Colove brings back the 400 cc
four By Ben Purvis
Even among the hordes of upstart Chinese bike brands , Colove is a relative newcomer . However , it ' s one that is showing a huge amount of ambition by demonstrating a new 400 cc four-cylinder engine that ' s destined for a baby sports bike in the near future . Colove , which also uses ' Kove ' branding and sells its bikes under the ' Excelle ' name , presented the new four-cylinder at a press demonstration earlier this year - as well as showing design drawings for the machine that will use the engine . Not only was the engine shown , but it was started and revved on stage , with the company ' s president stating that it ' s an entirely in-house design . He even pledged that if anyone could prove it was a clone of another company ' s design , he ' d personally eat the engine ! While 400 cc fours were commonplace in Japan in the 1980s and early 90s , the format has always been relatively expensive to build , and they ' ve fallen from favour in recent years . A high-revving 400 cc four has as many components and needs to use the same hightech materials as a superbike ' s 1000 cc four , so they aren ' t much less expensive to manufacture . Also , European emissions rules , with a focus on hydrocarbon emissions , don ' t favour high-revving engines - they require a lot of valve overlap to fill and empty the cylinders efficiently at high rpms , which in turn can allow unburnt fuel into the exhaust when they ' re not revving high .
Colove ' s engine , measuring 399 cc , has a wide 59 mm bore and short 36.5 mm stroke that lends it to high revs - the redline being set at 16,000 rpm . Peak power is claimed to be 72.4 hp at 13,500 rpm , with 32.4 lb-ft of torque arriving at 12,000 rpm . Unlike the old generation of Japanese 400 fours , it ' s fuel injected to help meet emissions limits . The design sketches for the bike
it will appear in , the 400RR , reveal it to be a trellis framed , full-faired sports machine with a hint of Ducati in its styling , which includes features such as a single-sided swingarm and side-mounted winglets as well as a large , central air intake to feed the screaming engine . While only presented as a drawing so far , Colove says the bike will weigh less than 160 kg and hit a top speed north of 220 km / h ( 135 mph ). The development of a totally new four cylinder isn ' t the only challenge on the company ' s agenda , as it ' s also creating a whole range of 800 cc parallel twin models , all built around an engine that looks suspiciously like the KTM LC8c design that ' s built in China by rival CFMoto .
INTERNATIONAL DEALER NEWS - APRIL / MAY 2022 29