Since their appearance in 2010, they have been constantly martyred in the four corners of the world but they do not flinch. They are the Honda Moto2 engines which will bow out at the end of the 2018 season after nine years of good and loyal service.
Despite a very temporary problem concerning the tightening of the crankshaft tail and a few false dead spots in the gearbox, the brave workhorse from the CBR600 has indeed demonstrated incredible reliability during use for which it was absolutely not planned.
It owes it to its already old design, which, incidentally, explains the oversized size of the radiators, but also to very rigorous preparation and maintenance, firstly by the company Geo Technology then by ExternPro since 2013 .
Like the Triumph engine which will succeed it, the preparation consists above all of work on the intake and exhaust pipes, and a change of camshafts, valve springs, alternators and first gears of the gearbox. The moving assembly, crankshaft, piston and connecting rods, remains standard.
Around 200 engines are prepared each year with a power difference of around 1% while the contract with Dorna tolerates up to 3%.
After extremely careful assembly, each engine was put on the bench for two hours. Its performance and compressions are recorded, then an oil sample is taken to make sure everything went well. It is then sealed in four places to prevent dismantling.
The engine is drawn at random and allocated to a driver who will use it for three races, after which it will return to ExternPro at the Aragon circuit to be completely reconditioned by fitting a crankshaft, connecting rods and pistons. new.
In the meantime, it will have been pushed to its limits by its driver in the quest for the last kilometer per hour. Limited to the breaker at 15 rpm, it sometimes happens to far exceed this limit when downshifting. All of this is recorded electronically and transferred via USB to ExternPro. If this happens too often, the driver is then warned that this certainly does not present any reliability concerns, but that it will ultimately affect the performance of his engine during the third and final Grand Prix. We actually sometimes exceed more than 900 rpm…
The problem is the same with the water temperature which some teams allow to rise excessively.
With more than 2 million kilometers traveled with exemplary reliability, the results are extremely positive and Triumph now has one year left to prepare to take on this difficult succession (see the summary of the latest tests here).
From 2019, teams will have to start from scratch with regard to the settings and operating tips of the new thruster, but also to familiarize themselves with much more sophisticated electronics including, among others, Launch Control, Traction Control and Anti Wheeling : there is no doubt that the differences will then be greater!
