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Strokes - Was the world a better place when we had a choice?

5K views 80 replies 24 participants last post by  Boldor 
#1 ·
So this is the opening thread for the final showdown. Engineers and energy consultants around the globe are hanging on the edges of their seats to know the results of this oh-so important debate.

In the Red Corner (cause red is faster) we have the defenders of the mighty Two Stroke. A piece of engineering whose beauty comes from its sheer simplicity and explosive power. Those arguing the case for the beautiful Toohey do not look down upon the complicated and tedious Four Stroke - we can appreciate its worth - we are merely arguing that the Two Stroke was a most worthy piece of machinery and should not have been killed off by politics (and whatever else brought about its demise).

Over there in the Blue/Green Corner we have the narrow minded laymen who fell for the environmental arguments and believe they were a worthy platform from which to launch an attack at the Toohey. Their main spokesman is HAP - good luck - HAP is confused about the difference between a two-stoke and a steam engine. And if you pull him up on it he calls you nit-picking. And they argue that the world only needs the Four Stroke for their minds are not broad enough to cope with choice.


Don't forget to keep your colours flying men. Fight hard and valiantly. No biting, gouging, scratching or any other nasty underhanded techniques. And stay awake HAP.
 
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#2 ·
So which topic do you want to open with HAP.

Racing
Efficiency
Greenness
Sheer Riding Pleasure
Complexity
Power to Weight

You let me know Dear Codge.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Wheezing Aerial Arrows, putting along whilst spuing out tons of blue smoke and dripping ghastly gobs of unburnt smelly black oil out of their ugly silencers? Mmm, and you think that is a good thing?

OK, here's a nice 2-stroke:
 
#6 ·
Mmm, and you think that is a good thing?
yeah of course it is.

Smoke clouds are highly visible to other road users, it reduces the need for expensive hi-vis gear, running with headlight on etc.

The smell alerts blind drivers who may miss the smoke to your presence and the bikes have self lubricating exhausts which reduces the number of exhausts that have to be replaced from rusting out (and thus lowers the waste of natural resources).

Wins all round as far as I can see.
 
#5 ·
Dave, this is a serious debate. If you cannot restrict yourself to real facts, please wait at the side until the pie fight begins. While you are waiting, you might like to tune your bike - it seems to be running poorly.
 
G
#8 ·
Thank god my blood sugar fell so early this morning. I might have missed this historic debate between the whiz bang tech boys of the 21st century and the lost generation of the old, has been 20th century.

It is hard to type as the tears of mirth are blinding me.

Two strokes. Those unbelievable torque monsters that came along and ruined the 4 stroke, European dominance of motorcycle racing. Every red blooded young guy in the 1970s riding a 250 Honda scrambler dumped the thing in the lake when smitten by the 2 stroke bug. Even mighty Honda abandoned the little 4 stroke bikes and jumped head long into the mystical world of 2 strokes. They were fast, they scared the crap out of half the members on this forum. They were hard to tune.They spewed poison into the air that smelt so good you were pleased to be being killed by it.

Alas, technology rushes forward. The mighty 2 stroke wouldn't, couldn't keep up with the changing tides of those chanting "stop ruining our planet". So, as every old steam engined, antiquated motorcycle must do, it became the icon of the newer generation who lam blasted everything old whilst secretly pining for it. Jealous of those who lived in era of the monstrous power of the two strokes they pay big bucks to have one hidden away in their bed room closets whilst picketing the older generation for having polluted the earth.
Hypocrisy of the highest order, the young high tech boys pushing the universe into the 21st century whilst dragging the 75 year old farm tractors and smoking bees in a tin can motorcycles along as their red badge of courage. (means you are not old enough to have enjoyed the entire history of the 2 stroker and feel sorry for yourself)

I feel much relieved knowing that sanity has prevailed and the world will survive now that those nasty 2 strokes have been put down.:D
 
#13 ·
2 strokes are live and well in the outboard motor industry.
I have a new 75 HP Mercury Opti- Max that's cleaner burning and effecient than the compair able 4 stroke.
Gets better fuel economy and is fuel injected.
Not sure why they haven't started building them for the auto industry frankly.
 
#15 ·
I thought two-stroke boat motors were being phased out. :confused:
 
#31 ·
This is pretty much the sum total of my opinion too Burt. There is more detail to cover, but that's the crux of it.

I like both.

RG & RZ? Or 2 & 4?

As far as the environmental concerns, I think it just goes to show the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of your typical person. They see smoke and smell exhaust, so therefore, two-strokes must pollute more. Let's not consider the extra cost in energy and raw materials to make all of the extra parts for the four.

Good one!

I like both, but let's look at the racing aspect of it.
In 2002, MotoGP replaced 500 cc class, allowing 990cc four-strokes to race alongside 500 cc two-strokes and they trounced the two-strokes. It made zero sense to continue to develop the two-stroke.
I'm not sure of the exact year, and don't feel like looking it up, but back in the 90s 4-stroke motocross bikes began beating two-strokes as well. Why continue to develop something that isn't winning?
Joe, this is just pure silliness Mate. I am holding back on how ludicrous I think this is. You are comparing two entirely different bikes of entirely differing capacities made under two entirely differing formula. Of course the 2-strokes were going to loose - that's the way it was fcuken designed! The phase change was a token gesture to allow the poorer teams to runs their two strokes a little longer so the grid did not empty immediately and cost Ezzie his income. The phasing out also appealed to Green punters because they could apply completely erroneous logic to justify the bogus environmental changes; "and they trounced the two-strokes."

Just about everybody grizzles about the Race Train called MotoGP. Ironically, it doesn't bother me, I enjoy the pit politics just as much as the race. But my personal likes aren't relevant - what IS claimed to be relevant is selling seats at the spectacle. And apparently excitement sells seats. Remember this?

 
#35 ·
Both two- and four-stroke engines have their good and bad points. I like bikes too much to be able to choose one over the other.
The point of the debate was not which is BEST, but should we be allowed to have the choice.

I am recording that even though you are incapable of making the choice, you'd like both types of bike on the road still.
 
#18 ·
Two-strokes are alive and well in the snowmobile industry. Technology has done wonders for them. My Arctic Cat HCR is a direct inject 800 cc two-stroke, and I can attest from experience that it will run upside down. Four-strokes are coming on strong, and you really cant touch them for top end, but to get there you have to turbocharge or add nitrous, a lot more complex and expensive than my two-stroke.

As far as the environmental concerns, I think it just goes to show the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of your typical person. They see smoke and smell exhaust, so therefore, two-strokes must pollute more. Let's not consider the extra cost in energy and raw materials to make all of the extra parts for the four. My sled has an exhaust can on it instead of the bigger suitcase style muffler, but it still meets noise limits. I'm not really sure if a four-stroke is louder, but it is a more distinctive sound.
 
#19 ·
Sorry, throttlejockey154, but if one can see smoke and smell exhaust, it's a reasonable assumption that the motor is polluting more than one without visible smoke and smell, although there's more to it than just that, nitrates, hydrocarbons, sulfur and so on.
 
#24 ·
I'd like to see that quantified before I'd put much stock in it. It reminds me of the people who don't like Priuses (Prii?) because there's allegedly more polluting overhead in the manufacture, somehow, maybe the batteries. It may well be true, but it doesn't mean much and it's not a convincing argument until it's quantified and evaluated.
 
#21 ·
Up until recently I've owned almost nothing but two-strokes, YZ, RT, RD, RZ, and even the RG pictured above (please don't ask why I sold the RG - tears will flow). And truth be told, if a new, decent-sized two-stroke became available, and I had to choose, my newly bloved Thruxton would dissapear in a the blink of an eye. I wouldn't even hesitate.

Fortunately I wouldn't and if this becomes reality...



...I will own the first one I can get my hand on.

More here:http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/08/13/two-stroke-resurrection/
 
#22 ·
I like both, but let's look at the racing aspect of it.
In 2002, MotoGP replaced 500 cc class, allowing 990cc four-strokes to race alongside 500 cc two-strokes and they trounced the two-strokes. It made zero sense to continue to develop the two-stroke.
I'm not sure of the exact year, and don't feel like looking it up, but back in the 90s 4-stroke motocross bikes began beating two-strokes as well. Why continue to develop something that isn't winning?
 
#25 ·
I was looking for information on that, but evidently that is the only thing lacking on the internet. I was also thinking that initially a four stroke takes more to manufacture, but two strokes will take more top end rebuilds over the course of its lifespan, so it evens out. You might not be convinced by a lack of statistics, but how long have prius'sesezz been around? long enough for a definitive study to be run, results compiled, and conclusions reached? Possibly such a thing is happening as we speak.

Anyway, technology has done great things for two strokes, my 96 polaris left black spots on the snow when it idled still. My 2010 doesn't.
 
G
#26 ·
Balto. Dog found an interesting study showing why the prius did cause more damage to the environment than an evil Hummer SUV. Gist of the article had to do with rare earth materials used to build batteries and how ruthless the Chinese were in digging them out of the earth and processing them into what ever it was.

Pollution is just that pollution no matter what wonderful thing is being made.
 
#38 ·
That makes sense. I've long thought that total life cycle costs, including resource extraction, manufacturing, and all related pollution, should be factored into the price of the vehicle and the price of its fuel. Instead, we largely socialize the price of the pollution and the carbon load, or pass it off to the less-developed world.

Nevertheless, 50 miles per gallon is compelling, and the comparison to the Hummer is far-fetched. Over the life of the car, there's a lot of gasoline not being burned. I say this from a household with one 50 mpg 2009 Prius and one gasoline-only 33 mpg 2009 Honda Civic. Even that difference for two very similar cars is substantial. By comparison, my Bonnie is in the low 40s.
 
#27 ·
HAP, the problem with your argument is that 4strokes are the older technology that's been dragged back into the limelight by greenies with an agenda but no real understanding of the inns and outs of things, two strokes are the newer technology so 4stroke=steam engine.
 
#32 ·
Spank kinda has you pinned there HAP. You yourself said earlier that the 2-strokes (newer technology) came alone and all the kids threw their schitheap four strokes in the dam.

Whatever the case HAP, the adjudicators have awarded you 5 bonus points on account of you using a pasted link. Then they subtracted 4 when they realised it was to Yahoo Answers.
 
#28 · (Edited)
The question of over two-strokes vs. four shouldn't focus on pollution - because the correct answer to that specific question is neither. The bottom line is we're all polluters, rationalizing our preferences in motorcycles in terms of pollution is silly. Because let's face it if any of us cared more about pollution than how we choose to get around we wouldn't be driving motorcycles.

Now back to the real answer: two-strokes sound better, smell better, and when designed and tuned properly have this magical thing called a powerband. They also make you taller, better looking, stronger, slimmer, give you whiter teeth, make you appear better dressed, and ultimatetly get more chicks. And that my friends, is why they rule.
 
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