I can’t wrap my head around how such a small engine can produce the same amount of speed that a car can, especially when a larger engine in a smaller car can still be really slow.
In: Engineering
They work the same way as car engines do, they’re just smaller. Bikes are just a *lot* lighter than cars. The base model Honda Civic is 1252 kg. The base model Honda Rebel is 165 kg.
It’s not moving nearly as much mass.
A Heavy motorcycle is 500lbs.
An average car is 3000lbs
Tesla’s weight 5000lbs (batteries be heavy!)
It’s also about gearing as well as power tonweight, a smaller engine on a bike often does twice the rpm of a car. Hence more bang for buck
It’s all about something called power-to-weight ratio. Let’s use an example to explain:
The R1200GS, BMW’s best selling motorcycle, has Approximately 100 horsepower and weighs 450 pounds. This produces a horsepower/pounds ratio of 0.22. This means for every pound of motorcycle, there is 0.22 horsepower available to move that pound.
In contrast, a car (in this case a mazda 3) usually has around 150hp, but weighs 2,800 pounds. This produces a horsepower/pounds ratio of 0.054. That means for every pound of car, there is only 0.054 horsepower to move it.
In summary, the engines on motorcycles have more power per pound than cars, and that means the motorcycle engine can move the motorcycle faster because it doesn’t have to work as hard.
Motorcycle engines usually run the same way that car engines do, 4-stroke gasoline combustion engines. These engines are of course less powerful than a standard car engine, but bikes are much lighter and experience less friction since they only have two rather small wheels. Bikes also have less pollution control mechanisms that can reduce power, such as catalytic converters. This also means that motorcycles pollute more than cars.
Also motorcycle engines generally have a higher compression ratio than car engines, making more power with less especially when using higher octane fuel. Motorcycle engines are more finely tuned and have tighter tolerances than cars making them potent machines but require more careful and regular maintenance and be less reliable.
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