Cool Videos

There are two thoughts I have come away with after watching that FortNine video .........

One is that Ryan`s electric bike makes a noise like my next door neighbour`s cat squaring up for a fight ......

Second is ( as Ryan points out ) that if his Can-Am bike which he bought for $8500 needs $8500 to swap out the integrated power pack , plus another $8500 for the labour needed to do that ....... all paid for by Can-Am under warranty ......... Then if this scenario is repeated often enough , that could be one of the reasons why ( as Ryan points out ) Can-Am has gone bust ...........


The underwater riding is cool though ....... The submerged electric power pack is obviously fine ..... I just wonder if the switchgear and instrument display still worked afterwards .........
 
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Various people had differing views on Al Melling ........... Some reckoned his work was ok , one said they would never use him again ......... another said all they got for their money were some drawings on a sheet of paper .........

He reckoned the best sounding engine was his Nemesis V8 , the best looking a Mondial single , but the best engine for practical purposes was the Suzuki 1200 Bandit ...... a do-it-all engine ( road / sprint / race ) , as he put it ..........

Most interesting thing of all was that he started off in women`s fashion ....... I was going to say he started off in women`s underwear , but that would just be a cheap jibe ...... so I won`t .........
 
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I agree with the comment about differing views on Melling’s abilities and performance. Same goes for Adrian Moreton, who designed the ‘modern’ triple engines for Laverda and Benelli.
 
Andy J said:
Forget EVs this what you need. Turn the sound up to max....
Click to expand...
My mate Bruce Hazelgrove ( of CND fame) was asked by the then Norton company to help design that, he was very unimpressed with Melling and his team. Some ex F1 guys were there and showed Bruce their revolutionary quick release, single sided swing arm drawings ….
“ Chain runs through the tyre according to this?”
Another thing was the starter motor, alternator, oil pump, water pump etc were all sourced from a breakers yard with no thought to what they were off or if they could be obtained afterwards. It was only ever going to be a one off.
 
That reminds me of a book on JAP I had .... ( wish I still did ) ........ One drawing of one of their V-twins showed one of the pushrods passing directly in front of the forward cylinder exhaust port ........ Not quite sure how that worked out in practice ......

There were some fun items though ..........

JAP would supply you with a higher performance version engine if you wanted ........ They would paint PTO ( please turn over ) on the crank flywheels in white paint for a few extra quid .......

And the first few hundred Lotus Elan engines had their twin cam heads made , and then the engines assembled by JAP .........
This came to an end when Villiers took JAP over , closed the Tottenham works and moved everything up to Wolverhampton , forcing Colin Chapman to set up his own engine shop ........

They were also pioneers in cinematography , and made pencils , and ...............................................

( Just like Donald Trump , I`m now beginning to wonder why I started all this , have no idea where it`s heading , and am now looking for a way out ................. I know ...... I`ll find a video about paint codes and which oil to use , that should do the trick ........ ) ...............
 
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Back when no one was interested, Alec Greenwood offered us the wooden dies for the experimental four valve JAP, head castings, the lot. Project to build 10 engines never came about through lack of interest…there’s at least three people making new JAP Vee twins now.
Robin Riley’s Hagon Honda single cylinder racer effectively had a JAP cam in it, it was re profiled by Alf Hagon…stick with what you know!
 
Another thing was the first English built aircraft to cross the English Channel was a copy of the Bleriot brothers plane which JAP built in a workshop underneath the railway arches on Hackney Marshes ...... ( JAP did supply lightweight engines for early aircraft use ) .....

But there`s no mention of this on Wikipedia , so it can`t be true :whistle: .

Shame , but seeing it was in the book , I`m still prepared to believe it ..........
 
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