If electric isn’t yet ready to take over the motorcycle world, perhaps forced induction could rule the next era. Honda has just presented a revolutionary high-capacity V3 combustion engine at EICMA, with an electric compressor.

The Japanese giant unveiled a brand new platform on Tuesday after lunch: a compact 4-stroke V3 engine, which it unveiled in a beautiful tubular trellis frame with red highlights on both front cylinder heads, the rear cylinder head unique. and the little electric compressor snail peeking through the frame above the front heads.

It’s slim – barely wider than the forks, with beautifully curved exhausts that could look great in a bare environment, and an easily accessible oil filter on the left side. However, the front bank valve clearance is going to be a pain.

Loz Blain / New Atlas

The pistons are positioned at a 75-degree angle and the whole thing is water-cooled – with no radiators visible on the display chassis. The electric compressor is a world first in this type of application, designed in particular to increase torque at low and medium speeds.

While turbochargers run on exhaust gas pressure and compressors are driven directly by the engine’s output shaft, Honda’s electronic supercharger runs on battery power. This completely decouples it from the engine speed; the ECU can force as much air into the intakes as it wants at any time. Honda engineers can use it to completely eliminate any kind of lag while waiting for boost to kick in, or tune it for all kinds of efficiency and performance gains.

We would be fascinated to know how the efficiency of this overall system will compare to that of traditional belt-driven superchargers, which sap a significant percentage of an engine’s power at low revs before revving up and starting to contribute . Honda still needs power to drive this snail of somewhere – this bike will need much higher power output from its alternator, and probably a bigger battery, to run that supercharger.

Honda

Typically, losses from converting mechanical energy to electrical energy and vice versa have made electric compressors less efficient than those driven directly by the engine – but the overall driving experience could still end up being superior here .

The V3 electronic compressor was created from the ground up and is incredibly compact. Honda says the engine is “newly developed for larger displacement machines”, and we can see it used in all sorts of applications, from street and touring to more track-focused machines – hell, s’ it’s as finely adjustable as it looks. , it could even work in the adventure sector.

Remember though, this is still a concept. The fact that it is presented mounted on a chassis equipped with 200/55 wide section tires does not mean that it is intended for use in the Fire Blade. It’ll be a while before Honda reveals where it’s going to start using this thing.

Loz Blain / New Atlas

It shares the same cylinder layout as the NS400R 2T – a unique two-stroke triple that made waves around 40 years ago. And if it makes it to production, it will join Kawasaki’s terrifying H2 as one of the only forced induction production motorcycles on the market.

And the production is definitely the intention here. “Honda considers the development of this V3 engine with electric compressor as a new challenge in the field of internal combustion engines, and its goal is to enable customers to experience more of the joy of driving and owning a motorcycle,” it says. read in a company press release. . Honda also stated that “development of this new three-cylinder concept will continue towards mass production.”

Is it too early to get excited?

Source: Honda