Inline Performance Magazine |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2011 09:00 PM PST |
What’s up people? MV claims their new F3 will take the supersport class by storm, thanks to its high power, light weight and sophisticated electronics. But how can a company with a fraction of the staff and investment of the major players manage to build a class-leading bike for competitive money? Most specifically, Triumph?
Gianluca Negri sketched out the first version in his spare time back in 2006, so when the late Claudio Castiglioni told Negri he needed a new three-cylinder engine, an initial version was already underway. It then took another four iterations of the basic layout to get to the production version with 132bhp.
Incredibly there are just four people who have worked on the actual design of this engine from the start of the project. The original design rules laid down by Castiglioni stated the engine had to be the most compact in class and Negri is very proud the finished production version is just 3.5mm wider than the first version despite having to move the generator from the back of the engine to the left side to keep production costs down.
The F3 was the last bike the late Claudio Castiglioni saw in finished form before his death, and he played a big role in making sure it met the strict criteria laid down at the start of the project in terms of styling. British designer Adrian Morton worked on the bike's design almost completely on his own but it was the exacting demands of Castiglioni's brief that gave him the biggest headaches during the development.
MV's test team has been busy over the past three years on both the road and the track as it prepared the F3 for production with a team of three test riders, four mechanics and the boss. A new development for the F3 was getting a wide selection of employees to ride the bike and give feedback as it developed.
Aristide Cremonese is the head of the test team. He said: "Our work starts with building of the very first prototype bikes and progresses all of the way through to production while carrying out all of the testing needed. The F3 has covered around 250,000km (156,000 miles) in total through all of the different versions but that doesn't take into account the engine dyno testing.
The F3 has the most comprehensive set of electronics ever seen on a supersport bike, with all of the work done by just three permanent MV Agusta staff and technicians from Eldor, the ECU design company.
Traction control can be fine-tuned through eight levels of intervention, the throttle is fully electronic ride-by-wire with four different riding maps available too; Rain, Sport, Normal and Custom. All of these can be tweaked and adjusted within each map according to the rider's preference.
Happy New Years guys. See you in 2012.
Stay tuned for more updates, and be sure to order your copy of the 2011 print edition of Inline Performance Magazine HERE for only $1.00 till the end of the year! Also, pre-order out next issue for half off HERE as well!
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