ENGINE

In light of all of the V4 discussion surrounding Motus, here's some interesting engine news from Swissauto and Polaris. Richard, one of The Kneeslider's readers, pointed me to this press release I missed from back in February. Polaris Industries acquired the powersports portion of Swissauto, a company that designs and develops high-performance and high-efficiency engines and some pretty interesting vehicles. Polaris has been using engines from Swissauto in their snowmobiles and previously in personal watercraft. Looking over their engine lineup, it's a little hard to say what engines would be included or excluded from the powersports segment sold to Polaris and whether it goes beyond the engines Polaris already uses since the engines seem to have a lot of different applications depending on configuration.

Swissauto works closely with Weber Motor, a German company that develops many interesting engines. It's fascinating to compare their MPE (MultiPurpose Engine) V4 to the Motus KMV4, the MPE V4 is a 70 degree dual overhead cam 4 valve, the engine's displacement can vary from 1.8 to 2.2 liter with an output from 150 to 300 HP. The base engine is 75 kilograms or 165 pounds. It's 20.2 inches wide. They also promote their "Unique V8-like sound." Looks like there's some activity in the compact V4 engine arena, though Weber didn't go the pushrod route, this V4 is actually based on their OHC parallel twin engine used by Polaris. Although the MPE V4 is considered an automotive, marine or recreational vehicle engine, after all, their test vehicle was a Chrysler Crossfire, why not repurpose the 4 banger for motorcycle use? There is absolutely no indication of any efforts to do that but with Polaris already owning a portion of Swissauto, perhaps they could find a use for that V4 in a 2 wheeler.