Honda has announced that its upcoming Hornet will get an all-new 755c parallel-twin engine. The peak output figures stand at 90.5hp at 9,500rpm and 75Nm of torque at 7,250rpm. This engine has a 270-degree firing order and mimics the sound and feel of a V-Twin engine.
This all-new unit is not just a reworked, smaller Africa Twin engine as earlier expected. Instead, Honda has gone back to the drawing board and developed an all-new short-stroke parallel-twin engine while borrowing a few elements from its dirt bike range and reworking them for this platform. The Unicam SOHC architecture (borrowed from Honda’s off-road CRF models) permits this engine to have compact dimensions that help in shaving off weight as well as enabling a higher compression ratio.
It has a 270-degree firing order, like nearly all modern-day parallel twin units on the market. Fuyuki Hosokawa, the project manager at Honda for the upcoming Hornet, claims this uneven firing order allows it to have a broad spread of torque throughout the rev range, while delivering a top-end rush. He claims that this engine will be at home even while riding at city speeds, which should be a boon, particularly in our congested traffic conditions.
