Lupino is testing the new 250f engine and mayby the new 450 engine, same bottom on the 250/450 2014 Totally new crank house
Sure looks like new center cases and new frame to me. New engine mount locations at the bottom front of the engine. And the area around the clutch slave and countershaft sprocket is completely different.
That's pretty cool that Husky is working on the second generation of the newer 250f engine. I am very impressed with the current 250f engine (but that's from only having ridden it and checked it out. I haven't owned it). I am a tad disappointed at the lack of penetration in the offroad community with the 250f. I think it's leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.....but don't understand why it isn't more popular at races???
It's time bmw helped the Husqvarana engineers build something worthy and actually marketed it in a manner worthy of the parent company ... I just finished a tour and a very good rider \ enduro racer guy winner from down under was very impressed with my 010 TC250 ... The suspension and handling was very impressive to him and no complaints on engine performance ... he could even start it on 1-10 kicks 98% of the time ... I'll say not enough exposure on a high enough level is preventing sales ...
The pendulum is swinging back to 2 strokes for the masses in off road racing and it doesn't matter what the factory teams are running.
How cool would it be if in 2014 the new TC 450 was a total home run? Think about it, BMW did it with the S100RR and they had never made a sport/track bike before. Its totally possible!
Hitting a home-run of 700' in your backyard is almost meaningless ... Hitting a HR with an audience in the world series is priceless ...
I have to believe this next generation motor was in the works before BMW made Husqvarna use their motors.
If you are referring to the 450 engine, then I'd have to agreed ... When designing the 250, the case of it being capable of being a 450 would have to been addressed unless you wanted to design a second 450 engine ... Even with the bmw engine coming into play, that would not rule out extending the xlite engines into 450CCs (to some degree) in the background ... And again, that path would have probably been decided at the same time for any budgets ...
