cafe'd brick

[vanzen]

So, if water-cooling is a necessity to meet current performance and emissions levels, the boxer should just die - rather than meet those levels?

Water-cooling is not necessary – and the boxer lives to this day.

This sounds a lot like the Luddite arguments against the introduction of the Oilhead.

As you would want to think ...

The boxer still has weight distribution advantages, as well as advantages in providing room for fuel and airbox issues. Then there's the inherent vibration cancelling qualities. The boxer has ALWAYS offered certain compromises and certain advantages. So does every design.

"So does every design." Very good point, Major.
... And in considering all of those advantages and disadvantages,
even BMW has attempted to shelve and / or side-step
the (no longer technologically relevant) boxer design & shaft drive.

[Major Softie]

So, if water-cooling is a necessity to meet current performance and emissions levels, the boxer should just die - rather than meet those levels?

Water-cooling is not necessary – and the boxer lives to this day.

Pardon me. My point was the current planning they are doing for future models. To be clearer, I should have said: "if water-cooling is a necessity to met performance and emissions levels in the future."

This sounds a lot like the Luddite arguments against the introduction of the Oilhead.

As you would want to think ...

I have no idea what this means.

The boxer still has weight distribution advantages, as well as advantages in providing room for fuel and airbox issues. Then there's the inherent vibration cancelling qualities. The boxer has ALWAYS offered certain compromises and certain advantages. So does every design.

"So does every design." Very good point, Major.
... And in considering all of those advantages and disadvantages,
even BMW has attempted to shelve and / or side-step
the (no longer technologically relevant) boxer design & shaft drive.

And the compromises of those (early K) designs were judged less favorably by the buying public - all the buying public. BMW has succeeded more recently in creating new designs which have filled out their lineup substantially. However, they have still not succeeded in coming up with replacements for the GS or the RT Boxers. The new 1600 is a wonderful heavy tourer (light-years better than their earlier attempts), and the 800's are fine mid-weight adventure bikes, but they still haven't come up with a better light tourer or heavy adventure bike than the boxer models. They may yet, but they haven't, and they may replace them with more modern (WC) Boxers. If they design an engine that fulfills those requirements better than an improved Boxer, that will be fine too.

While I may not entirely agree, I understand the point you are attempting to make regarding the boxer engine. I do not, however, understand your comments about a shaft being "no longer technologically relevant." How many other companies followed BMW's lead and built shaft-drive large touring machines? How many of those companies have left the shaft behind on those models?

[vanzen]

In order to be competitive on the track and consequently also in the (future) market
even BMW has forsaken the opposed twin and shaft-drive ...

as evidenced by these 2012 BMW S1000R (relevant) specs:

Capacity: 999cc
Bore/Strok: 80/49.7mm
Power: 193 horsepower @ 13000rpm; 83 ft. lbs. torque @ 9750rpm
Type: Water cooled straight 4-cylinder engine
Compression Ratio/Fuel: 13:1/min. premium unleaded (95 RON)
Valve: DOHC (double overhead camshaft) valve actuation over individual rocker arms below
Vavles per cyclinder: 4
...
Clutch: Multiple disc antihopping clutch in oil bath, mechanically operated
...
Final Drive: Chain
...

[Major Softie]

I guess I missed the part where BMW shall either build all Boxers or no Boxers, all shaft drives or no shaft drives....

I must have missed a step. What are we talking about? I thought it was about whether there was any point in BMW continuing to develop the boxer along with the other models, not to the exclusion of the others.

I haven't noticed that any other manufacturers limit themselves to only one engine layout and drive system (other than the Italians). Those building for multiple markets design machines for different purposes with very different design features. No one (especially not me) was arguing that a boxer is ever going to be the ultimate track machine.

If there is no point to a water-cooled boxer motor, Honda has got a lot of explaining to do.

[Deleted User 287]

(sorry 'bout that Major)

It would be neat to see a "flat" single from Moto Guzzi again...


click for larger

[Major Softie]

It would be neat to see a "flat" single from Moto Guzzi again...

Permission denied!

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a lightweight single from Ducati again, either - counterbalanced, of course.

[vanzen]

The consumer market will always have a significant hand to play
in determining the nature of products that will be made available.
In the MC market, nostalgia will be a key player.
Nostalgia will not consider what works "best" in any objective technological or pragmatic sense
(witness Harley Davidson)
but rather seeks to captivate those lost-boy-hood dreams
of an aging MC consumer demographic that now has the $$$ to pursue them.

The MC industry is a business that is dedicated to following the $$$ after all ...

The best thing going for those heavy dual-sport GS monstrosities
air or water cooled ...
will be the fact that folks still want to put out the $$$ to buy them
and, typically, do not take them "off road" ...

Once off-road, nothing there that a KLR-650 won't do better !

BMW will stop making the opposed twin / shaft drive MC
when the majority of us geezers are gone, rendering our buying $$$ insignificant.

[Deleted User 287]

BMW will stop making the opposed twin / shaft drive MC
when the majority of us geezers are gone, rendering our buying $$$ insignificant.

Yeah, and they will legalize cannabis the day after I die, too...

[melville]

It would be neat to see a "flat" single from Moto Guzzi again...

Permission denied!

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a lightweight single from Ducati again, either - counterbalanced, of course.

A Guzzi exec said a few years ago that they have the tooling to make another batch of anything they made in the past. I presume that would include the singles, which were in production (in a more conventional frame) through the 60s and possibly into the 70s.

The specific question that brought that out was asked about the V8 GP racer......

[Major Softie]

It would be neat to see a "flat" single from Moto Guzzi again...

Permission denied!

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a lightweight single from Ducati again, either - counterbalanced, of course.

A Guzzi exec said a few years ago that they have the tooling to make another batch of anything they made in the past. I presume that would include the singles, which were in production (in a more conventional frame) through the 60s and possibly into the 70s.

The specific question that brought that out was asked about the V8 GP racer......

The problem with the old designs is that they are much more labor intensive to manufacture (expensive), and their performance is lacking in power and abundant in emissions. Any new single would have to be a brand new design to be marketable. Even the Harley engines, as archaic as they appear, are entirely new designs - just within the basic design parameters/limitations of the old design (i.e. 45 degree air-cooled 2-valve pushrod V-twin). So, while they look a lot like the old motors, they share no tooling or castings.

Even if MG has the ability to exactly recreate those old singles, they'd be dogs and probably cost more to manufacture than their big twins.