Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge major mechanical wish list....

Nope, but I hear Maytag helped 'em with their belt design!

Kinda like how Porsche helped 'em with the design of their V-Rod engine.

And ALSO why they hired a fella by the name of Erik Buell a while back to help 'em design motorcycles that can actually handle twisty roads out there. BUT, true to form, they screwed THAT whole thing up BIG TIME!!!

Yep ya see, them there fellas just seem to always have had a little problem designin' stuff all by their lonesome whenever it's out o' their "sphere of expertise"!

(...and THAT'S why they've basically been makin' the same motorcycle since 1936 and are always throwin' that word "heritage" around willy-nilly!!!)

Yep Warren, there have been a few instances of this design to make it into production, but as far as I know these were and are liquid-cooled single-cylinder dirtbikes, the short-lived Cannondale E440 of a few years back, and the latest model(since 2010) Yamaha YZ450F.

A few years ago I read an answer to this very question of yours as to why this didn't or hasn't become the norm in motorcycle design in an issue of Cycle World magazine. Kevin Cameron, CW's Technical Editor stated that the reason is that an engine gets hottest around the area of the exhaust valves, and thus because of that and the need to keep that portion of an engine cool, and especially so on an air-cooled engine, that always necessitated motorcycle design to have its exhaust forward in order to receive the most amount of cooling air possible.