2016 Honda Rc213v-S

2016 HONDA RC213V-S

WHAT DO I REALLY THINK ABOUT HONDA'S STREET-LEGAL MOTOGP MACHINE?

Kevin Cameron

There's so much critical chatter about this new Honda that I'm weighing in as well. In general, people seem disappointed that the RC213V-S is not a take-no-prisoners pavement ripper, equivalent to a Hayabusa with 650-hp turbo kit, or Kawasaki’s supercharged 500-plus-pound H2. Orders began on July 13, and these $184,000 bikes will be hand built by small teams at the rate of one per business day through the end of 2016.

A speed kit for closed-circuit use only is another $14,000, available only in Europe. US spec is a claimed 101 hp at 9,400 rpm. Marc Marquez’s racebike, for the record, is good for about 240 at 16,000. With the kit, the RC213V-S is said to produce 215 hp at 13,000.

The RC213V-S is today’s equivalent of the late 1980s Honda RC30—a handbuilt roadracer that you can ride on the street. Roadracing requires sophisticated suspension, and this Honda has it. In roadracing, you get one start from a clutch then it is changed. Pavement rippers get big, heavy clutches good for 20 or 30 burnouts.

MOTOGP BIKES WEIGH WHAT HONDA’S ENTRY-LEVEL CBR300 SINGLE WEIGHS. PAVEMENT RIPPERS LIKE THE HAYABUSA TIP THE SCALES NORTH OF 500 POUNDS TO SURVIVE THE HAMMERING OF STREET DRAGS AND BURNOUT CONTESTS...

Aroadrace bike is built down to the class minimum weight to maximize acceleration and maneuverability while minimizing rider effort. MotoGP bikes weigh what Honda’s entry-level CBR300 single weighs. Pavement rippers like the Hayabusa tip the scales north of 500 pounds to survive the hammering of street drags, burnout contests, and trackday one-upmanship (to say nothing of heavy mufflers and catalyzers).

To legally ride a roadrace bike on the street, it must pass applicable sound and emissions requirements. Some private individuals have welded 10 pounds of grenade glass-packs on the ends of a Yamaha TZ750’s four pipes and taken it to the street, but Harleys won all the rollons because the TZ’s torque curve began at 9,300 rpm. Cruise the strip at 9,300?

I don’t think so. They also got tired of replacing the six $11 steel clutch plates after every hot start (which is why top riders chugged rather than blazed their big TZs out to practice from 1974-1984). Remember, 11 bucks bought a nice dinner in the 1970s.

But when a major manufacturer risks its name on a roadracer for the street, it has to meet emissions and sound regulations without question, and that doesn’t mean crude glass packs that blow their stuffing and get real loud after a few rides. Look over existing photos of the RC213V-S and tell me where you would put the bulky catalyzers and mufflers. Catalyzers get hot because their purpose is to burn off any remaining carbon monoxide or unburned hydrocarbons. Want to sit on the one that exits from the seatback? Look under the bike: Honda engineers have filled that small space with a cat and muffler, but streetbikes are designed from the start to carry street equipment. Roadracers are not. When the RC213V-S was given as much catalyzer and muffler as there was room for, it wouldn’t meet sound or emissions regulations at its own proper peak rev ceiling of 16,500 rpm. It wouldn’t pass at the 13,000 rpm that you get with the $14,000 speed kit. And it wouldn’t pass at 10,000. What could Honda do? Have this bike tow an exhaust-treatment trailer?

So the engineers de-rated the engine until it did pass.

We don’t know how long the racebike’s pneumatic valve system seals last, but it seems unlikely that they last a lot longer than the 3.6 races required from each engine under the five engines per rider, per season rule. Are you ready for a 1,100mile top end overhaul interval? Also, the pneumatic valve system is good for about an hour of running after it’s pressurized by the little box on casters. Throw in a trained technician to do it all perfectly.

A few distinguished older residences still have coach houses behind, with an upstairs apartment for the coachman and his family; maybe the pneumatic valve tech can live up there in these remnants from the 1890s.

So we get no pneumatic valves for the street. You get metal springs, as used on the “production racer” that Nicky Hayden rode last year, estimated to be 30 hp down on the real thing.

Only one person on the Honda team is permitted to rebuild the seamless transmission—a job that is probably performed after every race weekend in conditions of tight security. A couple of years ago, Honda offered to lease such transmissions at $300,000 per year, under its own direct supervision. Do I hear any bids? Can both techs live in the coach house apartment?

No seamless transmission. You get a conventional six-speed drum-and-dogsshifted gearbox.

Exotic carbon-carbon discs and pads are on every MotoGP bike because they continue to work at 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit and their lightness makes steering quicker—especially at very high speed. But look in any MotoGP garage on Sunday and you will see wheels with rain tires and regrettably heavy steel discs already fitted and calipers with dry-break hydraulic connectors, equipped with two or three grands’ worth of carbon pads, ready to click into place in case of rain. Just sitting there, in case. Carbon has to be hot to generate useful friction, and that’s hard to achieve with direct water-cooling by Mother Nature.

So no carbon brakes for the street, unless you can provide a chase van with the alternate wheels and calipers on board, plus more technicians to quickly install them. So you get steel Yutaka Giken discs.

Everything else is really nice racebike stuff. Each caliper is $8,500. Real MotoGP suspension for how much? The good World Superbike fork used to be 30 grand. It all adds up quickly. Beautiful stuff. People with a lot of money might start out with the basic 26,000-squarefoot McMansion and the expected private jet, but a few become curious about more imaginative ways to convert their Swiss francs into personal satisfaction. When I was able as an FIM tech inspector to lay hands on real GP bikes at Laguna Seca in 1988,1 saw close up that they are beautiful things, made to the highest possible standards. They make Bimotas seem, well, crude. I felt privileged.

Beauty of that kind doesn’t appeal to everyone, but it appeals to me.