More speculation has
emerged that the Suzuki Hayabusa, now into its 20th year as Suzuki’s uber
motorcycle, will get turbocharging and be released as a 2019 model sometime
this year. This snippet of information is as yet unverified but reported by
website motoridersuniverse.com, but there is some truth to the rumour.
With the inline-four mill taken from the GSX-R and
bored out to 1,300 cc, the Hayabusa will not likely meet current Euro 4
emissions regulations, nor the Euro 5 standards set to come into effect in
2020. This means the most likely method of getting an engine that would meet
requirements would be a little adjustment in capacity and the addition of
forced induction to make up for the lost power.
It has been reported previously the GSX engine would
be getting some form of turbo- or supercharging, based on patent drawings that
surfaced in 2016. Suzuki has also shown the Recursion concept at the Tokyo
Motor Show in 2013, but little has developed since then.
For the Recursion, Suzuki added turbocharging to a
588 cc parallel twin, which it claims will produce 100 horsepower at 8,000 rpm
and 100 Nm of torque at 4,500 rpm. As a comparison, Suzuki’s current superbike,
the GSX-R1000 L7, pumps out 117.6 Nm of torque, albeit with twice the
horsepower, but from only a third more engine capacity.
Most of the Japanese manufacturers have turned away
from the hyperbike segment, save for Kawasaki, which has two machines – the
Kawasaki H2 and H2 SX, with the track-only H2R, and the more touring oriented
ZX1400.
