Gerhard Engine

[Shale Searcher 1,264]

From what I have seen of the engine on the internet, it is not using a GM case, it looks simular, but there are few slight differences to the design.

I have had a real close encounter with the Gehard GTR engine, it's massively different from a GM and a Jawa, the shape of the exterior is very triangular, it only has very precise yet shallow finning, and the machining after casting is ultra fine, it looks heavier, alot heavier, but it weighs no more than a GM or Jawa.... If it reminded me of any current or prior engine, imagine the old upright 4 valve Jawa? But in a laydown configuration... That's the nearest I can visualise. This could be the breakthrough in bringing down the annual costs of competing in speedway at all levels if the testing and amount of servicing, part replacement, oil changing without loss of performance are true........

[weatherwatcher 664]

If the engine does prove to be a winner then it will be the riders that benifit, from all the hard work of the design and building of the engine and the amount of testing that has gone into it. If the service times are what they say they are, then the riders will have an engine that will last all season with no or very little needed to be done.

Will it lose any power as the season goes along, but I am sure this has been looked at during the testing stage. If it does come up trumps, then there are going to one or two very unhappy tuners out there. Sorry to say but we have now come to a stage where the guys with all the money that can get the best tuners are the ones who win the races these days.

It is a long way from the rider who spent his week days getting the engine rebuilt in his garden shed. This engine could be the answer to lots of lower league riders and some of the higher league lads if it proves to be as good as it looks. Hope so because there is far to much being spent on engines for the lowers status riders to keep pace.

[flagrag 704]

I was too very impressed with PKs performance on the engine at Leicester and he said it rode lovely with lots of speed.

 

Like when Bomber used it in the GP Peter Karlsson found it a little bit less performance out of the start but that is probably just a case of changing gearing and jetting slightly

[weatherwatcher 664]

Get it sorted at with the starting be it a problem with engine power or gearing and this engine will be a contender against the rest of the competition. Not that there are many others to really worry about as GM seem to be the only engine on the tracks now, With only a hand full of Jawa left out there.

If they do get things right, the GM will have to look out. The tuners will be tearing their hair out. Gm will be going back to the drawing board. To see what they can do to keep their strangle hold on the market.

What ever happened to the days when every rider had his own favorite engine and there where so many to chose from.

It now seems that the one with the most money to spend, buys the services of the worlds top tuners, instead of the days where they spent hours down the garden shed trying to get things sorted out for the next meeting.

Are there any top riders left that actually get their hands dirty. doubt it very much, when they have the money to spend to get other to do the job for them.

I wish Gerhard and all who are working on this new engine the best of luck, because this is the product that the grass root riders of speedway need. An engine they can afford, that is relible and dosen't burn great holes in your pocket, spend on all the, tuning and extras that are needed to be at lest somewhere in the pecking order. Be it at MDL, NL, PL, or the lower order of the EL or other world leagues. Hope they manage to get it right.

[cyclone 943]

As a fan with zero mechanical nous, please don't laugh, but will the tuners not be able to expensively tweak the Gerhard engine to give their customers an advantage ?

[OveFundinFan 4,141]

Hopefully not too much off topic, but seeing as there is critiscism of lay down engines, whats stopping someone going back to an upright engine ? Are there regulations stippulating what position an engine should be in?

[HenryW 1,178]

As a fan with zero mechanical nous, please don't laugh, but will the tuners not be able to expensively tweak the Gerhard engine to give their customers an advantage ?

I was just about to ask the same thing.

If it's as fast out the box as a tuned GM, surely a good tuner could get even more out of it

[f-s-p 832]

Get it sorted at with the starting be it a problem with engine power or gearing and this engine will be a contender against the rest of the competition. Not that there are many others to really worry about as GM seem to be the only engine on the tracks now, With only a hand full of Jawa left out there.

If they do get things right, the GM will have to look out. The tuners will be tearing their hair out. Gm will be going back to the drawing board. To see what they can do to keep their strangle hold on the market.

What ever happened to the days when every rider had his own favorite engine and there where so many to chose from.

It now seems that the one with the most money to spend, buys the services of the worlds top tuners, instead of the days where they spent hours down the garden shed trying to get things sorted out for the next meeting.

Are there any top riders left that actually get their hands dirty. doubt it very much, when they have the money to spend to get other to do the job for them.

I wish Gerhard and all who are working on this new engine the best of luck, because this is the product that the grass root riders of speedway need. An engine they can afford, that is relible and dosen't burn great holes in your pocket, spend on all the, tuning and extras that are needed to be at lest somewhere in the pecking order. Be it at MDL, NL, PL, or the lower order of the EL or other world leagues. Hope they manage to get it right.

Doing 3-4 matches a week and travelling the rest of it calls for measures. Outsourcing engine care is an easy start.

[John Leslie 3,213]

I was just about to ask the same thing.

If it's as fast out the box as a tuned GM, surely a good tuner could get even more out of it

I've been having the same thoughts.

 

Even if someone develops an engine which is as fast as a GM and can go a whole season without servicing, someone else will still want to take it to pieces, tweak it, tune it, anything to get a bit more out of it.

 

And even if it can't be tuned any better, someone will still want the psychological advantage of believing they can tweak it.

[PHILIPRISING 7,298]

TWO wins and more importantly two good starts by Chris Harris on the GTR at Coventry tonight. Both he and Peter Karlsson have ridden two different prototype engines but Kelvin Tatum has also been available to provide advice, based on his own testing, about gear ratios, ignition timing, etc.

[weatherwatcher 664]

The only way to stop anyoneone playing about with the engine is to factory seal them. After the seal is broken then the engine will be classed by the instectors at the meeting to be ileagle. I know it sounds a bit over the top. But something has to be done to bring the sport onto a level playing field where all riders are in the same situation. With engines that they can't play around with.

For one I think the bikes now are far to fast for what they are ment to do. Do we really need to see them going at speeds that are some times putting riders at risk. There have always been injuries and there always will, but at the speeds they go at now, when an accident happens it can be with rather drastic concequenses.

If it keeps going as it has over the past 15 or so years with the tuners getting every pennies worth of speed out of the bike, then they will get to the stage where they are unridable altogether.

This engine looks good and what I saw of Harris or the little we saw the engine seems to be competative enough, without needing to be played around with.

But I still feel that there is a need to slow things down again. Don't think we need to go back to the old uprights, but if that is the answer, then that is the road to take, before we end up with rider getting injjured so bad that they never ride again or worse still getting killed. The youger riders are riding above and beyond their abillities at times, So now could be the time to make the changes.

Make the engines slower, sealed at the factory. I think you would see far better, closer racing than what we are seeing these days.

A lot of work has been put nto this unit. I take my hat off to everone inlved with it, down to the lad that makes the tea.i

[speedibee 3,091]

As a fan with zero mechanical nous, please don't laugh, but will the tuners not be able to expensively tweak the Gerhard engine to give their customers an advantage ?

spot on . wouldn't be at all surprised ,if peter johns has already had one apart to see which bits can be lightened or replaced with titanium , speedway is it's own worst enemy , because instead of protecting the longevity aspect of this engine , the authorities will be encouraging "Tuners" to improve them ..

The only way to stop anyoneone playing about with the engine is to factory seal them. After the seal is broken then the engine will be classed by the instectors at the meeting to be ileagle. I know it sounds a bit over the top. But something has to be done to bring the sport onto a level playing field where all riders are in the same situation. With engines that they can't play around with.

For one I think the bikes now are far to fast for what they are ment to do. Do we really need to see them going at speeds that are some times putting riders at risk. There have always been injuries and there always will, but at the speeds they go at now, when an accident happens it can be with rather drastic concequenses.

If it keeps going as it has over the past 15 or so years with the tuners getting every pennies worth of speed out of the bike, then they will get to the stage where they are unridable altogether.

This engine looks good and what I saw of Harris or the little we saw the engine seems to be competative enough, without needing to be played around with.

But I still feel that there is a need to slow things down again. Don't think we need to go back to the old uprights, but if that is the answer, then that is the road to take, before we end up with rider getting injjured so bad that they never ride again or worse still getting killed. The youger riders are riding above and beyond their abillities at times, So now could be the time to make the changes.

Make the engines slower, sealed at the factory. I think you would see far better, closer racing than what we are seeing these days.

A lot of work has been put nto this unit. I take my hat off to everone inlved with it, down to the lad that makes the tea.i

easy way to slow them down , change to petrol , 30% less power , run lower compression so theres less stress on bottom end components , only problem is the heat because pterol burns hotter than methanol

[weatherwatcher 664]

Build a speedway steam engine. Fired with charcoal pellets. Bet they never thought of that one.. Super speedway at 4 m.p.h

[Countershaftcounter 360]

All this talk of saving the younger riders money is false… imagine the following

 

1, The Gerard engine turns out to be a winner

2, Lots of the top boys buy them ( at the rumoured cost of 5 grand a pop )

3, The market becomes flooded with tons of secondhand GM's

 

What option do young riders have ? Either stick with the costly to run and maintain GM's or invest 10 grand in two Gerhard engines. ( before anyone starts the "why do they need two bikes" ? Most clubs stipulate the two bike rule in contracts).

 

Also in the event of any blow ups I hope there's a large store of spares going to be available for the inevitable "i need this motor repaired NOW as i have a meeting tomorrow" scenario which happens all the time.

 

Also, Jawa are coming back with a new engine too at the moment, not to mention the new Godden undergoing track testing in Germany this week.

[FAST GATER 852]

All this talk of saving the younger riders money is false… imagine the following

 

1, The Gerard engine turns out to be a winner

2, Lots of the top boys buy them ( at the rumoured cost of 5 grand a pop )

3, The market becomes flooded with tons of secondhand GM's

 

What option do young riders have ? Either stick with the costly to run and maintain GM's or invest 10 grand in two Gerhard engines. ( before anyone starts the "why do they need two bikes" ? Most clubs stipulate the two bike rule in contracts).

 

Also in the event of any blow ups I hope there's a large store of spares going to be available for the inevitable "i need this motor repaired NOW as i have a meeting tomorrow" scenario which happens all the time.

 

Also, Jawa are coming back with a new engine too at the moment, not to mention the new Godden undergoing track testing in Germany this week.

All that is true but if a factory sealed engine is competitive and running costs are fixed all the others will have to fall in line ,the tuners will have to comply or be outlawed.This is a real chance to bring things back to an affordable sport, I have no issue with tuners perosnally but their cost are too high for today's sport.We need to work back from what is needed by the sport and not say it can't be done as always happens .It needs these engines phased in of a number of years a long term plan which is alien to speedway I know, look how they managed to achieve the air/fence safety at all tracks and the uproar when it was first mooted .