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Some may not know that I live in China and have been for 6 years now. On the weekend I went to Chongqing and showed this post elswhere ..

Chongqing (how much more Chinese sounding can you get!) located near the middle of China is the World's largest producer of everything motorcycle, more than the rest of the World combined apparently and I went there over this Labour Day weekend for a bit of work and relaxation and thought some may be interested....



Getting there;

I usually drive to CQ but decided to try out the new fast train of which China now has more than Japan ever had...

Lined up at the station, wanted a better shot but the silly girl with the smoking hot body, platform heels and short dress got in the way sorry..


The train is about 30 carriages long and hard to actually see end to end..



Going along at 200kmh, frustratingly the train actually sits on 198 to 199 kmh and rarely shows 200 but everyone starts taking pictures at those moments! ..


Getting coffee from the cute stewardesses at 199kmh ..


Passing through one of CQ's many suburban city areas which is a change from the villages I usually take pictures of ..




The Hotel

I stay at is on the Yangtze river and I love it there watching the ships go up and down carrying coal or sand/gravel mostly, has a hell of a current and the ships are flat out at less than walking speed going West..




You can see the current flow in this piccy behind the berthed boat in the foreground ..


Dinner cruises at night


The new "Golden" Sheraton Hotel twin towers across the river..




The engine company;

What I wanted to look at mostly was the 600cc engines this company makes, they are a joint Chinese/AVL design water cooled, balance shaft etc and totally modern ..

Crate of dyno'ed engines with various specs..


Incredibly handsome guy and some staff..



Me about to test the engine for real, they state 40hp for it with normal EU exhaust and CV carby but this one had straight thru exhaust and a flat slide carby and went like like hell, scared the beejeezus out of them when I ripped thru 4 gears flat betwen the factories!! I was asked to stop


Another post coming ...

One other reason I went to CQ was to meet up with Ian Drysdale, unsung Oz engine designer.

Thats Ian on the left..


Ian is probably best known for his 750cc and 1000cc V8 complete motorcycles in sports and cruiser forms but he actually has quite a resume and a few engines of his designs are now in production in China and more to come.

[url="http://home.mira.net/~iwd/"]http://home.mira.net/~iwd/[/url]

The latest design he developed and prototyped himself to take the next step for the VTwin set that can't get away from pushrods is "Godzilla".

The features that stand out are the aero radial engine style master conrod with link rod on one piece crankshaft to get big hp reliably and keep the cylinders in line (ala Harley, all the Japanese are offset with rods side by side on wide crank), the obviously unusual ground and longitudal camshaft, 4 valves heads, standard Chev lifters and an integral supercharger. Non supercharged 1400 is an easy 120hp and blown 1600 has an easy 160+hp with 6 speed gearbox..





The reason I wanted to speak to him was about something to compete against the Hartley etc bike V8's and a suitable transaxle (Ian is a gear cutter/designer originally) - more info when it comes .....

Thanks for sharing. I have travelled many times into the Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Shenzhen and Hong Kong areas. Never further into the mainland. Your photos bring back some good memories.

That angled camshaft is very interesting.

Chuck

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Chuck.

“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766

So many great places to see that aren't in the US. Thanks for the pics.

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

Great photos. Thanks. My first visit to China was back in '94. Amazing how different it is now.

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Steve

Cripes, I've chatted with Ian off and on on the motorcycle.chassis.design list since... mid 1990s? Seems like a nice guy.

Would Ian care to make some tall gear sets for Miata diffs?

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

I was fortunate to get to visit Osaka, Japan, Hong Kong and several southern China cities with a previous employer. It is an eye opening experience for someone who has spent all his time in North America.

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Minibuggy build to see if I could hack a car build: http://www.minibuggy.net/forum/ar51-buggy-group/16171-ar51-build-ky.html

Finished product: http://www.fawbush.org/images/2012_8_19_buggy/2012_8_19_first_drive_6.JPG

Oh no problem, I very much doubt you can afford his perfection though.

I am currently getting some gears made and I believe they may be able to do diff type C&P sets (I think I saw some in one corner), they would be cheap and strong but as they do machinery based gear cutting theres a chance they may be noisy - willing to take that chance?

Tell me how many you expect to order and how much you expect to pay and I'll ask them.

The other side of China is still there although diminishing with time ...

and a bit more

Hey, I think I've eaten in that restaurant! Nothing a bottle of week old Maotai won't kill off, if it doesn't kill you first.

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Steve

Very interesting images. Thanks for taking the time to post these. I noticed a lot of seemingly happy people.

One of the reasons I continue to stay here. They are geniuinely happy and amazingly social people, they will do the world for you if they can and offer true lifelong freindship.

But thats socially, in business they are dirty rotten theives, cheats and liars not to be trusted an inch!

These 2 hands of difference never ceases to amaze me.