Factors That Affect Motorcycle Engine Reliability

Many factors affect the reliability of motorcycle engines, but the most important ones are as follows:

• the complexity of the engine
• the layout and number of cylinders
• displacement
• cc/HP ratio
• compression ratio
• cooling system
• quality and brand

Let’s drill into the details and briefly take look at these factors!

When it comes to engine reliability, the rule of thumb is that if an engine has an extremely complex design, it inevitably leads to high manufacturing costs and less reliability.

This is the reason why complex motorcycle engine layouts like Wankel or V5 have not become very popular. These complex engines feature odd designs with too many parts, which result in lower reliability and higher manufacturing and running costs.

Regarding the most common designs, different layouts are developed for different purposes. For instance, four-cylinder inline engines are built for maximum performance.

This is why you can find inline engines in the fastest sport and sport touring bikes.

These power sources have higher compression and smaller pistons that can move much faster. Therefore, they can run at much higher RPMs and offer the highest power and top speeds in each class.

But higher performance always means less reliability and durability.

This is why the most reliable motorcycle engine layouts are the flat-six, flat-four, and inline-six configurations. These engines have large-displacement cylinders, but still offer significantly lower HP than engines on smaller inline-four sportbikes.

How it is possible? The answer is in the different compression rates.

Sportbike engines have high compression rates, so they crank out more HP from the same displacement than any other bike engines.

If you have doubts, just take a look at the HP/cc ratios of some popular motorcycle models:

As you can see, sportbikes deliver many times more HP from the same engine displacement than touring and adventure motorcycles. Therefore, they are less reliable, and you can also expect to have much less durability.

Besides the features and performance of the engine, the brand is also an important factor.

Many dealers and riders say that the most reliable motorcycle engines are made by the “big four” Japanese manufacturers. The reliability of Honda motorcycle engines is legendary, but it’s safe to say that the other brands (Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha) also produce very good engines.

However, you can also find high-quality engines in some European and U.S.-made motorcycles as well.

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