Quantal Cosworth Norton

Beautiful bike - sort of like using a Rolls Royce in a rally ? - Just bloody stupid ! An obscene waste of an engine - a two valve Jawa engine would be a much better option, then use the manx engine for something decent. Even stuffing it into a 500cc race car would be better than some mud grub using it to prove he is a dick. Using a TZ750 engine in a speedway solo isn't too flash either. It's the sort of stuff that makes me want to cry. I have an Egli frame, tank and seat for a TZ750 in my shed. With that motor I could build a really beautiful competitive bike, and I have the ability to win with it next week end at the annual Island Classic races at Phillip Island. I suppose the next thing you guys will be doing is building Ferrari F1 engines into Shelby Cobras ?
This stuff is like using the Mona Lisa to brighten up your bathroom. 'Because I can' is not a good reason for doing anything.

acotrel said:

This stuff is like using the Mona Lisa to brighten up your bathroom. 'Because I can' is not a good reason for doing anything.

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Sure it is. TZ750, Manx, etc. It's all just machinery, not holy relics. You have to put this stuff in perspective. When Yamaha built the TZ750 flat track bike for Kenny Roberts ( mud grub?), they weren't a collectible bike, just another race bike that anyone could buy from Yamaha. It's really not reasonable 40 years later to claim they should have known the bikes would become classics, and that they shouldn't modify them. Same argument for guys who built specials around Manx bits back in the late '60s when you could buy them as obsolete race bikes for a few hundred dollars. Back in their day, nobody thought twice about dropping a Manx engine into something else, or building a mongrel with a different engine in a Manx chassis. Same for the TZ750 engines. They got put into all sorts of chassis, and nobody thought it was blasphemy. I'm almost finished putting a Yamaha FZ600 engine in a Honda XL600R dual sport chassis. Do you think I should worry that in 50 years someone will see it and get all excited that I ruined two bike that are "classics" in 2063, but are a dime a dozen now?

Well, that felt good! Now I'm off to see if I can fit that big block Cobra engine into a Ferrari Lusso, as soon as I can afford one of each.

Ken (wearing his flameproof suit)

I always wanted to stuff one of those 500 Manx engines into a chopper.

Talk about a statement bike!

Way cooool!

acotrel said:

Beautiful bike - sort of like using a Rolls Royce in a rally ? - Just bloody stupid ! An obscene waste of an engine - a two valve Jawa engine would be a much better option, then use the manx engine for something decent. .

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What a load of old cobblers !!
It was just racing machinery then.

Everyone said it couldn't be done.
Les Archer, and Ron Hankins, did it, and won world scrambles championships on it.
And several others got to try it, when Les wasn't available, and crashed !!
Nortons were so impressed, they'd offered him the dohc engine, when he proved it could be done with the sohc ones.
Les was a BIG lad when you see pics of him though, strength was obviously a part of the winning formula...

Oh, and someone said 'they don't make em like they used to'
But these days, you can buy a dohc single performance dirt bike, out of the showroom.
And win the Dakar on it.
Les would have a grin from ear to ear ?

BTW Matty, here is an inclined parallel-twin engined bike, in Dakar dirt-bike type style.
Maybe not the manufacturer you were thinking of.
But in a parallel universe, anything is possible.
And perhaps the patents have expired.....

Fussy sluggish grunt exotica


American meat and potatos


Can't judge by the covers

Can you find a connection to the current thread, at all ?

Was word of someone in the U.S. trying one of the Cosworths on the dirt & not finding traction , years back . Anyone remember anything of it .

Not finding traction? Engine power character matters? Maybe should of been a twingle for off road.

lcrken said:

............ Years later I was on a business trip to England, and took a little time off to visit the race at Oliver's Mount in Scarborough where some friends of mine were racing. I ran into Roger there, and he remembered me from Daytona, and took me for a tour of the track in the course marshall's car. I couldn't believe anyone would actually race on track. It's the scariest track I've ever seen.
Ken

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Roger is still around the UK race Paddocks as an adviser/rider liaison in British Superbikes, commonly know as Reg.....

Olivers Mount is scary, I don't think I would ever ride a bike around it, but I have driven around it...nice an casual in the direction of racing (anticlockwise), and about as fast as I could make a 1600cc 100bhp Ford Escort Mexico go in the wrong direction......clockwise.....which means coming down the hill into the Mere hairpin and handbraking it right, I was pleased to have a hydraluic handrake and a 'slipper' (Limited Slip Differential) that day....but would have liked another 250 horsepower like the TR7 V8 in our age class.....the occasion was an International Historic Rally, which we were leading by 4 seconds after the snow in the forests of Yorkshire.....then we went to Scarborough....oh well...

As for the Quantel....I never saw it, but I saw Croxford and a guy I knew and bought some ex works Norton parts from, Tony Smith both race it on several occasions....it just looked to damn tall and wrong....at least Quantel fixed that.....as best they could...

Sorry about getting miffed over the misuse of the Manx, and TZ750 motors. I've desperately tried to find both over many years. I found a TZ750 motor, it would have cost about $5000, but the owner took it out racing in his sidecar, and it slotted the cases . I've got just the best original Egli frame, tank and seat waiting for one. The manx engine in a scrambler almost makes me cry - what a bloody waste? A two valve jawa speedway engine would have been just as effective. Back then, a 500 Manx cost about 500 pounds , and you could not buy a motor on its own. A sodium cooled exhaust valve cost 15 pounds, and In those days that was almost my weekly wage.

I am ignoring that comment about building a manx engine into a chopper. However years ago a hot rod enthusiast I knew had a chromium plated garden gate manx. It was really quite a nice bike - worth a bit now.

acotrel said:

I am ignoring that comment about building a manx engine into a chopper. However years ago a hot rod enthusiast I knew had a chromium plated garden gate manx. It was really quite a nice bike - worth a bit now.

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Glad you would picked up on that Norton Manx chopper bit. That was just for you.

I would never put a Manx engine in a chopper.

acotrel said:

Sorry about getting miffed over the misuse of the Manx, and TZ750 motors. I've desperately tried to find both over many years. I found a TZ750 motor, it would have cost about $5000, but the owner took it out racing in his sidecar, and it slotted the cases . I've got just the best original Egli frame, tank and seat waiting for one. The manx engine in a scrambler almost makes me cry - what a bloody waste? A two valve jawa speedway engine would have been just as effective. Back then, a 500 Manx cost about 500 pounds , and you could not buy a motor on its own. A sodium cooled exhaust valve cost 15 pounds, and In those days that was almost my weekly wage.

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When Les Archer was winning WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS on it, he probably wouldn't agree with your miserly thinking. (what are race motors for, after all ??).
Nor would Nortons - it was about the only races they were winning in this era, and sidecars !!?

If one is good, 2 must be better ?
Good one Matt !
(No truth to the rumour this was the prototype for a v-twin bevel ducati ??)

Presumeably we have all seen that sportscar pic, with 4 manx top ends on a flat 4 crankcase.
Now what was that thing called....

Rohan said:

3 words answer this.
Superstock, Supersport and Superbikes.

Absolutely booming, all around the world.
If you watch the International Dorna series of these, there are turks and russians and americans and english and aussies and scots and italians and spanish and and and. Far more competitive than the GP series of old used to be, where only a priviledged few got to race....

You seem to be somewhat bitter at Mr Honda.
He makes a good product, AND knows something of the business of making a profit.
Would you rather motorcycles had disappeared ??

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And there are Spanish, and Spanish oh and a few Spaniards, and who is it who owns both MotoGP and WSBK...oh that would be the Spanish then....World Championship with 4 rounds in Spain...I don't thinks so, OBTW, racing is in growth in Spain!

I think this is one of the most abused threads ever on this forum. :|

So contribute something on Quantel Cosworths....