Remember the turbocharged Suzuki Recursion concept bike that started making the show circuit rounds a couple years ago? If patent applications are any indication, it seems the bike really might make it to market, just like Suzuki said it would.
Documents filed in the US last month show Suzuki looking to patent some sort of intercooling setup on a motorcycle. The document mentions “One or more throttle bodies and a surge tank are disposed behind a cylinder head, and an intercooler is disposed by being adjacent to the surge tank at a position behind the cylinder head and the one or more throttle bodies. A supercharger is provided in front of the intercooler.”
Waitaminnit! The papers mention a supercharged bike, not a turbocharged bike. Does that mean the design has changed for the Recursion? Or is it a translation error? Or is this an all-new bike?
The patent drawings do seem to indicate there’s a turbo plumbed into the exhaust system. Whichever is the case, the drawings do seem to indicate Suzuki is closer to bringing a motorcycle to market with some sort of forced induction system – and judging by the success of Kawasaki’s H2R and H2 superbikes, that’s a good idea.
GALLERY
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[…] have seen a few patent drawings pop up showing the Recursion, but nothing indicating when the bike would hit market (although […]
#30 on that drawing is definitely a turbocharger. I don’t see a mechanically-driven supercharger in there anywhere.
If you go back to WWII, turbochargers on the P-38 Lightning were called “turbo-superchargers”, since back then any form of forced induction was considered “supercharging”. The restriction of the term “supercharger” to only mechanically-driven forced induction systems is a relatively new (post WWII) practice, so perhaps the writers of the patent are using the term “supercharging” in the sense of the older usage.