Hi All,
The automotive world is largely dependent on Diesel engines, the cars, trucks and other locomotives are hugely relying on diesel engines. On the other hand it is hardly seen motorcycles running on diesel engines, When we talk about the Royal Enfield Taurus it was a motorcycle with diesel engine procured from Italian Lombardini. The single cylinder Lombardini diesel engine was essentially not made for automobiles. It was an engine popularly used in generators and other farming equipment. Royal Enfield did an experiment by mounting an unconventional diesel engine in the regular motorcycle mated to the OE drivetrain of Royal Enfield. Apart from Royal Enfiled’s half hearted and failed experiment I do not reckon any other two wheeler manufacturer ever tried their hands on Diesel engine motorcycles in India. However, internationally there are lots of motorcycles still manufactured on the diesel engine platform. In fact the US defense has included a whole fleet of diesel motorcycles in recent times. The motive behind accepting the diesel motorcycles for the US armed forces is purely based on strategical tactic. They want a uniform fuel supply system where all of their automotive can be run on a common fuel; in this case it is diesel.The roughness of the diesel engines is also compared with the smoothness of a petrol engine, which increases with the reduced number of cylinders. It is said that as you bring down the number of cylinders used in a diesel engine, the roughness and the vibrations get increased to an intolerable level. And as an irony to get the maximum benefits of a frugal diesel engine you need to develop it with as low as single cylinder engine, which is a quite nasty job any engine development team.
Thanks
Satish.k