The Directors are pleased to announce that the X4v2 prototype engine has now been designed, machined, assembled and running. The engine is now fitted on the dynamometer, and we are currently programming the engine management system in readiness for initial testing.

Improvements made include: New higher rigidity engine block,  4 and 8 bolt main bearing caps, new piston and piston assembly design, improved bearing design, a higher performance valve cam design, increased valve spring rating, increased scope for balancing, increased cooling, new PCV system, increased capacity oil galleries, a new piston guiding system with upgraded materials, programmable fuel injection and dual waste spark ignition.

Update 17/10/2007: We have now basically set up the fuel injection program which has involved holding the engine with the dynamometer at various load/throttle settings (Up to full throttle), through incremental  rev ranges up to 4,500rpm (for up to 5 minutes at a time) while we programmed the fuel mixtures.

Fine tuning of mixtures will be completed once the engine has been balanced and had enough hours to run in. We will then be stripping the engine down to check all the components for wear and dimensional integrity. This is required after the engine has reached operating temperature and cooled down to room temperature many times, to make sure there are no changes to the components. Once re-assembled, we will be running the engine for a further 5 hours and then perform a power/torque test. This test will only be a preliminary test, so we can make changes to the fuel and ignition programming and see the effects on power and torque. We are also planning to trial a different valve camshaft profile during this time.

Even though the X4v2 looks similar to the X4v1 engine, most of the components are new. The only parts carried over from the previous version were the cylinder heads and cylinder barrels. Upon checking the X4v1 engine after testing we tabled a list of modifications required to rectify any problems evident in measurement and foreseen as a possible problem. A new engine block was designed to increase rigidity and so most of the components internally had to either be modified and or redesigned to suit the new engine block.

While the design and manufacture of the new X4v2 was a reasonably large task, equally was the task of setting up and wiring the engine control module, gauges, ignition system and also systems such as cooling system, which was designed to fit the dyno and the GTM trike.