Supercharged
SUPERCHARGED
SUZUKI SPEED
It's good to B-King
THE 1300 SUZUKI Hayabusa B-KING...SUPERCHARGED engine...“Way over 200 bhp”...concept-bike bombshell of the 2001 Tokyo Motor Show. Five hundred and fifty million years ago, sea life on our planet burst into wild variety in a kind of huge natural experiment. Every bizarre shape and variety of living thing suddenly appeared. Motorcycling may now be having its own similar explosion of diversity, as the industry gropes for new directions. Suzuki’s B-King street/sport/ dragster is the latest fruit of this process, now taking the limelight attracted only months ago by Harley's V-Rod, and before that by Honda’s monster rumbler VTX1800.
The B-King is part sit-up naked, part New American Sports, loaded with powerful elements from roadracing and from modern information technology. A bare Hayabusa 1300 transverse mlme-Four wasn’t enough. It had to be supercharged to become B-King. The spherical lump in the center of this bike its “power egg”-looks very much like that of Yamaha's epoch-making 1976 OW-31 roadracer. All components are tightly packaged. The organic shapes of fuel tank, swingarm and engine undertray tell us B-King’s designers feel Italian influences, but the cocky upswept seatback and tilted “helmet headlight" make me think of caps jauntily worn backward or sideways. In styling’s current lexicon, the abrupt forward slant of this machine loudly shouts speed, pow er and high-dose action hormones.
The front end is pure roadrace. A heavy inverted fork clamps into blocky billet four-bolt steering crowns. Four-piston Brembo calipers like those now found on every GP bike are supported m radiale style, directly behind the front axle. I he impressive array of curved radiator and oilcooler behind all this would look right at home on Mat Mladin's AMA GSX-R Superbike.
W hy the name? Hyphens are in this year, and you can make of the “B” w hat you like-Boost, Beastly. Big, Bad or Bold-pick one.
The engine is the story, and with so much power, who needs a fairing? Streamlining would just be an insult to the air-crushing power of the supercharged engine. The B-King’s engine bay is so jammed w ith equipment that it looks like a WW II lighter-plane powerplant with its cowlings off. All hoses, wires and pipes are pulled in tight to detine a smooth surface that isn’t material. I'Iie engille juts into view here aiid there. hut the shapes tease the eye. suggesting the taIis within. \~`e have to stare and trace out where evervthin~ noes. We are drawn to what is not sho~ n.
KEVIN CAMERON
On the leti side, the standout element is the hm~ step-up belt drive, direct from the crankshall end to the blower located behind the enuine's intakes. Forget at I the charm school etiquette ol iol itely enticing air to enter the engine h~' means ol intake ducts. resonators or airhoxes. A super charger just crams it in by tiwce. Why super charge rather than turhocharge? Mechanically driven supercharuing gives instant throttle response that no turbo cami equal lea~ ing first is the first step in getting there first.
New kinds of motorcycles such as the 13-king trace their beginnings hack to when Japan first collided with the power ot American st~ Ic and the strength of 1larlev's tradition. Lookalikes made some headway, hut were on the whole rejected as ersatz. What does the Japanese indus try do best.' Florsepower! So the new strategy was to tilt the rules of street cruising toward power, a world outside Harley's lock on cruiser style. In I 955. Yamaha rolled out its long, low fiit-tired street dragster. the V-Max. Despite a decent demand f~r Max's smoky tire-spinning virtues. Yamaha's try at a new category did not click in a big way then. Sporthikes were getting all the attention. During the `90s. Honda, Yamaha and the others traded punches with improved American-style lookalike cruisers, and received some warmer review's. Ihen I londa released its bi~er-is-hetter VTX I 500.
Harley. t~tcing Cadillac's critical problem ot' an aging clientele, needed something to excite younger riders. En a bold gamble. the crew at Juneau Avenue came up with the liquid-cooled. fuel-injected street dragster V-Rod, which chal lenged the others to put their horsepo~er where their fake intakes and slash-cuts were. Then they backed it up with a public commitment to actually go drag racing against all comers with the new machine.
Attractive as they are, all these new bikes are really questions more than they are statements. They ask, “What do riders want next, that we are able to give them?” The definitive answer hasn’t materialized, but the questions continue. The B-King is Suzuki’s Really Big Question.
B-King specs are from beyond our universe. Over 200 horsepower means casual throttle-wheelies at 130 mph, driven by the grip of that hemispherical-looking 240series rear beachball. Yes, hemispherical-these tires aren’t even a little flat in the middle because this is a multi-tasking kind of motorcycle that could do whatever you like. Leave ’em for dead at the light, outbrake ’em into the first left, pull away through the twisties, and finally disappear at an unmentionable top speed. The necessary tools are all here: mighty horsepower, state-of-the-art brakes, serious cornering clearance, at least adequate tires and real suspension. All things to all riders? Tell it to Suzuki.
The twin-beam aluminum chassis is massive but conventional, save that the sculptural alloy swingarm pivots in the engine cases. The rear chassis uprights are non-structural bolt-ons
I wish motorcycle stylists would set aside the temptation to mess with the outlet ends of exhaust pipes. Round is just fine with me, and the smoke likes it, too. The B-King’s underseat ion cannons end in bulged-out square shapes that look like speakers on a boombox. I’d rather look at that fat rear tire.
Plastic parts have been avoided. Metal is the material, and new fabrication methods have been used to work it. These are high-speed welding technologies that reduce distortion by fusing metal so fast that heat has little time in which to flow outward into the surrounding structure. The smaller the heataffected zone, the less severe the resulting heat distortion.
Suzuki calls the first method “compound laser welding,” which has been used to assemble swingarms for the Gamma RG500 GP bike. This uses two frequencies of laser light to intensify the coupling of energy to the metal being welded. The result is claimed to be a welding rate 10 times greater than normal production methods. The B-King’s chassis is welded in this way.
The second method is AC plasma welding, which runs a spatter-free bead three to five times faster than conventional shielded-arc welding. The B-King’s attractive swingarm is welded with this technique.
This is not a Tom Tomorrow Bike, made of NASA unobtainiums and employing warp drives that have yet to be invented. It could be built as soon as the production tooling is put on the line and powered-up, because all / / the vehicle technology is proven, offthe-shelf stuff. All that’s needed is a decision to go. Like I said, tell it to Suzuki.
The history of technology teaches us that whatever becomes possible also becomes likely. Therefore the B-King is loaded with electronic features normally found only in high-end autos. Try an ignition switch triggered by fingerprint recognition (just wash your hands and try again...). Or on-board diagnostics via multiple sensors, whose values all have to be in the green or appropriate warnings come up on a screen-or as verbal advisories in helmet headphones. Wireless connection to remote diagnostics is also included. A mobile phone link, integrated into the on-board computer, informs the rider of weather developments ahead, in the direction of travel. What, no stock quotes? E-mails may be received, and the rider can call out via a helmet-mounted headset.
Unauthorized interference with the motorcycle causes it to dial your personal cellphone. Then you can tell the thief over a two-way speaker-microphone hookup what you think of his actions. If sweet reason and reminding the perp of the severe penalties for grand theft auto fail to stay his hand, you can then honk the horn and flash the lights to attract help from nearby Samaritans or peace officers-all from the comfort of wherever else you happen to be. GPS is being integrated into everything else, so it’s here too. A helmet-mounted headsup display, focused at infinity, is included to save you from having to drop your eyes even for a second from the horizon rushing so quickly toward you.
Taillight and tumsignals are LED. The single-bulb headlight employs a specially shaped reflector to obtain the same wide distribution that presently requires multiple light sources. The LCD dash display is in color, and can be covered to eliminate distraction. There is an information display panel atop the fuel tank. Naturally, the B-King’s central computer is unusually powerful.
Think this is all funny showbike fluff? Not really. Once all the electronic features are executed in integrated circuit form, and provided there is adequate volume to push the price down, there is no financial reason to do without any of these functions if you can afford the base motorcycle. One feature not mentioned is now being implemented in autos and will surely one day be a part of motorcycle electronics: vehicle accident reporting. Should you tip over, an on-board system detects the upset and/or severe deceleration of the crash. It then dials the appropriate authorities for assistance, simultaneously reporting your exact position via GPS.
Does something as outrageous as the B-King have a potential place in motorcycling? Bragging rights traditionally focus on quarter-mile times and top speed, but now a Japanese industry accord forbids advertised top speeds over 186 mph. With top speed on a leash, only acceleration remains at large. All sports motorcycles have essentially the same lower-gear acceleration because this is defined by the “wheelie limit.” Therefore the difference—and the B-King’s special strengthcomes at speeds beyond the 80-100 mph at which conventional bikes are no longer able to throttle-wheelie. In the past, this has been the special province of the nightrider pink-slip street dragsters. These rational crazies dump all their assets into wild pro-built street turbo bikes, designed to settle the age-old question of whose big dog bites hardest. The BKing saves you from the ignominy of having to jerk upward on the bars while twisting the grip.
In a world headed toward silent fuelcell efficiency, highway-guided vehicles and on-board law enforcement (it debits your bank account when you exceed the local speed limit), what is the B-King? It’s a way to say, “I ACCELERATE. THEREFORE I AM!”
