There has been incredible innovation and advancement in terms of the design and production of motorcycle engines. The biggest producers of motorcycles such as Suzuki, Yamaha, and Honda continue to put large amounts of money into research and development in order to create new high performance motorcycle engines.

Most major automobile manufacturers will admit that the leading edge of engine technology is in motorcycles rather than automobiles or even aircraft. Often the innovations applied to motorcycle engines migrate over the car engines. When designing new motorcycle engines the goal is always better combustion. One of the newest innovations is the use of more than four valves per cylinder to create more flow area.

The movement of the motorcycle engine from the two valve models to the four valve models was all geared toward creating better combustion.

The introduction of the four valve engine by Honda in the 1960s allowed for the use of narrow valve angles and combustion chambers which where shallow which was able to provide good combustion when paired with a spark plug.

In the early 1980s Yamaha began to look beyond the standard four valve engine for ways to get better combustion using new head and valve configurations. They even went so far as to experiment with seven valves per cylinder designs. These had four intake valves and three for exhaust.

Using five valves per cylinder allowed them to achieve the level of performance they desired. This design features an additional intake valve giving more air flow at low to medium valve lifts.

This is right where most engines spend the majority of their operating time. One of the largest and most innovative producers of motorcycle engines in North America has to be Honda.

They have recently built a technologically advanced plant which produces more than 500,000 high tech engines each year. At this new plant they are able to combine the most advanced techniques in manufacturing with leading edge engine design to produce a premium product.