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Now, attaching these mounts to the engine is another challenge entirely. We've known all along that we wanted to use the engine mounts as an opportunity to tie the engine and bellhousing adaptor together in a more robust manner. If we relied only on the adaptor parts, all the drivetrain's weight, and torque reaction forces, would be put through a series of tiny 6mm bolts threaded into paper-thin aluminum designed only for holding on a paper thin magnesium clutch cover. This path would surely end in tears.
With the need for engine mounts comes the opportunity for this engine mount truss that also happens to connect the big bellhousing bolts to the big Hayabusa engine mount lug with a nice, chunk of chromoly steel tubing. This will make the whole assembly much more robust.
Round one of the truss wasn't robust enough as an engine mount locator, though. You can see from this angle how the mount location is cantilevered out in space, resulting in a mounting point that could bend slightly when the engine is rocked on its mounts. More vertical support was needed.
So, on the driver's side, we added this vertical support to another Hayabusa mounting point.
On the passenger's side, we've got this somewhat more cumbersome brace going all the way to the cylinder head. This side of the engine was the front of the motorcycle, and there is precious little on the front of the engine to mount to. Since there was no straight line from the head to the engine mount, both the upper and lower ends of the mount jog out, away from the engine. Structurally, this is not the most efficient shape, but as a supplementary brace, there's relatively little load to be supported here.
This is the only time you'll see such a cumbersome mounting solution, Now that we understand this challenge, future versions of the bellhousing adaptor will have a more accessible mounting point built in to avoid this problem.
All dressed up and ready to go, the modified V8 Roadsters subframe is 10 pounds lighter than the stock subframe and should, with this X-brace, be much stiffer.
