Hi all,
I'm fairly unfamiliar with bikes -- is it conventional for manufacturers not to publish power ratings on their bike engines? Is power commonly tested by the bike mags?

I was surprised when my neighbor (who works for Honda as a motorcycle designer ferchrissakes!!) bought an RC51 but had no idea how much power it makes! So I checked around a little online and sure enough I couldn't find any ratings!

What's up with that? How do you brag to your friends?

 

It seems pretty common for bike manufacturers not to state horsepower numbers. I'm not sure the exact reason, but one reason I've heard that if they say X bike makes 125 horsepower and yours ends up only making 123, then you might go back to the manufacturer and say you want a different bike that make 125 horsepower. But this is just my take on it.

 

Yeah but that reasoning would apply to cars, too, and every car I know of has a published hp rating...

 

Ducati and Aprilia publish horsepower figures for each of their bikes. Maybe it's just the Japanese manufacturers.

 

Well, look around a bit more and you'll find them. For Jap bikes, you'll find that the HP is to the wheels since magazines Dyno them. RC51s get about 135-140 to the wheels. My F4i got 98.2rwhp with a slip-on (muffler).

Most 600s dyno in the 90-100 range.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by integrate
[B]Well, look around a bit more and you'll find them.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by integrate
[B] RC51s get about 135-140 to the wheels.

 

woops, I meant to the crank.

 

Almost all of the UK bike magazines quote power output for all available bikes.

If the figures are quoted as tested then this means the power output at the back wheel but if they are manufacturers figures they are usually from the crank.

In some markets the bikes have their power restricted i.e. some European countries have a 100bhp restriction. I also believe that some bikes in the US are also power restricted compared to the same bike UK market.

For the RC51 (SP1/SP2 in UK) the tested figure (back wheel) is 119Bhp and the crank power quoted at 133Bhp.

 

Lots of mis-information on the RC51 being spread here...

'00 - '01 (SP1) generally seem to do 118