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New BMW Water-Cooled Boxer

They should have spent a little more time designing the motor for not just efficiency, but for the pleasure of the eye of the enthusiast. They could at least have made a nicer job of covering it with tightly spaced finning so it wouldn't look like such a hideous lump.

Regardless of how good it may be this is not something my eye is excited by, or to buy.
Well...if they made it to please your eye, I'm sure someone else would complain that it's hideous don't you think? ;)

@Andyvh: The HD Vrod has a watercooled engine. So they can do it... ;)
 
I'm not too concerned about the appearance of the engine block, the heads and valve covers are what really ends up being the visible parts of the motor, so I'll wait to see how those look before gettiung too worked up and agitated. I am excited to see what they decide to wrap around this new motor to create the next generation of R bikes. Who know's, I may come back to the boxer fold if they prodcue an RT I can stand the look of. Or perhaps an R-GT :dance
 
Interesting thanks for the pictures. I too canÔÇÖt wait to see the entire thing, not just raw block castings. The trouble I see is no matter how pleasing or ugly it ends up they will bury it under all sorts of body bits.

You guys crack me up; however.

- The boxer is BMWs #1 selling engine. To keep it in the line up with the new Euro regs it needs to be a WasserBoxer. I may want more grunt out of the box but once again to keep the Grinch's in Brussels happy we probably wont get much of a HP upgrade and sound 
- Building the same old engine like H-D??? Come on they have 2 singles, boxers, vertical twins, multiple in line fours and now a six. Next year there will be a new engine for the scooter and electric scooters and bikes are on the horizon.
- H-Ds V-Rod with major design help from Porsche beat out an in house water cooled V 4 for production as the new H-D engine.
 
Water cooling on a BMW? What a novel idea. Never mind that the K100 was water cooled in 1983. Or the F650 in 1995. Or the F800 in 2007.

Who would imagine that BMW would ever water cool an opposed twin? :)
 
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I remember the R1 articles, how it preceded the Oilhead production bike. Cool bike.

Oh yes, Harley can/does produce a damn fine water cooled V-twin. But to most of the HD faithful it is not a real Harley. I'm surprised it has lasted as long as it has given the way HD customers don't buy it, plus it's limited model application. I think the lastest v-rod is friggin ugly, like it was styled by Mattel for a Hot wheels marketing program. But what do I know, I ride Beemers
 
Porsche tried the 924, 944, and 928...and had to continue with the 911.

H-D tried the VRod...and had to continue with the air cooled twin.

BMW isn't as focused on a single design as Porsche and HD, but this BMW twin is quite ironic: a significant justification for the boxer layout is better air cooling. With more liquid cooling, like this motor, a boxer cylinder layout becomes principally a matter of style and tradition, not engineering.
 
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Exactly, those of us who love the BMW twin love it because of what it is, we are the 'Tradionalists' so to really appeal to us you have to make it look great. I always though Suzuki did a great job of the engine fins of the their big fours, if I'd been in charge of this project I'd have got some nice tight fins cast into the cylinders and heads, and painted the whole thing black. It didn't have to look like a Fiat 500 motor.
 
Porsche tried the 924, 944, and 928...and had to continue with the 911.

H-D tried the VRod...and had to continue with the air cooled twin.

.

Not that I want to participate in this discussion, but has it escaped your attention that the 911 has been water-cooled for quite some time now? For reference, look at the company who arguably makes the best motorcycle engines in the world - Honda.
Count the air-cooled versions they offer.:scratch
 
Not that I want to participate in this discussion, but has it escaped your attention that the 911 has been water-cooled for quite some time now? For reference, look at the company who arguably makes the best motorcycle engines in the world - Honda.
Count the air-cooled versions they offer.:scratch

That's DBrick's point, exactly. Porsche's customers are so hidebound that they wouldn't buy a Porsche with an engine that was designed explicitly to make use of water cooling; Porsche's engineers were forced to go back and adapt an air cooled design to water cooling, in order to be able to sell them.

The BMW boxer motor has several design advantages, but they're not in use any more. Cylinders sticking into the wind for air cooling aren't needed when the motor is water cooled; 180 degree primary balance doesn't matter when you've got a balance shaft inside; low CG can now be obtained by leaning the cylinders of an inline 4 way over (and get even more weight on the front tire).

In the meantime, the disadvantages of a boxer motor are weighing ever more heavily: limited lean angle, which can only be fixed by moving the engine up in the frame, raising the CG; extra weight by having essentially completely separate cylinders and heads that can't share weight or components.

It is often said that the success of the original BMW motorcycle design was based on the fact that, more than any one component, it was designed a logical progression of pieces that worked together. The longitudinal boxer that allowed great cooling fit with the automotive style dry clutch and clean, reliable driveshaft. The double cradle frame on the original R32 didn't look like the bicycle frames that other manufacturers were adapting to motors.

I've never owned a BMW that wasn't a boxer, I really like them. But buidling a water cooled boxer doesn't make design sense, it only makes marketing sense.

If they're a good bike, however, I'll probably get one eventually (when I wear out my R12ST).
 
Not that I have ridden a lot of bikes, but radiator heat is a big concern for me. I very rarely ever feel the heat off the boxer. I can not say that about any watercooled bikes I have ridden. How about the F800, do you feel the heat? That was a common complaint on the K bikes, it it certainly was on the last Honda I rode.

Hard to know about the heat on a test ride.

Rod
 
Not that I want to participate in this discussion, but has it escaped your attention that the 911 has been water-cooled for quite some time now?

I didn't mention the 911 because of its original air-cooling. What the 911 has that's a challenge for the engineers is a motor that hangs out *aft* of the rear axle. It is not easy to create good handling with this sort of weight distribution. Porsche is stuck with dealing with this layout, just as BMW appears stuck with a boxer twin.
 
Darrylri and I actually started this discussion yesterday over lunch.

That's DBrick's point, exactly. Porsche's customers are so hidebound that they wouldn't buy a Porsche with an engine that was designed explicitly to make use of water cooling.

Close. I thought the Porsche crowd wouldn't buy an engine that wasn't hung out the rear, not an engine that was water-cooled. Turns out they *will* buy a car with a water-cooled engine, but only if the engine is hung out the back (like the 911), but not if the engine is out front (like the 924, 944, and 928).

The BMW boxer motor has several design advantages, but they're not in use any more. Cylinders sticking into the wind for air cooling aren't needed when the motor is water cooled; 180 degree primary balance doesn't matter when you've got a balance shaft inside; low CG can now be obtained by leaning the cylinders of an inline 4 way over (and get even more weight on the front tire).

In the meantime, the disadvantages of a boxer motor are weighing ever more heavily: limited lean angle, which can only be fixed by moving the engine up in the frame, raising the CG; extra weight by having essentially completely separate cylinders and heads that can't share weight or components.

It is often said that the success of the original BMW motorcycle design was based on the fact that, more than any one component, it was designed a logical progression of pieces that worked together. The longitudinal boxer that allowed great cooling fit with the automotive style dry clutch and clean, reliable driveshaft. The double cradle frame on the original R32 didn't look like the bicycle frames that other manufacturers were adapting to motors.

I've never owned a BMW that wasn't a boxer, I really like them. But buidling a water cooled boxer doesn't make design sense, it only makes marketing sense.

Exactly.
 
Wow, so BMW has finally started to catch up to the Subaru and Gold Wing engine designs........... welcome to the 20th century...........

:nyah:bolt:hide
 
and what look to be the mounting lugs for the engine to the frame.
I saw where you've recognized this as a top view; just adding that those appear to be the same lugs used for the oil/hexhead Telelever pivot and upper frame pyrymid mounting

and the water jackets only reach up to the second cooling fin, that's why the extensive presence of fins.
?? Basis? Looks like the water feed passages extend from the center of the case all the way to the heads -- exactly where the water needs to be, particularly around the exhaust ports. On the other hand, I could understand if the water jacket only extends *down* to the second cylinder fin, as no water cooling is needed below where the top of the piston descends (i.e., the bottom of the combustion chamber).

They should have spent a little more time designing the motor for not just efficiency, but for the pleasure of the eye of the enthusiast. They could at least have made a nicer job of covering it with tightly spaced finning so it wouldn't look like such a hideous lump.
What do you think of the 1100/1150/1200 boxers? This doesn't strike me as any more or less aesthetically pleasing than those.

AND inline 6s for cars.

V6 provides much better packaging and safety.
There's where I have to disagree. There's no question the V-6 is definitely better for packaging. However, the "character" of the straight 6 is entirely different, and much more pleasing than a V-6 to an enthusiast, so this isn't all about being hide-bound to tradition.

Like BMW, Mercedes used to use renowned straight 6's, and shifted to V-6's. What was lost in the translation was the incredibly silky smoothness and responsiveness of the Mercedes straight 6. I was fortunate to own one of the last straight 6 Benzes, the 2.8L in the first generation C Class -- a truely lovely motor. When they went to the V-6, IMO the car became completely soul-less -- just another body-hauling sedan with a few nice conveniences. My point is that the BMW customer demand for the straight 6 is not simply the result of "tradition" -- the engines really do feel "special."
 
AND inline 6s for cars.

V6 provides much better packaging and safety.

But the inline 6 provides a much smoother engine. The inline 6 is intrinsically balanced. The V6 on the other hand, is a shaky jake, and needs stuff like balance shafts to get it reasonably smooth enough for a luxury car.

So there is a technical reason for the straight 6.
 
Exactly, those of us who love the BMW twin love it because of what it is, we are the 'Tradionalists' so to really appeal to us you have to make it look great
Define 'look great'... ;)
I really don't like the R1200RT with it's edgy design. But then again...a lot of modern bikes have that kind of shape which is a design trend. I don't like that. But I didn't buy my R850RT for it's looks either. There are bikes that I like better.

Design and looks are very personal. I also think that 'traditionalists' are very selective. They tend to arbitrarily pick an item that they seem to like and set the calendar to 0 at that point. Everything that comes after that is no good. Why not set the first BMW as the benchmark?

Fact is that BMW has to use new techniques and be innovative, otherwise they'll go out of business. It's not so long ago that BMW was regarded as an old-fashioned company with old-fashioned bikes for old folks. Look where they are now: they've got the best selling motorcycle in the world with the R-GS and the RT is also a big seller (in Holland it is, together with the GS). The RR is also a hit, as is the F-GS. I also believe they got a very good offroad/enduro with the G450X (don't know how good it sells) so you can say that BMW is a very 'hip' company now. That's because they are innovative and know how to market the products.
Being that succesful is quite extraordinary when you consider that they operate in the premium segment. The GS and RT are among the most expensive bikes and the local dealer here says they're selling like they're for free...
 
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