only, I made some extra parts so that others could get them too, if they liked my concept. And it's still sort of like that. And Chumma got involved early on in the game and he was testing all the parts on the road, and he also came up with the piston design that we use, and he's an integral part of the effort.

Like any engine, it boils down to knowing what to do with heads and cams. And also identifying and curing potential reliability problems so that the engine can survive the performance upgrades, and not getting "silly" with it to the point of losing street manners. The Fireball has better street manners than any Bullet ever dreamed of having. Just yesterday, Chumma was doing a little break-in riding on Chuck's new Fireball that has about 30 miles total time on it, and he pulled a hill in top gear at 2200rpm, without even a hint of lugging, and it has an 18T gear on it, and 19" wheels. If he gives it a hard twist of throttle a little closer to torque peak rpm in first gear, he lifts the front wheel off the ground. And it idles like a clock at 900 rpm, and starts on the first kick.. And believe it or not, yes this is a Bullet being described here.

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make here, is that a bike CAN be made high-performance without giving up street manners. And it could be done to the UCE too. The key is to know your stuff, and not push the limits too far, where you give up the tractability in the lower rpms. Stop a little short of making it a full-on racing bike.. It still can go like blazes, but it behaves, IF you do it right.
And that takes alot of knowledge. But it can be done.

If I start getting people approaching me for UCE head mods and stuff, and are serious about buying, I will talk to Joe and see what it will cost to get it done on a UCE head, and I will have to make some new cams for it. And stuff like that is not cheap, and I will require that I have the head for analysis, and it will be a development project..
And it could be done on some future RE twin too, or whatever.
It all depends on what the person wants. Some want a factory bike, and some want a modified bike. I work in the modifications arena.
The typical pattern that I see is that as a person has an engine failure, or it's got alot of mileage and is getting tired, they look for options on the rebuild. And that's when they often come to me. Some will do it early, because they want the performance increase. And as you mentioned some buy a dead or cheap used Bullet as a lower-cost basis on which to do a performance build.


And Nigel,
Regarding your question about the con-rod, the original Bullet has a one-piece rod.
I haven't looked at the bottom end of the UCE closely enough to see about any rod changes that they made down there.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2011, 04:54:17 pm by ace.cafe »
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nigelogston@gmail.com

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"Ace" and "Ice"  Thanks again for your guidance .  Once again the gap  between my enthusiasm and mechanical knowledge is apparent (not sure where I got the idea that the big end stock was a bolt-up, but it was probably from reading about modded out vintage bikes of other types that included changing the crankshaft from solid to press together in order to accomodate a solid big end for higher revving integrity. 
You have given me a lot of food for thought and curbed my brief adulterous infatuation with Bullets older sister Interceptor:  Seeing what can be done with a single has brought me back home:  For what it is worth (in terms of your future plans) I for one (and I am sure I am not alone) would be more interested in a sensibly modded Bullet Single with "tractability and durability" than I would in a twin (even REs yet to appear twin)   . If the maker doesn't fill this void, I am sure there is a market for the mods.  I know nothing about the ins and outs of the business of performance mods, but if somebody is going to make money out of it, might as well be you guys.
 
Interestingly, and coming full circle, ACE your very helpful response has answered exactly the quetions I posed when I first entered this forum with my tag  entitled "Fury"   Looking back I see that just about everyone but you chimed in, but you have in fact addressed precisely what I was wondering about there.  Thank you. 
As an aside, I would also like to complement you on your prose ad typing:  Your entries are very readable, and you make a whole lot less typos then me.  If you wrench as carefully as you type, I'd trust my machine to you anytime.  Thanks again for your patient explanations.   Nigel


Ice

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 In thinking long and hard about the proposed twin cylinder.

 I have a hunch that it will be a UCE inspired upright parallel design,a widened UCE if you will, with a siamesed cylinder block and a single head.

RE has experience building UCE's

The parallel twin was the last twin RE offered.

The parallel twin would look right in a Bullet type frame.

The parallel twin style would be more Britt like.

The narrow vee (twin) is closely associated with Harley Davidson.

 If the twin is to be a widened UCE, I hope it has as much parts commonality as practical with single for ease of supply for dealer and owner alike.


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ace.cafe

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Nigel,
I used the search function to find your Fury thread.

The short answer is that the Fury had very limited success due to reliability problems in the bottom end. It was an 8000rpm performance design that was mounted on a 6000rpm bottom end. Result: breakage.

To understand why this is, you must understand port design and cam design.
I have written extensively about this on this website, and also on my website, so I won't try to write the book again here.
Suffice it to say that a big port and inlet tract like the Fury had, coupled with the very radical cams like the Fury had, only work well in the high rpm range, and they are horrid at normal street riding rpms. Added to that, since they only work well at high rpms, you are forced to ride at those high rpms or it's a misbehaving dog. And the rpm range they picked for their power curve extended far higher than the mechanical integrity of the bottom end could endure, so it always broke.
It was very fast in its element for as long as it remained intact, which often wasn't too long. It was a failure as a motorcycle, and I really don't understand why anyone would want to duplicate that failure,  or why it has this "mystique" surrounding it.
The Manx, Goldstar, Velocette Thruxton, G50, etc, all were built on the same high-rpm power curve idea, but they were better able to hold together in the bottom end.
Why?
Shorter strokes with higher rev-limits in all of those others.

There's a whole lot to modifying engines.
Knowing what your goals are, and knowing where your limits are, and knowing how to design parts to meet the goals within the limits to the best degree possible, is the ticket.

What we do at Ace is to use the size and shape in the port to get the best flow possible in the smallest size possible that can reach our designated "safe" upper limits in rpm. Then we use cam design to set the power curve characteristics(including bandwidth) for the intended purpose, including considerations for idling stability and low-rpm torque delivery.
Then we don't suffer these "over-ported and over-cammed" problems that are so often seen in modified engines which yield poor street riding results.
The number one mistake in most "performance modified engines" is that they make the port too big for the application, and then they cannot overcome that deficiency via any other band-aid method.
It's not so much that we "hate" big ports. It's more that we understand that ports which are too large for the intended rpm range are counterproductive to the overall result.
It doesn't matter if you are ported and cammed to reach 8000rpm and have a whole bunch of "theoretical power" up there, if the bottom end of the engine can't reliably reach that limit without blowing up.
And that is the story of the Fury.

The Fireball comes close to the output of the Fury, with a much wider and more progressive power curve which extends only to 6000rpm, and behaves perfectly at all rpms for the street use that we intend. And it's rock-solid reliable. We don't rev as high, and have a bit less max hp than the Fury, but we get alot better torque, reliability, and street manners in the normal street-riding rpms as a benefit in the trade. And since we aren't making a track-only bike, that was a benefit we wanted.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2011, 08:30:59 pm by ace.cafe »
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nigelogston@gmail.com

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Thank you again.   You have just made me (and I am sure hundreds of other forum readers) even more keen to see a Fireball UCE.   The question I asked in the first place (not extolling the Fury's  mystique but simply coming acrioss a reference to it's  performance specs) was can we have our cake and eat it too, or, is there a happy mediium between sedate and race that keeps the best elements of the Bullet low end performance and reliability  but opening up it's performance potential   Sounds like the balnced mods you call "Fireball" are the answer to exactly that need.  I'd buy it. Thank you for pointing the way for the rest of us and pioneering in this work.  I hope that you  may be able to  you broaden your target market as UCE sales continue .  .If that is not in your personal or company plans, then I hope you profit from your hard work and insight by selling it to someone that will.      . Nigel . 


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I hope you profit from your hard work

Nigel I don't think Ace has made any money but he has made a lot of friends.
 ;) :D ;D 8)

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Nigel I don't think Ace has made any money but he has made a lot of friends.
 ;) :D ;D 8)



and he has made a great product.....more success to him. The big market is in India. He should definitely make money there.