Will Fantic soon introduce a two-stroke injection?
KTM has had a range of two-stroke off-road machines equipped with fuel injection for a number of years. Last November, Motori Minarelli showed off at the EICMA in Milan with a two-stroke engine block with an injection system instead of a carburetor. Is this the harbinger of a serious two-stroke revival?
Motori Minarelli is owned by Yamaha and the brand with the crossed tuning forks has an ongoing partnership with the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Fantic. The engine was on display at the fair as a 300cc two-stroke engine with injection. The injection system is located in the throttle body, just like on the new KTM crossers.
This new engine is based on the Yamaha 250cc engine and is expected to be used for the upcoming Fantic XE300 enduro models. The motorcycles will hit the European market in the summer of 2023, but although they will mainly be intended for off-road competition (read enduro), you can simply ride these machines on public roads due to their Euro 5 standard. The new 300cc two-stroke engine in the upcoming Fantic XE has therefore received Euro 5 homologation.
Fantic currently does not have a production model of the XE300 in their range, but that will change in the course of next year. Davide Guarneri rides the World Enduro Championship with an XE300, but that is a factory engine and still has a carburetor.
How Minarelli achieved this is thanks to extensive high-tech hocus pocus. Of course, electronically controlled injection systems on two-stroke engines are nothing new. KTM has been doing this for years. But the fact that Minarelli's new engine could be approved for road use could mean there's a lot more tech under the casing. All we know so far is that the engine has a special electronic exhaust control unit that doubles as a decompression system for the electric starter.
It is also undisputed that the engine setting must be radically changed to achieve a more pleasant handling. There is a good chance that it will not come close to the 50 hp that is common with two-stroke enduros with this engine capacity. Instead, we can expect a smoother, more linear torque curve as the rev range increases. However, Minarelli does say that the engine delivers explosive performance under full load.
In Austria, KTM launched their injection system for the first time on the TPI enduros. In 2023 they will appear with their crossers where the fuel is injected into the throttle body. Fantic's working method suggests that they will follow a similar path and, after a period of development, will provide their two-stroke crossers with injection.
In addition to the advanced electronic injection and exhaust controller, we can also expect the exhaust system to have been thoroughly revised to reduce the high-pitched whine associated with two-stroke engines. The new engine was shown at EICMA, but apparently didn't get the attention it deserved. Still, it will certainly be interesting to welcome a new era of two-stroke machines.
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