Diesel engined motorcycles

[sstodvictory]

I've been cruising dirt bike sites and came accross this report about diesel engined motorcycles. Seems that a US company is about to start production of a military spec KLR having a purpose-designed diesel engine. The article claims 140 miles per gallon. Could that be a typo, or do diesel engines really get that kind of mileage?

http://www.peace65.freeserve.co.uk/Pictures/future.htm

Steve

[Choirguy]

Some guy a few years ago converted a Fat Boy to a diesel engine, and was getting 90 MPG out of it...and he was running biodiesel.

He said that it didn't have the "top end" of a typical Fat Boy, but my thought is, why in the world aren't we looking into this for the future? After all, diesel is just about everywhere, our bikes are usually (except for this odd bunch) only out in warm weather (no worry about jelling fuel), and better fuel economy, and with the use of biodiesel, a chance to use non-oil based fuel. It seems like a winner to me. Maybe there's something that I'm missing.

At any rate, those Kawasakis are only 650cc, if I remember correctly, and they need to be converted so the bikes can run on the standard military fuel (no unleaded there). I can imagine that with the smaller engine, better fuel economy would result, nearing that 140 MPG mark.

[John Ritter]

Polaris had a diesel 4-wheeler that came out in '98 I believe. It didn't last long. The problem w/ diesels at this small caliber is they don't produce big H.P numbers and their higher than gas torque numbers aren't enough to compensate for the small horsepowers. Also, aren't diesels heavier than a same size gas?