Diesel Motorbike Created

by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 06.23.05
Cars & Transportation

res_171_7146.jpgStar Twin, a company in Holland, has designed and built a motorcycle with a turbocharged, direct injection diesel engine. There's potential for biodiesel here, and reportedly the bike gets 150MPG. It's called the "Thunder Star 1200 TDI Sportbike". KneeSlider tells us that Star Twin started with a three cylinder diesel engine from the VW Lupo, redesigned numerous parts using SolidWorks 3D computer modeling software, and cast them in aluminum. The frame is their own design.

Power output begins at 80bhp and 165 foot pounds of torque, but a bit of remapping of the engine controls increases this to 120bhp and 250 foot pounds at 5500rpm. The bike weighs 450 pounds.

The bike is not to the production stage yet and they are exploring lots of different configurations, touring, commuter, etc.

:: Star Twin via MetaEfficient via Biodiesel Blogs via KneeSlider

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Comments (5)

The US military jumped on this quite a while ago out of a need to consolidate their fuels in the supply chain.
Not the most treehugger origins, but hopefully there's the potential for mass production.

Here's a few quickly googled links -

http://f1engineering.com/diesel%20bike%20specs.html

http://www.janes.com/defence/land_forces/video/m1030m1_diesel_motorbike.shtml

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DVXA,DVXA:2004-46,DVXA:en&q=military+diesel+motorcycle

jump to top garthbreaks [TypeKey Profile Page] says:

In the interview (german magazine article) on the company site fuel efficiency is given as 2.5l/100km, or 2l/100km in a less "sportive" edition, coming to 94 and 117.6 miles per gallon respectively.

As far as diesel motorbikes go the Royal Enfields with Diesel are cooler.

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_bikes.html


Of course a biodiesel Harley is most impressive, if one-of-a-kind, yet.

http://www.americanprofile.com/issues/20010930/20010930ne_1354.asp

jump to top Bjorn van der Meer says:

Most motorbikes are already pretty fuel efficient. It's with emissions that they don't fare so well, usually. I'm curious to see how this bike does.

jump to top MGR says:

someone HAS to hack one of these SVO kits (>> http://www.plantdrive.com/page4/page12/files/page12-1001-full.html fer example) to fit this motorbike.

jump to top lee says:

also check out Hayes Diversified Technologies for the US' military version. customers models aren't as pretty as the one above and delayed due to military need. and yes, not necessarily the greatest of beginnings, but the whole thing looks promising.

jump to top justin says:

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