Over the years I've been fascinated by the general lack of knowledge about Honda's anti 4t stance - a culture inculcated by Soichiro Honda himself (though their very first true MC, the A1 , I think, had a 2t engine
). Even many supposed Journalists seemed to miss Honda letting all and sundry know that they intended to cease all 2t production by 2007.
Honda have some very impressive engineering with regards to 2ts - at least what we know of - the range of patents they have applied to 2ts alone would boggle the mind, I would suspect. Perhaps the ARC patents have run out - as Eyvind Boyesens trapping valve KX250 mule engine is a rather close to the basic idea, even if the execution is very different. I really want to snaffle up a last year model of the CRM 250 AR, for my own collection of bikes, sooner, rather than later.
So, besides the owner / founders dislike of 2ts - which they had to put aside so they didn't miss out on the amazing dirt bike explosion in the 70s (Potential profitability / "money talks" is a powerful thing - perhaps even moreso nowadays), a great big marketing thing came along to assist 4ts - Environmental matters! (I'm not denigrating them , they are very important to our future).
Honda really joined in with the 'clean & green' thing - and, just like enviro activists / politicians and even the general public, it really easy to point to those 'dirty, smokey 2 strokes', and look like the good guys in getting rid of them. Too bad you don't have to add up the true costs of production and use of the 4t engines that have superseded the 2ts
.
You add in all the rules that favour 4ts in racing -double the capacity in MX2,1.8 :1 in MX1, WEC/EWC rules, Moto GP (through to banning outright, at least through the rules, of 2ts) and there go most of the 2ts.
Mind you, with Moto 2 , Aprilia are just as to blame as Honda's power and influence - by charging so much to lease a factory level 250 ( 1 million Euro? - they offered leasing at 1 Euro during 09 for blokes to use the 250 still in 010 - either that was them being facetious, or 250s were not allowed at all finally- I"m unsure on that last one), which you Had to have to have any hope of winning, they killed off the 250s just as much as Honda and the other companies. The same idiocy is going to lead to the disappearance of the 125s in GP racing....... As a side question - I don't see KTM trying to sell their neat little 125, just using it for the Red Bull cup racing - I've seen only 1 KTM listed in the GPs at times lately - by, perhaps, not selling the 125, KTM are tacitly letting the 2t in GPs die off.
We are in an age where you can go to a company, that makes a bicycle front wheel that is driven by a tiny DFI'd 2t engine in its hub, and the company loudly touts the cleanliness and fuel efficiency of the 2t over 4ts. Another company sells, and has retrofitted thousands of 2t commercial trikes / bikes in Asia with a DFI top end conversion for the existing 2ts out there.
As another fellow wrote above, perhaps it will be "the invisible hand of the economy" ( I truly believe that the only reason KTM has survived the last few years is the profitability of their 2t line, aided so much by the lack of major 2t production competition from other, large manufacturers) that gets 2ts back - even from Honda. They could 'save face' over their early anti 2t stance, by jumping back into them because of their new, 'even more clean and green' than a 4t standings, as modern 2ts are showing themselves to be. Especially if you add up all the costs of production , in both monetary and environmental terms.. But, I'm not about to hold my breathe on that one.
Bugger Honda, I say!
