Monday, May 08, 2006

Ferrari link to MV Agusta F4 development

In the early development days of what we know now as the MV Agusta F4 motor, Ferrari was heavily involved in it's design. The motor they were working on was basically four cylinders taken from the 1990-1992 era Ferrari formula one car motor. This car was not very successful, Alain Prost called it a garbage truck (and was then quickly fired for the remark), so it didn't take long for the engineers at Cagiva to change the design looking for horsepower.

This early engine featured five radial valves per cylinder, the intake tract in front of the motor and the exhaust exiting the rear. Andrea Goggi had come from Ferrari some years earlier and worked primarily on Cagiva's V4 500cc GP bike and also served as Eddie Lawson's chief race engineer. Goggi became the primary engine designer of the F4 powertrain. After a major redesign, the engineers at Cagiva reversed the intake/exhaust set-up to the conventional design presently used. They also reduced the amount of valves from five to four per cylinder, but retained the radial valve set-up because of the broad spread of power they help create.

Early prototypes of the motor were mounted in a modified Cagiva 500cc GP bike. The original idea was to market the bike as a Ferrari built by Cagiva. When most of the Ferrari design was thrown out, they decided to market it as a Cagiva. When the Castiglioni's aquired the rights to manufacture motorcycles with the name MV Agusta in the early to mid 90's, it became obvious that a new MV Agusta four cylinder was on the horizon.

Victor M. CastaƱeda Jr.
Buckeye, AZ USA
2004 MV Agusta Brutale
http://www.raginpitbull.com/