Why Honda Used the V-5 Engine
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Honda's outside-the-box thinking is incredible as they often show something very new to the world. When four-stroke MotoGP was allowed to have the 990 cc displacement, they quickly caught up and designed an unprecedented power plant for the new RC211V, the 21st-century racing motorcycle, with an actual mind-boggling V-5 engine.
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260hp/liter on the V5
283.75hp/liter on the 800cc v4
Absolutely insane for naturally aspirated 4 strokes 😳
Now the v4 998cc gp bikes have 300-320hp
That's MotoGP for you.
Even current MotoGP bikes, especially the Ducati, has well over 300hp
@@Tahterimonni F1s V10 3liter engines had +300hp/liter 17 years ago
@@fuzzy1dk bmw had 1000hp/L 4banger already in the 80s
@@rampage3337 it wasn't naturally aspirated and maybe, possibly, had that power for half a lap before it grenaded. how much HP the BWM had keeps going up every time the story is told
Thats it im calling up Allen Milyard to add another cylinder to my bandit1200!!
To make it an I5 or a v5?
Maybe an XR600 aircooled cylinder, then call it a Bandit 1800…
He might add 6 cylinders
all he'd need is a hacksaw and a hydraulic press
@@TROdesigns plus a cup of tea & a cupcake!
Facts
Damn you VisioRacer Damn you! all these years and I am still watching ..........
send him a postcard!
I appreciate it very much! ♥️
@@VisioRacer my cat loves u too! 🐱♥️♥️♥️
The best part of the video was that engine note at the end. WOW that engine sounds amazing to listen too. (:
You are the man Visio, VW built a VR5 engine in 1997, but the bank angle is 15 degrees, so quite different, and obviously, not in a bike. Great content, as always, watching Nicky Hayden ride the RC211 like a supermoto was so much fun. R.I.P., Kentucky Kid.
Lancia did it first. Visio knows fuck all
@@dougmcdougalson Lancia built an I5, not a V5, and VW did I5 before them, you numb nuts.
Hayden didn't ride anything good besides his deathbed. He was fun to watch playing with Edwards though
@@dougmcdougalson response?
@@dougmcdougalson Lancia had a narrow-angle V4, not V5 of any angle.
I enjoyed that, thanks. I have no interest in motorcycles or even container ships but the immense variety of IC engines powering them and everything in between fascinates me. You have a great channel
Thanks, Philip!
@@VisioRacer ot look like he knew what he was doing and so di the English and German and European 🇪🇺 would the be 500cc per pistons yes or no i follow from Canada
The reason was the rules for MotoGP, there were weights of the bike for less than 4 cylinders and less than 6 cylinders and 6 cylinders. The 5 cylinder bike could weigh the same as a 4 cylinder bike but more cylinders = more horsepower, that is why you also had the 3 cylinder Aprilia RS cube, it could weigh less than a 4 cylinder.
This is one of the coolest bikes of MotoGP, unique engine, unique sound, 2 titles achieved by Valentino Rossi
In the next video talk about the Desmosedici GP
Too bad they can't make a good bike now. This year's Honda in the MotoGP is absolute garbage.
@@unbiasedcobra6672 In the first races they were doing a decent job, since 2020 without Marc Marquez they were doing bad seasons
@@l.s.gangstar2984 HRC is 12th and 15th in the championship at the halfway point. Every single other brand is higher then them. The bike is shit this year.
@@unbiasedcobra6672 it could be, luckily I'm a Ducatista and I'm not a Honda fan
@@l.s.gangstar2984 I'm a Yamaha fan. It doesn't change the fact that this year's Honda sucks.
Genius. Balancing Shaft is Parasitic, so just add another cylinder for balance. Reinventing the wheel
Another great video my friend! Thank you
Triumph at Meriden had a watercooled V5 design in the 1960s but typical lack of British impetus , inertia and the beginning of sales issues abroad , calamitous mergers etc., shelved the design . Famous for their 3 cylinder engines , they simply created a narrow angle V by adding 2 behind without significant weight penalty . Love Honda for bringing these designs to fruition .
Amazing video. Awesome job. Greetings from a Brazilian subscriber.
you’re the best VisioRacer ! nowhere have I seen such an excellent representation of this incredible engine !
Man all that nostalgic Rossi footage along with a great presentation. Loved it.
videos always so well documented. thank you, this is the youtube that I like
this engine is a serious marvell of engineering. You'll have to be seriously smart to thing about adding a cylinder and a piston to perfect balance....
( isn't that cute, the starter cart (6:32) also uses a Honda engine, it's a GX200 made for pumps and off-grid generators).
Thank you for pointing that out lol kinda neat Lil thing
@notfiveo and?
I love the dedication to innovation and the realization that all of it brings us closer to the optimum power units for a given fuel type.
In motorcycle developement programs worldwide ,this effort continues because it is much easier and cheaper to see the results on a much less complex and much more simular motorcycle platform then in many different type auto platforms.
Bring it on.
Kudos to the team members and to #visioracer for another job well done.
Thanks for this! I never knew about the v5! Love your channel! Awesome and amazing content! Great job!!
Great video! Great in-deph info on the development & physics of the V-5 & why they used it-
Another good one
Thank you for this. I never new about the V-five until now.
These in-depth videos are awesome! I’d love to see one on the old Mercedes W25/W125 inline eights.
Beautiful video as always, though I suggest to add subtitles for your international followers!
Yessss! finally thx Visioracer
That's cool! V5 sounds great
Come on ppl, Honda played this game 20 years earlier with a V3 (The NS500) in the 500cc GP championships, with Freddie Spencer taking the championship on the V3 in '83. Each cylinder was ignited every 120 degrees of crankshaft rotation, which meant the explosions were evenly spaced, the two upward cylinders (No.1 and 3) and the downward cylinder (No.2) were angled at 112 degrees. And they did it back then for the same reason: to narrow the package. Honda veteran engineer Shinichi Miyakoshi visited the Dutch TT at Assen in Holland and noted that the fastest of the 350cc GP machines would have qualified on the second row of the grid for the 500cc race. So the concept for the NS500 became one of a compact and light machine with a small frontal area of a 350cc GP racer. But the connection between the V3 and 350cc GP racers is even more pronounced as German manufacturer DKW had employed a V3 in the 1950’s for its 350cc GP racer, something Miyakoshi most certainly knew about. The NS500 also used similar engine architecture to the DKW with two upright cylinders, but unlike the DKW the third cylinder pointed downwards at 112 degrees instead of the more conventional 90 degrees of the DKW.
No fast forward 20 years later to the Honda developing the V5 for MotoGP. Guess who then was making the only production V5 in existence? Zee Germans, specifically, VW.
Everything is a contact business.
That is really clever, big high 5 to the engineers who decided to try that out
Its too bad Honda never put the engine into a production bike, would have loved to see in a VFR or even introduced a new Superblack Bird XX with the engine updated.
Honda can do some amazing stuff. My first bike was a high mileage used Honda VFR 800 2002. That bike had a V4 engine that sounded amazing. I had fun with it until some jerk stole it from my driveway. I've got a Hayabusa 08 now and more discipline with the wheel lock.
how the heck bike can get stolen from your driveway? are western countries lawless states that thieves are brazen enough to steal it right from your driveway?
@@lordjaashin Well I have gotten also motorcycle stolen from my driveway and I live in Finland. You have to be careful, no matter where you live.
@@megapet777 Finland is also western country lol
And it was glorious
Great video!!
Very interesting how the V5 does not have the imbalance problems of an inline 5 because of the timing of the opposing strokes!
Imagine swapping this baby into something like a Smart
Theres a smart for two with zzr1400 motor in it in my city. Burning rubber is all it does.
youd need plenty of revving to move around comfortably
Low torque makes no sense 🤷
@@JZX_202 I know that Atleast one street legal smart for 2 with a turbocharged Hayabusa engine exists in Germany but they are running e85 for emissions so not daily drive able
@@afox5319 this one is not street legal, but hey, its croatia so bribing gets you out of everything. Especially if youre well known to people. This one is owned by a singer so a small thing as a photo with him would be fine. Btw that dude in blue dropped a video some days ago. Turbo Hayabusa smart for2.
honda won in 83 too with the ns 500. rcv was a good bike but 2 strokes suffered major rule changes in 2002 that made them uncompetitive. also all the other manufacturers werent ready, fe yamaha run a carburated m1... and ofcourse rossi rode with honda, and when he switched to yamaha continue to win. in my book the most revolutionary bike of the 4 stroke era was the 2007 ducati
2002 RC211V has to be one of the most beautiful GP bikes ever made. The first of the 4 stroke MotoGP era for Honda. They produced something so dominant paired with the best rider at the time Valentino Rossi. That #46 RC211V will live forever in my memory.
You didn't mention the tragic death of dajiro kato which forced the change to 800cc
I remember that doctor house had a replica back then, beautiful V5 engine, one of my Honda favs, the RC166 still my #1 4stroke natural aspirated 250cc that was japanese perfection
I remember reading that the 990cc v5 was initially developed from an earlier v6 formula 1 turbo v6 at 1500cc. It wouldn't surprise me if this was the case.
Awesome analysis, very informative
Excellent content. Thanks
IT SOUNDS GODLIKE
I liked very much the background music you included
Heard the V5 big bang at Laguna Seca. Incredible engine sound.
What a shame they never put a V5 into a producion bike.
Great video 👍 That's my dreamlike to own🙃
All Honda had to do was treat Rossi with the respect he deserved, and he probably would have won 10 straight titles for them. Yamaha would never have returned to dominance, and Lorenzo, Stoner and Hayden would have just been more also-rans, relegated to the ash heap of history.
So true!
Lol, so true, the combination of man and machine is severely underrated, honda would have wrecked motogp if they could keep rossi, and mercedes probably wouldn't have won 8 in a row without lh
No Honda treated Rossi well. He just had to deal with all that crap that he was in a superior bike and Biaggi was faster. So he switched just to show everyone.
@@Adscam maybe you need to read his book. They disrespected him, offered him a lowball contract, and basically told him he was lucky to have the best bike and wouldn't be winning without them. They were arrogant and didn't want to pay him what he was worth, so he went to Yamaha and made them pay.
@@shannonchurchill4556 Sorry, I never read his book. At the time the Rossi and Biaggi thing was so big that I just thought Rossi had to show him who’s the boss.
The firing pattern is not widely known, so I picked these out of the video (and I assume that they came from one or more of the provided references).
Two firing patterns are given:
0°, 284.5°, 360°, 464.5°, 644.5° (for the initial version)
and
0°, 284.5°, 464.5°, 464.5°, 720° (for the 2004 revision)
In terms of intervals between firings, that's
(with "*" meaning one cylinder fires and "**" means two cylinders fire together)
* 284.5° * 75.5° * 104.5° * 180° * 75.5° (for the initial version)
and
** 284.5° * 180° ** 255.5° (for the 2004 revision)
Both are based on the same crank configuration, and vary only in which revolution each cylinder is fired.
The first is as even as possible for separate cylinder firings, like firing the two cylinders of a 360 degree parallel twin on alternate revolutions. There is significant overlap in power pulses, but still two gaps in power delivery.
The second is the "big bang" alternative, firing the cylinders which reach the top together at the same time (on the same revolution) like a "big bang" 360 degree parallel twin; it has power pulses much like a conventional inline triple (0°, 240°, 480°). There is no overlap in power pulses, and significant gaps in two of the three intervals. In this second version, it is the oddball middle cylinder on the 3-cylinder bank - the one on its own crank throw - which fires by itself. This is more regular in a sense than the first pattern, although one of the three pulses per full engine cycle is half as strong.
The V5 certainly does have a good sound.
It sounds somewhere between the sound of a v8 and a I5 at first listen but I would love to hear a side by side comparison!
Outstanding. Thank you.
Love that sound! Would love to put a v 4 in a 2 seat roadster with forced induction!
Man that bike sounds good. And 260hp on a liter bike? Pretty impressive
Also, don't know why, but it kinda bothers me that you used the Honda car logo in the thumbnail
I caught that point that it needs no counter balance!!! Amazing!!! Would one be brave enough to try the engine on aircraft!!! albeit even if it was only a mini airplane.
Because Honda is cooler than everyone else.
Great video about a really interesting engine. The Kenny Robert's V5 sounded better. Presumably because of a different firing order?
Yes it produces power at high RPM... as firework provide flash light... no replacement for displacement.
I miss the days of Rossi and HRC
More importantly, why haven’t I been able to get a v-5 for a cbr1000rr?
Pretty cool, I know so little about this V5.... Please do a video on seamless transmissions
That was cool
Very cool!
More sound please
8:28 I have a 21 CBR1000 RR-R lucky number 13, a Ducati V4S and some other bikes but this engine here in this time stamp sounds Italian but also not. Its unique but visceral. Hondas are never visceral, always clinical. I would adore riding this bike.
I feel like it's actually 2 V-twins with a single in the middle. Maybe I'm wrong
Dream engine. The rules stopped us getting them on the street.
I just love seeing footage of young Valentino Rossi ripping it on a Honda ❤️
I wonder if you can do something similar for a v3
Oldsmobile was fooling round with a V5 diesel in the early 1980's. They eventually settled on a V6 version of their V8.
There was talk of a V5 Fireblade back in the 2000s. I'll be honest, these don't really sound like a 5, more like a V4, probably because of the durations between firings.
Fantastic Ohhh - VideOh
May 5 cylinders live long.
I always say HD did so well in the early 1900's board track racing because of the potato potato firing order.....RIP Nic Hayden!
God i wish honda would have made a Street version of the v-5
Mr Honda didn’t like two strokes but the CR500 is the best thing Honda ever made.
How much $ I have to pay Honda to get one of these?
It needs to be made clear that the regulations had different *minimum weight* requirements for different numbers of cylinders.
If Honda chose a six cylinder engine the bike ,it would have to be heavier and therefore less competitive.
The V5 no longer exists because 4 cylinder engines can achieve the same results.
Yeah, that’s true. But they had the same weight as other four-cylinders on the grid
The rules changed to only allow 4 cylinders, a 5 cylinder would make more power but with heavier fuel consumption and they (Dorna) reduced the amount of fuel you could use .
A 5 cylinder will make more power than a 4 cylinder but use more fuel, Dorna limited the amount of fule you could use and later changed the rules to only allow 4 cylinder engines.
Which bike has a reverse inclined engine with long swingarm and short wheelbase?
Hey man I'm sorry if this sounds offensive because I really don't mean it to be but I'm having quite a few troubles understanding what you're saying (perhaps the fact that I'm not a native speakers plays into it as well) so can you add subtitles to your videos next time. Cheers
If you turn on subtitles on TH-cam, does it help?
Mr Viseo is not a native English speaker either, but his English is excellent and has improved by leaps and bounds in the years I have been listening to him. His channel is brilliant and appeals to a big audience, look at the number of subscribers he has.
No need for English subtitles over an English narrative, never seen it, if you have trouble just concentrate and it will come to you.
English is spoken in many different accents around the world, some need concentration to understand e.g. Americans.
You could also play at 0.75 speed
So, was the V5 better balanced than the V4? I still don't understand why they went with V5.
Smaller cylinders, ligther rotational assembly
What stand pc fore. In like pc35
Cool!
Did you mention the displacement,if so l missed it ?
990 cc
Because they're Honda and because they could.
Nobody out-Pizzas the Hut. Nobody out-engines Honda.
Kenny Roberts built his own V5.
TMCBLOG 😍😍😍
A video about eastern bloc mopeds, bikes?
I always thought the main reason for the v5 is because they were getting ready fit the 800cc regulations
You cant add 1 cylinder to a V4 engine!
Honda: YoU cAnT aDd 1 CyLiNdEr To A V4 eNgInE...
Honda should make hybrid cars with their motorcycle engines as the generators.
Motorcycle engines like this are designed for high power, not high efficiency, so they're not suitable for the engine of a hybrid car. Motorcycle designs can be adapted, but a sportbike engine would require too much change to hit efficiency and weight targets.
BMW used a Kymco engine in the i3 REx (the series hybrid version of the i3 electric car), but that's a lower-output, lighter, and more efficient twin design rather than a sportbike engine. It is a 647 cc 270° parallel twin capable of producing 28 kw (38 hp) but run at only 25 kW (34 hp) in the i3, about half of what a 650 cc twin in BMW's bikes produce.
It's a shame Honda never made a V5 street bike. It would have sold well despite the cost.
i think like the cbr 250 it would have to be a max of 250cc to sell in japan without punitive taxes. hard to say if the market would be there for it. personally i think the v5 would be awesome in a hatchback car. small, light, narrower than a 90 degree v4, without needing the extra cost of a balance shaft in a v6. a pity about the expense of casting two different heads though. someone could try build a v5 with single cylinder heads and pushrods i guess, but it would be difficult to share the cam between both cylinder banks.
Vw used one too in production cars
Though, that’s not a real V5, but a VR5. Similar, but different.
The VW "VR5" has a narrow 15° vee angle, which makes everything about the engine design different (balance, cylinder packaging, head design, firing order...).
"Man, V4's seem so perfect for power to weight but the balance is always so far off"
"What if we just added a balance piston?"
"Piston?"
you know your the best when you get the rules changed against you.
I remain unable to understand why, when words matter, so many content producers will overlay music on the speech making it harder to understand, especially when already having a difficult time pronouncing the syllables in a second language.
RC-211V won 2 podium finish even without, launch control with Rossi
that engine + civic hatch + me + my girl
Too bad they didn't produce a street version for sale to the public.
So basically we need to throw out most of Honda's management right now to get interesting Hondas back on the road. Such a milk toast company of late.
Mr Honda didn't like cheap to maintain 2 strokes. That's why yamaha ruled from the 60s onwards