Honda V4 Reigns Supreme in 2017

Discussion in 'General VFR Discussions' started by GatorGreg, Nov 19, 2017.

  1. GatorGreg

    GatorGreg Honda Fanboy/LitiGator

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    Honda V4 reigns supreme in 2017! Congrats also to Ducati for coming in 3rd place this season :Bounce:
    (And don't give me any spoiler BS - I've waited a whole week to gloat!)

     
  2. Mind_Surfer

    Mind_Surfer New Member

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    As it should be!!!

    Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk
     
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  3. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    Now if they would only offer that winning technology in a similar package for us, rather than the tired old Fireblade/CBR they keep dishing out. Can’t remember the last time the Fireblade/CBR won a championship. Of course having a phenomenon of nature riding for you does help bring in 4 championships in 5 years!
     
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  4. GatorGreg

    GatorGreg Honda Fanboy/LitiGator

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    They already did - but someone forgot to tell them to make it for less than $184,000 :D


     
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  5. Ridem32

    Ridem32 New Member

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    Great videos


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  6. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    When I said “for us”, it meant for us 99%ers...So I guess it was the thought that counts. ;)
     
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  7. GatorGreg

    GatorGreg Honda Fanboy/LitiGator

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    LOL - well there's always the venerable VFR for us peons - plus I'd be afraid to park an RC213V-S at the Home Depot :D
     
  8. Gator

    Gator Insider

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    WSBK is where we need to look for us mortals. Everyone has upped their game except Honda. Remember Rea on it? Riding at 110% all the time to even try to be competitive. Then put him on a Kawi and 3 championships in a row. Ducati is the real game changer, its not an unobtainable price point and it has everything including a monster V4. Watch out for KTM too.
     
  9. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    That's why I said what I did, the Fireblade/CBR isn't winning and hasn't been winning for quite some time, yet in MotoGP thy're running the V4 engine and they've won 4 out of the last 5 years!

    Of course MM has a lot to do with it but as you said, look at Rae, not winning on the Honda and then goes to Kawasaki and not only starts winning championships, breaking records to boot. Hopefully with Ducati's entry into WSBK with the V4, Honda may wake up...Not holding my breath but with almost all of the motors in MotoGP being V4s and a lot of street going superbikes being V4s, you would think Honda would meet the challenge one for one. Then again, is that where they make the bulk of their money?
     
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  10. OCLandspeeder

    OCLandspeeder New Member

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    Well the RC213V Honda sold to "us" wasn't really a production bike. It is in fact THE MotoGP racebike modified to be street legal. It was all hand built with the best components, hence...$184k.

    Honda makes the bulk of their $$ on cars. Ducati is like Ferrari. They ONLY make one thing and they're money only goes to one thing. Honda's R&D money goes to a variety of things, mostly cars and SUV's, their business jet, and then their motorcycles get table scraps. Also, I believe Honda's corporate culture has changed a lot since the 1990's, wherein they lived and breathed racing at the highest level. I remember even their Honda Civics and Accords had upper and lower control arm suspensions, and gear driven double overhead cam engines, stuff one only sees in higher performance cars. Today, Honda's are built like mainstream cars...strut suspensions, chain driven cams, etc. They may be just re-awakening that passion. Who knows.

    OOTV, Honda just released their new CBR1000rr and about to release the CB1000r. So......leaves very little room for a VFR1000RR! If they did release such a bike, it would be closer to $30k so that the CBR1000rr can occupy the lower segment of the market. In the meantime, they have the CBR1000RR SP.....Ohlins suspension, higher output motor (slightly more), lighter wheels, impeccable refinement, etc. Remember, the RCV race bike may be a V4 but it's firing order is closer to and inline four so it sounds kind of like and V4 and inline four mish mashed together. Nothing like our VFR engines. Their new big bang engines sounds closer to our V4's but still not quite like the RC46's that I could remember.
     
  11. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    That’s what disappoints me, the fact that they continue releasing the CBR and yet it doesn’t do well in racing. I guess because it’s affordable and has the look of a MotoGP (Repsol edition) the masses will be happy. I’m sure the CBR out sells the VFR hands down but then again, they are in two different categories.

    The fact that Ducati has a plethora of Pannigales and continues to make different versions of it all the time AND plan on releasing 3 versions of their new V4, kind of says that just because they have the “new” CBR, doesn’t mean Honda couldn’t have a high performance V4 superbike as their flagship sport bike. Bottom line is, that unlesss sales drop for a Manufactuerer and the sales are going to the competition, not just a drop sales due to economy, they will continue with what they know.
     
  12. Gator

    Gator Insider

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    I bet Honda motorcycles make their most money on large numbers of reliable small cc bikes all over the world. They have not been into being a flagship racing bike in a long time. BUT really any of the manufacturers sport bikes are all incredible machines, any of them will curl your toes.
    A V4 Honda would be wonderful, I hope this Ducati gets the slow moving giant into action.
    Or we could just bring back V4 2 strokes!
     
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  13. OCLandspeeder

    OCLandspeeder New Member

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    I also believe Honda's Corporate culture is that of mass produced things. They rely on volume to justify production...to a point. They never really sold that many VFR's throughout its production. Yeah unlike the CBR's, which they sell at, I would guess 5x more than the VFR! At the risk of sounding like I'm defending the CBR, keep in mind that a lot of the technologies Honda acquires in their MotoGP V4's are applied to all their CBR's. One example you can clearly see is the aerodynamics of the CBR's, which benefit from the MotoGP designs of being small but very aero and quiet and calm (for a sportbike).

    It seems to me that Honda doesn't want to compete on power. Instead they prefer to compete in the quality of their bikes as well as the refinement, feel, and smooth power delivery (at least in their CBR lineups). Note how Yamaha & Suzuki, also are careful not to compete on power alone (unlike the BMW's and Ducati's). I'm guessing they don't want the same political attention they got when Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki were on a power race, which led to a voluntary restriction to 186 mph as the top speed for sportbikes. I remember back then, a few politicians were talking about banning certain bikes because they were too fast!

    So as much as I want Honda to step up with a V4 sportbike, it seems to me they're committed to the CBR, as is Suzuki with their GSXR, and Yamaha with their M1's. They appear to be just happy selling to all the Honda fan boys and not really taking away the crown for best xxxx. With today's sportbike market being overtaken by ADV bikes and Dual Purpose bikes, I get the feeling Honda will stick to their current sportbike lineup and invest instead in developing ADV bikes...until the next fad rolls around.
     
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  14. Gator

    Gator Insider

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    I bought a 2006 CBR 1000rr because of the build quality, smooth power especially in the mid range. I had just got back into sport bikes after a hiatus while raising kids. The 06 was a big improvement over the 04-05's with better swingarm and suspension that made riding at decent speeds more forgiving. A few years later I completely overhauled the shock and forks with a full Ohlins set up including wsbk valving that really worked out as I went from intermediate to the advanced group. I was never really fast but could hang with the fast guys as long as I held a good line which was much easier with the Ohlin setup. I think it still is the nicest looking year of the CBR too. The 08's changed everything in the 1k market and were even better handling out of the box. But then there were the oil burning issues that Honda did not immediately address and plagued them for years. I think it was around this time that they made money decisions which led to them falling behind the other manufacturers.

    Soichiro Honda would be pissed I bet at what the bean counters are doing with Honda now. They changed racing, especially in the 60's and 70's and were committed to racing. Not so much now except in GP. Everyone else has really stepped up their game. KTM is really pushing in all kinds of racing and making some very nice bikes while still making adventure, dual sport bikes and dirt bikes.
     
  15. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    Spot on!
     
  16. mario01

    mario01 New Member

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    Great videos[​IMG]
     
  17. OCLandspeeder

    OCLandspeeder New Member

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    The '08-'12 CBR1000rr's were kind of....well, had looks only a mother could love. And yes the first two years of production revealed very slightly undersized pistons, which led to piston slap, which lead to oil burning. Honda eventually had to pay up to give owners a nearly new engine (if not new) but it took a while. Engines still ran great, but the noise when cold and the oil burning was really too much to be normal. I had a Cadillac with the Northstar V8 and that sucker also had piston slap and burned oil. Otherwise it ran great and you never knew it had that issue.

    Honda did finally fix the CBR's looks in 2013-'16. Thank god! LOL! What where they thinking with that pudgy nose on the earlier version anyway? Don't they know Vanity sells?

    Looking at Honda's success in MotoGP, you know they can build the best and highest performance machines if they really wanted to. I remember them in Formula 1 back in the 1990's.....their engines were legendary. They also rotated all their engineers through the race teams it this mentality showed up in their mainstream products.

    OOTV, remember back then? They had the VFR750 AND the CBR900RR side by side on the same showroom floor. The VFR was the one that showed off MotoGP technology and emulated its looks too. I think they built the CBR just because this was used in production class racing like World Superbike, AMA Superbikes, etc. But that's not all. They also released the RC51 and the VTR1000 Superhawk! They were all selling at the same time. Back in the 1990's and all through the mid-2000's, sportbikes were top dogs in the motorcycling world.
     
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