New British four-stroke twin for GPs

Maxsym Engine Technology Ltd have given a public debut to a concept parallel twin-cylinder motor named MC2, which it hopes will be raced in GPs in the season after next.

Like Kenny Roberts’ Proton team, Maxsym are based in the heart of England’s motorsport technology belt at Banbury and their designers have come up with a revolutionary 989cc twin weighing 36kg with pneumatic valve operation.

Maxsym boss Patrick Walker predicts it will be capable of producing 210 horsepower at 17,950rpm. He said: “We believe a parallel twin is the best for its compact size and also to meet the weight restrictions. You could get a real narrow frontal area from our design. We think some of the other manufacturers are making a big mistake opting for multis. ”

He also says the engine features a unique variable valve timing system which is acvtivated by the computerised engine management system, an idea similar to Vanos variable cam timing used by BMW in its latest top of the range cars.

It has a con-rod counter balancer system to smooth out the twin vibes.

It has a very big 116mm bore and short 46.8mm stroke and Walker claims a high rev limit of around 18,000rpm. It has a conventional six-speed gearbox and dry sump. Maxsym are specialists in high performance four-stroke engine design and development and test the engines to the point where they are licensed for other companies to run, mostly for snowmobiles and as outboards.

Maxsym has linked with British world sidecar challenger Steve Abbott to develop his Yamaha FZR1000 engines this season.