Cylinder Plating?

[flynrider]

Hi Dakota.
Electroplated cylinders bored into the top half of the crankcase, as opposed to a distinct cylinder block, which is then bolted to the top half of the crankcase. Honda was the first of the Big-4 who started doing this, and they touted "lighter weight", "reduced gasket interfaces", "17% stiffer", etc.
Honda now does this to nearly all of their sportbike lineup, but it's not a good idea IMO, and here's why: when you wear out a cylinder block, you can replace it--just bolt a new one on, replace the piston rings and a few other parts. But when you wear out the cylinders bored into the top half of a crankcase, you must replace that entire crankcase, the crankbearings, and many other non-transferrable parts--essentially the entire engine.
Crankcases are drilled and finished as sets, so you cannot simply replace the top half.

OK. I am on the same page now. It may be semantics, but the crankcase is the structure surrounding the crankshaft. The cylinder barrel is what houses the piston. The engine block is the combination of the two.

Many aftermarket companies offer sleeves for motorcycles. I don't understand why you couldn't have bored the original engine and installed one? Even my lowly B&S push mower has an iron sleeve. Only the cheapest garbage mowers have parent bore engines with no sleeve. This is not a dig against your bike; I am sure that they designer used something to increase wear life. But, it seems to me that iron would be the best...

If a sportbike has a high piston speed, it will wear out faster than similar motorcycles with lower piston speeds.

Honda has made some "blunders" with oiling with its' engines over the years. The original V4's, V45 and V65 needed extra external oil lines to keep the cams happy. You guys may know of more examples. So I would not discount that they make design errors from time to time and simply cheapen the product.

What really bothers me is that there is NO excuse for this. I am a degreed engineer, have owned GM vehicles my entire life, and have models spanning from '47 to '06. I have an interest in engine development history and read SAE journals for fun at night to clear my head. Much of what is good engineering practice was known for a long time but GM never seems to learn their lessons and has always lagged far behind state of the art engineering practices. And, they do it because they can. People will continue to buy garbage because the outside is shiny and the inside smells new.

GM and Ford can't seem to build reliable ignition switches and we are going to trust them with drive by wire steering???????

Have a couple of new 2013 drive by wire (electric steering) Chevys in the family: A Sonic and Equinox. Also have a Toyota Venza with electric steering.

The Chevys have got it down. They work very well. Toyota is good too, but tends to hunt a little more. Has a little more of a mind of its own.

Now the new Tahoe also has electric steering. It's the future. No hydraulic leaks and you don't have to back off at the limit to prevent it from howling.

Have a couple of new 2013 drive by wire (electric steering) Chevys in the family: A Sonic and Equinox. Also have a Toyota Venza with electric steering.

The Chevys have got it down. They work very well. Toyota is good too, but tends to hunt a little more. Has a little more of a mind of its own.

Now the new Tahoe also has electric steering. It's the future. No hydraulic leaks and you don't have to back off at the limit to prevent it from howling.
I guess that I've had a bit less than good luck with my vehicles and my confidence is low. I have NO idea what to purchase when it is time to replace in a couple of years.
[/quote]
I'm in the opposite boat. I've been driving the same Nissan truck for 15 yrs. and it's needed two repairs in all that time (not counting consumables). I've had my Nighthawk 750 for 18 yrs. and it has also needed two repairs, but both of those were because of things that I broke.

The one thing that made me nervous about buying the CB11 was, with it's increased complexity (computers, etc...), would it be as reliable? Time will tell.

In order for the universe to balance out, on the other end of the spectrum is my 1968 Piper airplane. It consumes an average of $4K in parts and maintenance every year.