Technical Regulations:

As from January 1st, 2005:

Art. 2.6.3 - Fuel tanks must be filled with fire retardant material or be lined with a fuel cell bladder.
Fuel tanks made of metallic material (steel, aluminium, etc.) must be filled with fire retardant material, or be fitted with a fuel cell bladder.
In the MotoGP class, fuel tanks made of composite materials (carbon fibre, aramid fibre, etc.) must have passed the FIM Standards for fuel tanks and be lined with fuel cell bladder.
Tanks made of composite material must bear the label certifying conformity with FIM Fuel Tank test Standards. Such labels must include the fuel tank manufacturer's name, date of tank manufacture and name of testing laboratory. Full details of the FIM fuel tank test standards are available from the FIM.

As from January 1st, 2007:

Art. 2.2.1 - The maximum engine capacity in the MotoGP class will be reduced to 900cc.
Art. 2.5.1 - The minimum weights required for the motorcycles will be the following:
2 cylinders or less 133 kg
3 cylinders 140,5 kg
4 cylinders 148 kg
5 cylinders 155,5 kg
6 cylinders or more 163 kg
The use of oval pistons will be forbidden.

Hmm... interesting. However I think even with the displacement reduction, they will still able to make the bike go faster. :fact

Why forbid the oval piston? I thought motogp was all about inovation and new designs. Is there something about the oval piston that makes it dangerous? What am I missing here?

Originally posted by 811Racer
Why forbid the oval piston? I thought motogp was all about inovation and new designs. Is there something about the oval piston that makes it dangerous? What am I missing here?

Good Damn question!!!! So I guess these rules won't take effect until 2007, that will give them plenty of time to make these bikes run even faster at the lower displacement

i personally think they should make the displcament 750cc. in 3 years im sure the 900cc's will be much faster than the current bikes

Yeah, evil, you are probably right.

take a look at Formula1, they put on more weight, they took away the turbos they banned active aerodynamics, they banned traction control, they banned launch control, they made them put grooves in the tyre to reduce traction and therefore corner speed...

And still every year the cars got faster and the lap records were beaten...

These mechanics always find a way around it, that's why they're so good at what they do....

You won't be seeing slower racing trust me....

I guess it just another way to indirectly push the technology further... :yesnod

Originally posted by 811Racer
Why forbid the oval piston? I thought motogp was all about inovation and new designs. Is there something about the oval piston that makes it dangerous? What am I missing here?
This is what I cam across when looking for "oval piston advantages":

"...The reason they came up with the oval pistons was as a con to try and get round the rules about the number of cylinders. The only way they could get power from a 4 stroke that had any chance of matching an equal capacity 2 stroke was by revving the nuts off the 4 stroke. The rev it that hard you need a very short stroke engine, which means either more cylinders or a very large bore. More cylinders were not allowed by the GP racing rules and a very large bore gives you a really poor combustion chamber shape. Honds solution was to build an engine that was effectively as a V8 with 8 valves, 2 spark plugs and 2 con rods per cylinder. The idea being that they could then have the short stroke they wanted. It still failed miserably to keep up with the 2 stroke so Honda gave up the NR and built the NS series 2 stroke GP bikes."

Btw, this was back then when Honda tried to develop the oval piston NR race bike(V4 32-valve), it was capable to rev till 20,000rpm... :eek:

Originally posted by valerossi
Honda gave up the NR and built the NS series 2 stroke GP bikes."[/I]

Btw, this was back then when Honda tried to develop the oval piston NR race bike(V4 32-valve), it was capable to rev till 20,000rpm... :eek:

From what I remember reading about the NR when it was released, is that it was extremely technologically advanced for the period, and that the cost per bike was astronomical given the times :yesnod

It was said to be a very difficult bike to ride competitively, and not at all rider friendly, the powerband was extremely unforgiving :yesnod

It is however, an extremely rare/valuable collectable :yesnod

Originally posted by rorlow
From what I remember reading about the NR when it was released, is that it was extremely technologically advanced for the period, and that the cost per bike was astronomical given the times :yesnod

It was said to be a very difficult bike to ride competitively, and not at all rider friendly, the powerband was extremely unforgiving :yesnod

It is however, an extremely rare/valuable collectable :yesnod
Yeah I heard it was very rare and expensive. I'm not even sure if anyone actually have one in North America. I remembered when I was a kid, that thing was like an "exotic" machine. :yesnod

Anyway, here are some interesting pictures of the bike and engine for those who never seen it before.

http://www.bikepics.com/honda/nr750/94/pics.asp

:)

Wasn't the original 02' M1 920cc? If I remember right that was the displacement. And finally the 5 cylinder will weigh more than a 4, that will be interesting to see what Honda and the rest will do. Makes me wonder if they actually have a 3 cylinder in the works. Ah well as long as Rossi is still racing it will be great to watch. But damn 2007 is a long ways away. Should have made it 2006.

This whole thing stinks of knee jerk reaction.

With Loris thumping 347 kph not too long ago it was only a matter time before the nanas started feeling the need to whinge. This is of course a ridiculously misguided reaction that befall all of those stupid enough to by into the argument taht speed kills. As prescribed, of course, by the campaigns of every government on the planet. (which is needed to support their revenue projects)

Speed alone is not dangerous. Speed is only dangerous in the wrong hands/location and to some part is dangerous when the equipment is not adequate for the speeds being carried. As I was reminded reading a recent article that noted that you only have to look at the 125 & 250cc classes at the moment to see that this is where the higher frequency in highsides is to be found. (Prior Mugello: MotoGP 28 prangs, 250's 57 & 125's 82!!)

That part was obvious. The next part I'm not qualified to comment on but seems to make enough sense. The reason for this is that in the dying days of the 500s tyre manufacturers made some serious headway wiith development to cope with what the bikes were dishing out. This was even more advantageous for the 4 strokes cos of the more linear power delivery.

125s and 250s have been left wanting for tyre development suited to their specific needs. As there power outputs have risen and become more violent, the rate of crashes has risen accordingly. (I'm also of the belief that the youth of the rider is prollly a contributor too)

These 4 strokes are safer to ride that any bike before them (most of them anyway, Nakano might think otherwise but at least he's till thinkning) as was noted in a panel discussion between Wayne, Kevin, Mick and Alex in the last month or so. They remarked on how much simpler the new breed of bike were to manage even at their significantly higher speeds. The keys being traction (rubber) and power delivery. (Of course every racer in the history of man will say this too of his successors)

Anyway my point is (and I do have one), is that rule makers never get it right and forever demonstrate themselves to be motivated by the wrong reasons. Their measures are never capable of affecting the results they claim to want to acheive. Its as if they have no understanding at all of what it is that they govern. And this goes for governments too if you haven't noticed. (Here in Australia our dickhead government sent out fridge magnets with "Be Alert! Not Alarmed" on them, to every house, in response to the hightened terrorist threat in the world post 9/11 !?!?!? WTF? I didn't get one and am consequently, you guessed it, quite alarmed.)

These bikes at 900 or 1000cc will romp in 300kms. If a rider crashes through either through his own error or machine failure at these speed, he will be lucky to survive and that 100cc reduction won't save the life of anyone. If their interest is rider safety, then their the focus should be on the track or reducing speeds to under 80kmh (even that won't save everyone) in turn, killing the sport.

I have no problem with the fire retardant idea though :o)

ontiK.

Hey i came across this the other day. It is a rumour about how honda is designing a new 3 cylander engine with the front 2 cylanders being 4-stroke and the rear cylander a 2-stroke. This may just be a rumour but it sounds pretty cool to me so check it out. Here is the site http://www.dreamgate.ne.jp/nsr/news/rvw.html
This maybe be the way that the manufactures will take to get around the ower dispalcement rule and the wieght rules and still increase performance

Originally posted by Scooby
Wasn't the original 02' M1 920cc? If I remember right that was the displacement. And finally the 5 cylinder will weigh more than a 4, that will be interesting to see what Honda and the rest will do. Makes me wonder if they actually have a 3 cylinder in the works. Ah well as long as Rossi is still racing it will be great to watch. But damn 2007 is a long ways away. Should have made it 2006.

yes scooby, at the moment weight min. are higher for teams having more cylinders. Currently the hondas wiegh a lil more cuz of their V5. And the aprilia actually runs a 3 cylinder. But that things is said to be peaky as hell. I also think Ducati had thought of not running a full 990cc displacement before devolping the Desmodeci, or whatever its called.

It always seems though that Honda is at the top of their game engine-building wise. To bad they dont have the best rider no more.

i thought the idea of moto gp was to have the fastest non-turbo bikes. it would seem that they should let them keep pushing the envelope. but i guess there is a safety concern too.