25 Development of Rapid Composite Plating System for Motorcycle Engine Cylinders

Weight reduction of automobiles is key technology in order to improve fuel economy and driving performance. Concerning of the motorcycle engine, weight reduction is also the fundamental and important technologies. Cylinder is one of the main parts of engine and the wear characteristics of the cylinder liner are largely related to the engine performance. Gray iron liners squeezed in aluminum cylinder block have been widely used. This is due to the excellent resistance to abrasion of gray iron. In order to realize light all aluminum cylinder, the good abrasion resistant method is necessary to develop to be applied with inner surface of liners.

We have developed the new Rapid Composite Plating System for the motorcycle engine cylinders. This system made it possible to adopt all aluminum cylinders without cast iron liners to new type of engine.