Rarely are there ever any real BIG breakthrough moments in development; more like a series of small victories won at a rate just frequent enough so you don’t throw in the towel. That is in fact why every revolutionary idea is met with skepticism, and a series of revolutionary ideas is almost immediately discounted. In fact, when a new idea does get introduced it has usually been in development for a long enough time, and is trickled in at a slow enough pace that by the time it ends up on your bike you have already been reading about it for years.

Now, if you could develop an idea at a perfect linear pace that you would not need any big breakthroughs (and thus why motor sports companies spend so much money often pursuing parallel development programs), if one fails to deliver hopefully the other will and on trajectory the company will stay – but of course this comes at a price.

On the other side, if you are a small start up with an exceedingly small budget and an equally small team, you know that all the individual ideas have to be working at near 100% effectiveness before the sum total of your big idea can even work at 50%. You have unfortunately really set yourself up to need one of those highly rare and elusive breakthrough moments. Not only do you need everything every other team needs but you need the equivalent of the R&D “power ball.”

Though I do not play lottery I guess I do gamble - in Las Vegas last Wednesday the team and I hit a Royal Flush.

At our latest and ultimately most successful test to date, the MotoCzysz C1 lapped LVMS at a blistering pace. If we were just there to focus on nothing but pushing the bike I think we could have achieved lap record times, but we were there as part of a “normal” test.

We had spent the last several months waiting for new castings which have been the bain of our existence and have really slowed the development of our motorcycle. While the parts were being cast and machined we executed a series of improvements to increase combustion efficiency and decrease friction. The combustion involved a new piston crown and combustion chamber design to aid in a more turbulent and quicker burn along with a very comprehensive series of tests to improve something I do not want to disclose. We also worked on bearings and oiling - both volume and quality. The result looked encouraging and our expectations were high but we have become a little jaded to the process so we remained cautiously optimistic.

On Monday, the bike felt strong and accelerated considerably faster than it ever has. We were expecting this, as a result had already been pre-qualified on the dyno. Cooling worked better, throttle bodies and throttle control was improved, and the latest front end felt awesome. The test was progressing nicely - at a normal rate. However, we cannot afford to develop at a normal rate; we need to catch up with the competition, we need to develop at a much faster rate - we need a breakthrough!

Tuesday night I told the engineers, “I want to do something very different, I want to feel a big change tomorrow,” and after reviewing the data from the previous day I asked the engineers to completely abandon the strategy we had employed to control the fly by wire throttles or in other words - half the torque the engine made. The idea is that the riders are the best ECU you can install in the bike but that the bikes have become so powerful and things are happening so fast that they could use some assistance - assistance and not interference.

Though our original system did help the overall ability of the motorcycle to circulate faster, it was too evasive. It interfered with the rider and was hard to trust. At one speed or throttle angle it may have just the correct amount of engine braking, then at a different speed or throttle angle it may have too much engine braking or none at all, worse yet, it may actually accelerate the bike - yes, a little too evasive.

That night the engineers wrote several new 3D algorithms that would calculate thousands, if not millions, of values based on the engines RPM, throttle angle, and gear ratio in the effort to really interpret what the rider wanted from the bike. Then, the ECU could add or subtract torque accordingly and ideally enter and exit the strategy seamlessly. I estimated approximately 100 different values were modified in order to get us started and we anxiously awaited sun break.
By only the third adjustment to our new strategy it happened - most of the parts were operating at near 100% and we had our BIG breakthrough!

Finally, the C1, with all its “newness” came together. The C1 circulated the track like a motorcycle that could have been engineered in Japan, like a motorcycle that could have been designed in Italy - but sounded like a motorcycle that could have only been made in America.

America may finally have a real Contender.

-MC

Click here to watch a lap on the C1 - from MotoCzysz testing at LVMS this week.

Wintertime in Portland, Oregon is filled with rainy, cloudy, foggy, chilly, drizzly, short days and worst of all - no track time. Portland International Raceway shuts down for the winter break in October and doesn’t reopen until March. Stand next to the front straight at PIR in November and you’ll hear nothing but the sound of raindrops hitting empty bleachers. But if you happen to find yourself 10 miles South of PIR, within a few blocks of 915 NE Davis, you might hear a racing engine somewhere in the mist. The C1 isn’t on the track turning laps; it’s in the test cell, turning the dyno. Recently we reviewed the dyno instrumentation and found the dyno absorber had turned over 4 million cycles and since the dyno is turned through the C1 gearbox, that’s 8.84 million crankshaft revolutions.

A typical dyno test lasts only about a day. The engine will start and run for several minutes at about 4000rpm until it reaches temperature, and then it will make between 50 and 100 full-throttle power ramps to its peak engine speed. Each power ramp will take approximately 20 seconds to complete. To date, we’ve built and sent across the dyno 34 C1 engines, burned 250 gallons of Elf racing fuel and used 200 liters of Elf synthetic oil. Do we really need to count the rolls of blue paper shops towels and pairs of disposable gloves? The tally of all these supplies is interesting, surprising perhaps, but ultimately trivial. It’s the human effort of a dyno run that is the single most significant number.

Roughly 80 hours of effort are required to assemble an engine. An inlet port reconfiguration requires 80 hours of machine time. Do you want to change the compression ratio? You’ll need about 20 hours of engineering time, and 20 hours to machine new piston crown details. Reconfigure the combustion chamber in the block? That’s right – 20 hours to engineer the changes and 40 hours to machine them.

This is development and we’re in the development cycle now; that is, no two C1 engine assemblies are the same. They vary in compression ratio, combustion chamber shape, cam timing, valve lift. We iterate on injector position, injector angle, inlet port configuration, firing order, oil system configuration. Everything about the engine is subject to change. Nothing is constant. What does this imply? It implies that these engines all go together differently. It implies that the builders can’t take a set of parts and throw them together with the conviction that the resulting assembly will be identical to the previous build. It implies that the engineering staff must continually research, test, design, and release the different engine specifications. It implies that the machinists must rework each engine monoblock to the latest specification. We don’t have the luxury of operating on autopilot here; because each of our engines is different, each requires the active involvement of the entire staff, engineering, machining, build, dyno. To date, the average C1 development engine has required about 550 man-hours of effort before it was finally bolted onto the dyno.

550 man-hours per engine. 34 engines. 250 gallons of fuel. Almost 9 million crankshaft revolutions. It’s been a long winter. But right now, the sun is shining through the MotoCzysz R&D facility and last weekend, PIR opened. We’re ready to park the dyno and go turn some wheels. See you at the track.

David Sprinkle
Chief Engineer, Electrical
Director, C-1 Prototype Development

David Sprinkle is one of the very dedicated and talented engineers on the MotoCzysz team.  One of Dave’s tasks is overseeing the very complex electrical system in the C-1; he is also known as “Dyno Dave.”

“Hi Michael,

Your documentary just screened in New Zealand and, having worked for John Britten, I watched your journey with fascination.  Through your documentary I was vicariously experiencing all your highs and lows that we too went through when we built the Britten V1100 and V1000.  It was very familiar.  Given I’ve been where you’ve been, when I offer my sincerest commendation on your truly incredible project and my very very best wishes for your success, you’ll know exactly from where that comes. 

John, if he was alive, would be very, very impressed.  

Congratulations on your amazing vision and design. May 2008 exceed your hopes and dreams.

Best regards,

Hamish Lamont
ex-Britten Motorcycle Company, Christchurch, New Zealand“

2fo•3cm•6vs•2pd•2pr•5in•3ih•3ia•2fp•3pp•2cl•5sp•3fl•3sp = 3,499,200

Twenty-two months ago we started designing the MotoCzysz C1 990 Prototype, seven months later a running version was unveiled at the 06USGP.  Between the 06USGP and the 07USGP we addressed a long list of inevitable problems consistent with any clean sheet concept.  Now that we have a stable and reliable platform we move into the next phase - development.

Virtually every engine in production today is based on a predecessor.  Building your first engine is an order of magnitude more difficult than building your second.  It is the knowledge acquired from the current engine that usually drives the development program of the next, unfortunately, MotoCzysz had no current engine. 

Designers and engineers of true clean sheet design can find little empirical data for their new creation primarily because by definition, it does not exist.  Though the general principals of mechanics and physics will not change, calculations are more easily believed when the majority of the equations are known factors.  When you have a formula with more variables than constants, even engineers a cubical away will often arrive with two different answers.  I face that scenario way more than I would have ever anticipated.

It is not that an internal combustion is so overly complicated, in fact is a rather crude concept - but it is just so developed, so refined and as a motorcycle engine, so efficient, it is nearly elegant.  Today’s motorcycle engines are true marvels of performance, reliability and value.  That is why it is a standard practice for most motorcycle startups and even most American motorcycles to shy away from designing their own engine.

Remove engine design and development from your business plan and remove 80% of the work and cost and 50% of the risk.

The development process for a very small company like MotoCzysz is slow.  We primarily alter specifications between two engines, testing one while rebuilding the other.  A more efficient way would be to be testing at least two engines on two cells while rebuilding 4 to 6 engines.  But that really isn’t the primary factor dictating the speed of our development, the largest factor is 3,499,200.  During the first phase of our engine development we tested:

2 firing orders
3 cam profiles
6 valve springs
2 piston designs
2 piston rings
5 fuel injectors
3 fuel injector heights
3 fuel injector angles
2 fuel pressures
3 primary exhaust pipe lengths
2 mid pipe designs
5 secondary exhaust pipe lengths
3 fuels
3 spark plugs

That is 3,499,200 potential different engine specification combinations.  Now, we do not necessarily have any more variables or combinations to test than any other company, in fact I am certain companies like Honda and Yamaha could easily have tens of millions of different combinations they could test for each new MotoGP engine.  So how do they do it?   They make it happen with hundreds of engineers, tens of millions of dollars and history.  The vast matrix of development is narrowed by huge hard disks of empirical data from current or past engines.  This is why the development efforts at the highest level often move very deliberately and carefully.  The pitfalls of rogue development have seen many teams go from world champions one year to “also ran” the following, seemingly lost in a dark technological labyrinth.   From my perspective, this is a big part of racing.  A decision guiding the development direction of a program, although typically made years before the race, may actually be one of the biggest factors in how successful a company may ultimately be in competition.  Fortunately, giants do stumble and small guys do win.   That is what makes racing great and that is why we race - to see who will win.

So how goes the MotoCzysz development?

Great - and the same time not so great.  We have achieved our design goal and currently make a calculated 220+ hp at the crank.  Yes - I thought when we hit that goal all in the world would be perfect, calmness would fall over us and a true feeling of accomplishment would follow.  I was picturing, even expecting, motorcycle nirvana.   What I got was “Houston, we have a problem.”  There are very few normally aspirated engines in the world that achieve 200 hp per liter and none made in America (that I am aware of). This is a rather substantial benchmark only achieved by a small number of top engineering firms.  So in that respect - concept, design and development are going great.  Our intake ports uniquely located between the cams were independently tested and out flowed every head the analysis company had ever tested.  In turn, our engines volumetric efficiency is fantastic.  We have documented VE of over 122%, the best Japanese bike we have ever had tested topped out at 112% - so are pump works excellent.  Thermal efficiency is also good, so what is the problem?

Our combustion efficiency is not optimum.  We made a combustion design error and thus we have a slow combustion event that is requiring more timing to achieve peak cylinder pressure.  The good news is we have identified the rather obvious “squish” mistake and already have fix in hand.  Not only will this result in even higher performance but will also help solve the single biggest problem - excessive engine braking.

We feel most of the engine breaking is do to oil quality and oil quantity.  This is actually the adverse effect of over designing the oil system in an effort to reduce friction.  It is very difficult in the design phase to determine the exact oil requirements of all areas of the engine.  Under estimate and you could be facing a costly redesign, so we cautiously decided to error on the side of more oil and increased flow.  It is now time to refine.  Our current oil strategy sees our engine pumping half a liter per second of Elf’s finest (it really is INCREDIBLE oil) by the pressure pump and the exact amount again by the larger sump pump totaling one complete liter per second.  So the first MotoCzysz engine is 80% motorcycle power plant and 20% Jacuzzi pump.

The next series of test will focus primarily on optimizing the oil pumps, reducing the oil pressure, and balancing the flow of oil throughout the engine.  If the results confirm our expectations then the development is going great, even awesome!  If the results fail to meet our expectations then “Houston we have a problem.”

Back to the dyno-
MC

For the last two years, Michael Czysz and the MotoCzysz team have been followed and filmed by a production crew from the Discovery Channel. The two hour documentary, Birth of a Racer, is the first HD documentary to be released by Discovery world wide and will be available to over 600 million viewers. The film shows the accomplishments and failures experienced by the MotoCzysz team while trying to bring an American designed and built machine back to the forefront of international road racing.

The process of fabricating American motorcycles is well known to the reality television audience who have watched Orange County Choppers, Build or Bust, or Southern Steel.  While each build seems to stretch the ability of the shop, the men, and the clock - these bikes are not exactly new technology or forward thinking exercises, they have however created some interesting motorcycles and great TV moments.  In contrast, the MotoCzysz documentary (with arguably fewer great TV moments) will quickly show the viewers the true effort it takes to conceive, design, engineer and build a clean sheet motorcycle and more importantly a clean sheet engine.  The C1 also has a unique frame, industry first suspension, state of the art comprehensive electronics, and over 1,000 custom parts that cannot be purchased out of a catalog.

The documentary will begin airing this week with the date for the United States yet to be determined. 

International Release Dates:
 
Discovery Benelux - 11/10/2007
Discovery Asia - 11/15/2007
Discovery Japan - 11/25/2007
Discovery Latin America - 11/25/2007
Discovery India & Taiwan - 11/26/2007
Discovery Poland - 12/12/2007
Discovery France - 12/17/2007
Discovery Russia - 12/20/2007
Discovery Central Europe - 12/20/2007
Discovery Romania - 12/21/2007
Discovery Italy - 12/28/2007
Discovery Spain & Portugal - 12/30/2007
Discovery Australia & New Zealand - 12/30/2007
Discovery Denmark & Poland - 12/31/2007
Discovery United States - TBD

MotoCzysz recently returned from their best test to date where they tested the latest spec of the 990 race engine along with the first tests of the first “street” engine spec.  Both bikes performed nearly flawless with all oil and water temps in complete control.  “We signed off on a long list of small problems that have been hampering some of our development,” said Michael Czysz.  He added that “there really is only one more area we need to develop and then we will be ready to push 100%.  Even now the stability around the sweepers and drive off of the corners is awesome!”  

Updates tested include:   

• New firing order and cam timing 
• New dry sump oil separator and engine venting 
• New shift lever and linkage   
• New radiators with additional instrumentation   
• New water to oil cooler   
• New exhaust pipes (sorry to say - even louder)   
• New bodywork and mounts 
• New rear springs   
• New fuel injectors and location 
• New fuel pressure regulator and strategy   
• New air/fuel and ignition mapping   

All of this had to be tested and evaluated in only two and a half days.

So, if you  ever see MotoCzysz at your local track and wonder why the bike often goes out for only two laps then sits for several minutes only to return for another short stint, we are most likely trying to get through another long matrix of tests.  As you can imagine, sometimes testing an item can result in inferior performance which is why this type of testing is rarely ever done in public. 

Last week, MotoCzysz locked away our next motorcycle model, covered up sensitive patent drawings, and removed rapid prototype parts from work stations, and opened our doors for a few hours.  The guests were our favorite type - motorcyclists. 

Here is a link to the VFR Discussion Forum talking about the visit:

http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35534&hl=motoczysz  

Thanks for coming guys (and ladies) and we look forward to having you back down the road.

Jeremy McWilliams, easily the most experienced test rider in the industry, rode the MotoCzysz 07 C1-990 for the first time in a private test at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooelle, UT June 20, 2007. McWilliams test and development experience includes the Aprilia cube MotoGP bike, both KR 3 cylinder 2-stroke and 5 cylinder 4-stroke machines, BMW’s 990 and 800 MotoGP prototypes and the Buell XB9RR. Currently McWilliams is under contracted by Ilmor to develop and race their 800cc MotoGP machine; Jeremy’s experience is very relevant. So when Jeremy says a bike does this or that he is comparing it to the best motorcycles in the world. Even more importantly, Jeremy can gage progress and potential better than all, most, or any other as he has first hand experience with world class bikes in different stages of development. In fact it was the time-frame and money spent to date on the C1 that actually impressed McWilliams nearly as much - or more - than the handling of the motorcycle itself.

Though the MotoCzysz first broke cover January 05, that was with a proof of concept machine utilizing many “borrowed” parts, the clean sheet design for the 07 C1- 990 prototype that Jeremy rode at Miller started December 05. That is nearly 2,000 parts designed, engineered and specified or manufactured in 20 months and MotoCzysz owns these parts, we have “borrowed” nothing from an existing motorcycle manufacturer.

Jeremy told a journalist after his ride that the C1 was “the best turning bike ever”.

MotoCzysz has become increasingly confident that Czysz’s theories were actually resulting in a better handling motorcycle. “We can now consider the design frozen for the first model and focus entirely on the final stage of engine development and prepare for production. Listening to Jeremy talk about how easy it was to turn and transition our bike in comparison with everything he has ridden was simply one of the best things I have ever heard” said Michael Czysz.

There is still wild speculation and a fair amount of misunderstanding about these theories posted on internet chat rooms. We will get MC to write about this in detail in a future blog post, but until then here are some of the key points most often misunderstood;

1- It is about the centralization of mass orientated along a desired axis, not simply mass centralization
2- It is about crank orientation not counter rotating crank
3- Counter rotating cranks allow the crank orientation
4- There have been/are counter rotating square 4 layouts the reason and layout are quite different from the MotoCzysz Z-line 4 engine
5- The compromises of the Z-line 4 engine seem to easily be offset by the benefits, better aerodynamics and handling

McWilliams and Czysz spent the first day riding together on a pair of 600’s while the team prepared for the following days private test on the C1. “It was amazing to get off the 600’s that we were pushing at a very good pace and get on the C1 and find the C1 easier and lighter to steer, Jeremy told me it felt like half the weight of a 600″ said Czysz. McWilliams said “I thoroughly enjoyed my outing on MC’s prototype, firstly I was surprised at how nimble the bike turned, steered and changed direction. My feeling was that this motorcycle easily took the least amount of effort for a bike of this capacity to fire it into a turn. To steer into the apex of that turn needed little effort. It really came into its own when I was pushing through the Chicane at Miller, in this type of turn the MotoCzysz changes direction with minimal input and I always found that I had room to push harder.”

And push harder he did-
“It was refreshing to work with such enthusiastic designers and the future has to be good for one of the best looking sport bikes I’ve had the pleasure to test upon (and tumble off)!”

Yes - McWilliams late for an international flight and quite excited about the bike and it’s capabilities -pushed hard enough to have low side, neither rider or bike sustained any damage (only bent handle bar and scratched fairing and some dirty leathers). The cause of the companies first crash had to do with both tires sliding and losing grip simultaneously due to a very dirty track.

MC was honored to have McWilliams at the controls for the inevitable first crash “I have been riding with a large safety margin and McWilliams rode it right to the limit, that was extremely exciting and satisfying to see regardless of the outcome, he did a great job.”

Read the official news article on the MotoCzysz website.

In the Archives column of the April issue of Cycle News, author Larry Lawrence writes about American Honda’s first employee, George French. The article tells the story of how French went from being a small racing parts manufacturer, to being responsible for establishing the Honda brand in US. What does this have to do with MotoCzysz? Read the excerpt below:

“French mentored under well-known Norton tuner Clarence Czysz. Czysz was a master of fabricating custom racing parts, and French followed in Czysz’s footsteps and moved into manufacturing custom racing parts such as cylinder heads, aluminum pushrods, valve spring collar kits, aluminum sprockets and other lightweight pieces. French called his new enterprise Frenchie’s Engineering.”

MotoCzysz completed 4 days of development work on the C1 990 at the beautiful Miller Motorsports Park. While development of the bike was being carried out by Michael Czysz and the MotoCzysz engineers, attendees were treated to seeing and hearing the bike in action, culminating with some exciting laps with local hot shot Shane Turpin piloting the bike.

The past few months have seen the MotoCzysz crew on a rigorous testing routine of track testing, identifying problems and weaknesses, finding solutions and then back to the track to test the new parts, 2 laps at a time, hour by hour. While the current crop of superbikes have been in development for the past 20 years, MotoCzysz has to achieve the same results in 12 months time with systems and strategies that have never before been on a motorcycle.

Read the rest of this entry »