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Over in the Mobil 1 booth was this motorcycle featuring an American designed V4 engine.
Boost makes everything more fun, though this engine doesn’t really need it.
The Motus MV4 is called the Baby Block V4 using push-rods to actuate the valves. So it’s like a GM LS V8 cut in half. You can see the coil packs for the spark plugs sitting in the middle of the V underneath the intake runners.
The engine comes in two flavors: MV4 and MV4-R. You can see from the dyno plot the MV4-R trades some low-end torque for a higher redline and more power up top. The MV4 makes 165hp and 123 lb-ft of torque. The MV4-R makes 180hp and 126 lb-ft of torque with the redline extending to 8600rpm from 8100pm. The torque curve is pretty flat from 3500rpm to 8600rpm making for a wide powerband. 180hp from 1.65L is pretty stout. If they made a 3.3L V8, it’d make about 360hp and 250 lb-ft of torque. Personally, I think that would be a pretty fun engine in a lightweight RWD 2-seater.
Check out the carbon wheels on this Cervelo S5 road bike. The aero wheels feature a slightly dimpled surface to reduce aero drag.So there you have it, a glimpse of the part of the performance aftermarket side of SEMA in a few hours. However, the OEMs have been busy too. The domestics have been especially busy with Ford and Chevy having shifted battle fields from the drag strip to road courses. So stay tuned as I’ll show some of the goodies the OEMs have engineered in Part 2 of my coverage.
