12 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

There are very few auto motorcycles instead the move is to quickchangers.

 

Tried one a few weeks ago on a MT09.

0-100 kph in about 2.7 seconds.

200 kph comes up in about 11 second ie its quarter mile time.

One can get quickshifters for the R3 for less than a grand same as they use in World Super Sport racing.

 

So yours is actually a '20th century' manual but you were too ashamed to admit it? 

5 minutes ago, shyVRS245 said:

Trying to remember the last time I saw a bike on the motorway recently. Must be the cold weather and zero grip from those skinny tyres. Perhaps I will see the next one about April when it's warm enough to actually ride one.

 

Well I was out on the R3 yesterday even though it was just to take it too the bike shop for a double safety recall.  Yes it was bloody cold and I think I could get it power down fine with its rear wheel drive and weight transfer in the right direction during acceleration.

 

I am not sure I can get my 150 hp down on the road during acceration in the Octy mind you without traction control interfering so I would expect the difference between the bike and the Octy to be even greater than the plus 7 degrees summer tyres temperatures.  Must get some All season on.  205s quite enough for optimum grip in these low temperatures.

9 minutes ago, Gerrycan said:

So yours is actually a '20th century' manual but you were too ashamed to admit it? 

Making bold statements is great unless you embarrass yourself at the same time. Not very clever like needing to tax and insure 3 vehicles instead of choosing one to do everything.

12 minutes ago, Gerrycan said:

So yours is actually a '20th century' manual but you were too ashamed to admit it? 

 

Different operation on a bike ie foot moving 2 cm rather than hand moving gear stick 15 cm plus we can do clutchless changes, just press on the sequential gear change lever and it will snick in or spend a few hundred quid on a quickshifters and get even faster changes ie around a tenth of a second compared to the rubbish third to a half second on a manual change car.

 

Video on here somewhere of a DSG Golf GTi realling off acceleration runs half a second quicker than the manual.

12 minutes ago, shyVRS245 said:

Making bold statements is great unless you embarrass yourself at the same time. Not very clever like needing to tax and insure 3 vehicles instead of choosing one to do everything.

 

1.4 tsi sub 8 second to 100 kph road tax £35 per year.  

0-100 kph in 5 seconds bike also about that ie £38 or something like that.

 

Much cheaper than VRSs and much nicer on long journeys based of driving hundreds of thousands of miles on both types of cars and not having to stop three  times a week for fuel but only twice, even with a fuel card, is nice.

Edited 5 January, 20197 yr by lol-lol

1 hour ago, Gerrycan said:

So yours is actually a '20th century' manual but you were too ashamed to admit it? 

 

An auto is good on a track, especially if it's got flappy paddles or a gearstick you can use for sequential shifting.

 

I feel a manual is more practical especially when you're doing a lot of stop start, slow moving traffic in town.

 

If you could have an automatic with a clutch pedal, I wouldn't mind one of those all day.

3 hours ago, lol-lol said:

 

1.4 tsi sub 8 second to 100 kph road tax £35 per year.  

0-100 kph in 5 seconds bike also about that ie £38 or something like that.

 

Much cheaper than VRSs and much nicer on long journeys based of driving hundreds of thousands of miles on both types of cars and not having to stop three  times a week for fuel but only twice, even with a fuel card, is nice.

5 seconds to 62 is very slow for a bike. Thats about the same as my 1975  Yamaha RD350. 2-3 seconds is more the norm now.

You can get a bike with a DSG, or more accurately a Dual Clutch Gearbox.

 

Nearly as big as a car though,

 

 

2 minutes ago, logiclee said:

You can get a bike with a DSG, or more accurately a Dual Clutch Gearbox.

 

Nearly as big as a car though,

 

 

You can get smaller honda bikes see below with dct. Only a 'special' sort of biker wants one though. Lol 22 years of riding proper big bikes for myself with manual sequential gearboxes which are simple.

 

I test rode the VFR1200 with a DCT gearbox. Surprisingly good after you get used to having no clutch lever when you go reach for it.  Very rapid through the gears and suits the V4 very nicely. I’d actually gone to test ride the Crosstourer but was curious about the DCT but they only had a VFR. 

In the end I kept with KTM, which had a quick shifter fitted and much fun. 

5 hours ago, teescom09 said:

5 seconds to 62 is very slow for a bike. Thats about the same as my 1975  Yamaha RD350. 2-3 seconds is more the norm now.

 

Ah the old air-cooled RD350.  0-100 kph in 5.2 seconds, very respectable for 44 years ago and now.

 

Mind you it did use more fuel than a Petrol Octavia VRS and more oil than a Fabia 2 VRS !

 

Improvement came with the RD 350 LC YPVS but even then you are only talking about just under 5s to 100 kph and still shockingly bad fuel and oil consumption.

 

When it came to the choice, and I thought I would always go for the RD350 LC I went for the XJ550.   Yes it was slowish on acceleration at a poorish 5.5 seconds to 100 kph but easier to live and fairly soon changed for the XJ600 which was well down under 5 seconds to 100 kph and the XJs got half as much again mpg as the RD 350 LCs.

 

The world changed, two strokes were outlawed in the States so we have to live with 4 stokes and they are even fitted with Catalytics converters now.  

 

New bikes have to be Euro4 compliant unlike those dirt old two strokes.  My Kawasaki H1 500 cc two stroke could make the street behind disappear in a fog of two stroke smoke.  Not acceptable these days.

 

So whilst still managing 0-100 in 5 seconds ie even the lightweight bikes do these sorts of time, but manage 60 mpg even with a Cat fitted.  Very environmental !  

    

Edited 5 January, 20197 yr by lol-lol

2 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

Ah the old air-cooled RD350.  0-100 kph in 5.2 seconds, very respectable for 44 years ago and now.

 

Mind you it did use more fuel than a Petrol Octavia VRS and more oil than a Fabia 2 VRS !

 

Improvement came with the RD 350 LC YPVS but even then you are only talking about just under 5s to 100 kph and still shockingly bad fuel and oil consumption.

 

When it came to the choice, and I thought I would always go for the RD350 LC I went for the XJ550.   Yes it was slowish on acceleration at a poorish 5.5 seconds to 100 kph but easier to live and fairly soon changed for the XJ600 which was well down under 5 seconds to 100 kph and the XJs got hlaf as much mpg as the RD 350s.

 

The world changed, two strokes were outlawed in the States so we have to live with 4 stokes and they are even fitted with Catalytics converters now.  

 

New bikes have to be Euro4 compliant unlike those dirt old two strokes.  My Kawasaki H1 500 cc two stroke could make the street behind disappear in a fog of two stroke smoke.  Not acceptable these days.

 

So whilst still managing 0-100 in 5 seconds ie even the lightweight bikes do these sorts of time, but manage 60 mpg even with a Cat fitted.  Very environmental !  

    

I still have a good few RD's and DT's ! Including a couple of Honda 4 strokes from the 70's.  Had them new back then too, FS1E, GT250, GT550, GS750 then a Cortina 2000GXL, rest is boring history. You can still get a brand new Jawa 350 two stroke! It depends how big the company is apparently. But my RD250's are faster than those. Ironically it is very possible to make clean two strokes, that was the Lotus plan not very long ago

Actually the RD's can easily get 50+ mpg always could! Oil consumption is about 350 miles to the pint steady away as they are too valuable to trash.. Plus free road tax, no mot required and about £100 fully comp insurance for 6+ including recovery and guaranteed value. 

 

A commuter bike that doesn't get 100 mpg now is pretty poor. My FS1E in 1975 always got 100 mpg, 2 stroke on 20:1 pre mix, 50cc but still did 55 mph flat out, thrashed every day for 12 months to the day without any problems whatsoever apart from a 10 minute decoke every 1000 miles! 

 

Edited 6 January, 20197 yr by teescom09

9 hours ago, teescom09 said:

I still have a good few RD's and DT's ! Including a couple of Honda 4 strokes from the 70's.  Had them new back then too, FS1E, GT250, GT550, GS750 then a Cortina 2000GXL, rest is boring history. You can still get a brand new Jawa 350 two stroke! It depends how big the company is apparently. But my RD250's are faster than those. Ironically it is very possible to make clean two strokes, that was the Lotus plan not very long ago

 

Had loads of T250s and GT250s.  0 - 60 mph not too bad at 6 seconds and fuel consumption usually in the 40s mpg but had a shed full of parts, expansion chambers, skimmed heads, fairings etc which bought the 0-60s in to the 5s.  When the Suzuki X7 came along it was too small for me and did not go back to 250s even though the RGV 250 came along with it 4 second 0-60 as i was already in to middle weights which included an FZ6 which does around 3.6s to 60 and 11 second standing quarter, actually as quick as an R6.  All recent bikes need some tweaking to get them to full potential, sadly removing the CAT.  Fortunately as the R3 has a race series it belongs too there is a huge supply of race parts.

 

Octavias, VRS, L&Ks etc, as with all the dozen of cars I have had are just boxes on wheels with slowish acceleration, just a comfortable place to do long miles in.  Please with my 1.4 TSI's fuel consumption thought it does seem worrying that the new 1.5 TSI is worse in every respect I have seen so far. Bit like the 4 cylinder VAG engines, peaked at the 1.9D IMO and then has got steadily worse since then heading inexorably to its demise to be replaced by the VW ID electric car range and the like.   Maybe they are deliberately making them worse so the EVs look better by comparison?  

Edited 6 January, 20197 yr by lol-lol

9 hours ago, teescom09 said:

I still have a good few RD's and DT's ! Including a couple of Honda 4 strokes from the 70's.  Had them new back then too, FS1E, GT250, GT550, GS750 then a Cortina 2000GXL, rest is boring history. You can still get a brand new Jawa 350 two stroke! It depends how big the company is apparently. But my RD250's are faster than those. Ironically it is very possible to make clean two strokes, that was the Lotus plan not very long ago

 

I think the new Jawas are 4 stoke looking at the pics. 

With direct fuel injection two strokes could make a return. 

We ran two stoke diesel at sea producing 20,000 hp and efficiency near 50%.  

44 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

I think the new Jawas are 4 stoke looking at the pics. 

With direct fuel injection two strokes could make a return. 

We ran two stoke diesel at sea producing 20,000 hp and efficiency near 50%.  

A dealer Norfolk way sells them brand new, or did last year when I seriously considered getting one. And offer a little tuning kit for them, They do a 4 stroke too. 

 

Normal cars have never stirred the same level of enthusiasm from me, I like a hot hatch and M3, quattro etc, so have always kept the likes around.  But once you were used to the performance of a bike most cars just felt like wobble slugs. Wasn't helped by 15 years of company cars doing 50K+ a year. That's why I don't get carried away over tyres etc on everyday cars, never found they made much noticeable difference. Bit different and better now though, some modern cars are pretty dam good.

When you think about it, it's an awakening considering my last new 250 in 1976 had 32 HP at about 7k and was naturally asperated, that's 128 hp per litre and they were average ?  The RG/RS250 had up to 72 hp standard, 288hp per litre naturally asperated 2 stroke, this is when tyres etc are so important, you can feel every ounce of grip or lack of, people don't know what they've missed 

I lost my leg in 1977 on a Suzuki GT250.  The Crash bar took the leg clean off below the knee when a car hit my bike crossing my path.

About 25 years ago my 'Jupiter 5' Outfit (Jawa 350)  came with the Instructions translated from Russian for running it on Aero Fuel & Transformer Oil.

 

It run great in winter, but sadly one hot summer it went on fire and was burnt out.  That is what can happen when a fuel pipe behind a cowling comes off.

 

Lucky white heather.  I survived to die another day.

Edited 6 January, 20197 yr by Skoffski

Ouch, and it wasn't too bad traffic wise then, it is horrific now especially with the  absolutely incompetent numpties out there. 

 

Back to wltp. as well as DSG being less economical, it seems they are slower on many too, I don't know if they always have been, just going by someone saying the VRS auto was .5 faster than a manual, they aren't, officially they are exactly the same and slower on other models. Some interesting reading when you look at all the manufacturers, although some still haven't changed their figures yet.  

They can be faster or more economical, or just more consistent because every driver is not a driving god and a DSG can take away the fact that some drivers are useless with 3 pedals.

Some cars with 3 pedals are hopeless.

 

DSG's with TC / ASR enabled can be bl00dy hopeless.

 

VW Group 'Official times'  like say with a 2015 on Polo GTI as an example.

1.8 TSI 192 PS and 320Nm with the manual & 250Nm with the 7 speed DQ200 DSG that is heavier, and VW say they have the same 0-62 mph.

Actually the DSG car is quicker.  (Actually the old lighter 1.4 TSI 180ps DSG Polo GTI can be quicker than the newer 1.8TSI 192 ps 320Nm manual.)

 

or here.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 6 January, 20197 yr by Skoffski

Seems to vary a lot but generally they are listed as slower and less economical, now under wltp. The Kodiaq are about the same 0-62 or marginally in favour of the manual, however fuel consumption is 5mpg  (over 10%) worse which seems the pretty much the norm when you look at the bigger picture.

 

I am sure a good (mechanically minded) driver can get better economy out of a manual than an auto. Suppose the figures back this 100%, the test will effectively be a good driver.  You can skip gears easily to suit the situation etc etc

Elephant in the room is with the WLTP the Air Conditioning is not on bringing the cars interior to 18*oC while the ambient temp is at 30*oC and there are 5 or 7 people in the cars seats, luggage in the boot, bikes on the roof or the tow bar, or trailer, caravan etc.

 

Or even as simple as the cars running at revenue weight with seats occupied by average weight people and luggage in the luggage space.

Something like real world driving.

 

WLTP should be done by putting models of cars in various countries / continents in the hands of Taxi Drivers and Air Port Transportation drivers and monitoring fuel usage for a year or 2.

Then you get cars running with drivers, with a passenger or more and in real world.  Then compare that figure to the Kidology 2018 WLTP figures.

1 hour ago, teescom09 said:

I am sure a good (mechanically minded) driver can get better economy out of a manual than an auto. Suppose the figures back this 100%, the test will effectively be a good driver.  You can skip gears easily to suit the situation etc etc

 

In real-world driving I agree that (with the current state of autos at least) a driver can beat the computer because the driver can read the road ahead better. Although with DSG you can override the computer's choice of gears in any case, so should be able to at least match the economy from a manual.

However my understanding of the fuel economy part of WLTP is that it's still lab based, so they should be able to program DSGs to be as good as manuals. Given there seems to have been a rushed attempt to even release models which meet the emissions regs, maybe with a bit more time they will tweak the programming to make the DSGs better. 

 

I think they do take them out on the roads (RDE) for emissions testing - I don't know how this works but my assumption there is they are checking the emissions numbers don't go into the red for any driving condition.

I'm more confused that the official acceleration times aren't better for DSGs though, as it should be an easier task to make the DSGs perform optimally in that situation.

But while it might be possible for a manual to get close to DSG acceleration times if The Stig is driving (does The Stig still exist, I've rather lost touch...? ) , I think for me and most other drivers, the DSG is going to accelerate more quickly as per the video above.

 

Edited 6 January, 20197 yr by DavidY

Emissions  ie C02 NOX are still nedc until next year. They go "on the road tested" next year so much more to come, just the fuel economy they cannot lie about anymore from 1st January 2019. Think when it comes to economy they want a very level playing field to compare otherwise it could get very awkward .. I don't agree they have rushed anything, they didn't really have to do much and haven't with most smaller cars and very little with bigger ones. BMW fitted a GPF on the M4  and lifted the boost .1 or something  bar to compensate.  I read the tech from BMW and even they said they were surprised how little the effect of the GPF being fitted was, compared to previous diesel versions.

 

Remember.... They still do not have to meet true 6.2 standards, even though they were supposed and claimed to have met that 4 years ago! Until diesel gate triggered the investigation into exactly what was going on. They have a massive leeway on emissions, can't remember exactly but its currently about 2.1 times the euro 6.2 set limit! Dropping gradually to zero tolerance by 2021. So they have a long way to go to meet 6.2 properly. They are getting a lot of help. Regarding DSG, I cannot see the argument they can tweak them, they will be tweaked already the best they can with what they have to the nth degree, Manual is  faster or as fast by their official info and considerably more economical in most cases too, no getting away from that,. I have DCT and manual so not biased either way. They have had a long time to perfect it, they have known for a long time. With an Auto the engine is constantly loaded with no breaks for changes and throttle v change management or the ability to skip gears. And if fitted with a torque converter you have a considerable efficiency loss through that. Along with the extra weight.  The drag standing at junctions must add up a fair bit too. 

 

WLTP is without doubt accurate compared to NEDC (thats not difficult!) that is the whole point, we have not achieved anything if that now gets doubted and proved with facts. It will never be perfect, thats why they give a range I suppose, but it is what it is, if you run with your air con on constantly, (don't know why you would do that?) you will get even less, not more, wltp is telling you about the best you can expect over a longer period. It is surprisingly accurate on all of mine and pretty much everyone else who has commented.  It was and is designed to reflect normal driving and to get consistency that must be done in a lab. Otherwise it could be a shambles as one manufacturer could argue the conditions etc suited some other etc etc.  Seems they are confident this won't apply to CO2 and NOX though? At the end of the day it is a massive improvement for our good, not manufacturers who had their length of rope for far too long before hanging themselves.

 

 

6 minutes ago, teescom09 said:

if you run with your air con on constantly, (don't know why you would do that?) 

 

 

Stops the seals drying out and prevents leaks forming