CBR1000RR-R Fireblade Archives

Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade Recalled in Europe

A recall campaign for the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade has been issued in Europe.
The campaign seeks to fix potentially defective conrods.
The bike is slated to arrive in different markets.

While many are still awaiting to take delivery of the 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade (besides being kept indoors by lockdowns in various countries), the manufacturer has issued a recall campaign in Europe.

The campaign affects some 300 bikes. Honda says that it’s a precautionary measure to fix what could be potential conrod (piston connecting rod) failure. The defect may be due to metallurgical defect.

The number makes up about 10% of the bikes allocated to the continent. Other countries are thus far unaffected. It leads us to believe that the conrod supplier made a bad batch.

Honda CBR1000RR-R cutaway engine – Credit moto-fan.jp

In any case, we’ll keep you updated in case those of other markets are involved.

On another note, it’ll be interesting to see how this new CBR1000RR-R will do in the market, especially given its price. Such price point was last seen with other Honda World Superbike homologation specials such as the VFR750R RC30, RVF750 RC45, VTR1000SP RC51. All these bikes were either built entirely or in part by the maker’s racing arm – HRC (Honda Racing Corporation).

Lastly, a recall campaign issued by a manufacturer ought to be seen in positive light, despite being as sensational as it seems. It’s better for manufacturers to discover problems early and notify consumers as soon as they can.

Therefore, recall and service campaigns are a commonplace these days.

2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade Wins Red Dot Award

The 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R won the 2020 Red Dot Award.
It’s Honda’s weapon to recapture the World Superbike crown.
The Red Dot Award is handed out for excellence in design, innovation, durability and functionality.

Just not long ago, we posted that the Ducati Diavel 1260 won the Red Dot Award for design excellence. Now, it’s the turn for the 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade.

The Red Dot Award is a yearly design award. It covers 49 categories from house appliances to vehicles, judged according to design, innovation, durability and functionality.

As you know, the new CBR1000RR-R was launched at EICMA last year and has since garnered lots of interest. The previous generations of CBR1000RR were great sportbikes, encompassing Honda’s Total Control Concept but are more street – or more accurately, everyday bike – focused. The RR-R, however, while still adopting the Total Control Concept, is more track focused.

Being the premier production superbike racing series, the World Superbike Championship allows manufacturers to showcase their development and innovations on bikes that you and I can buy at a dealership. MotoGP, on the other hand, features completely prototype machines made up of unobtainium parts and components.

Honda is tired of getting beaten in the series as their last title was in 2002. It’s thus against this background that Big Red built the CBR1000RR-R Fireblade.

The bike was co-developed with HRC just like the previous VFR750R RC30, RVF750R RC45 and VTR1000 SP RC51. However, Honda has plenty of lessons to draw on from the all-conquering RC213V MotoGP bike now. Hence, the frame, engine, aerodynamics, electronics of the CBR1000RR-R were adopted from the GP bike.

We were slated to test the bike in the second half of March, but the Movement Control Order has derailed our plans. Stay tuned as we bring you the full test and review of the bike.

By the way, congratulations Honda.

2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade Previewed in Malaysia!

Honda gave an exclusive preview of the 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade today.
The new bike is set to spearhead Honda’s challenge in production racing.
To rehash, it produces 215 hp and 113 Nm of torque.

Boon Siew Honda gave an exclusive preview of the 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade today. The event is in conjunction with the 8 Hours of Sepang FIM Endurance World (FIM EWC) Championship round and announcement of the Honda Asia-Dream Racing team.

Designed to spearhead Honda’s assault in the WorldSBK, Endurance World Championship, and all other race series the world over, the 2020 bike is all-new.

Honda doesn’t like getting beaten. As such, it was designed and developed hand-in-hand with the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC).

Since production racing means that the bikes must not deviate much from er… production bikes, the road bikes have to be built to incorporate whatever “race winning” technology the manufacturer can cram in.

First and foremost, it’s a great departure from the road-friendly character of the CBR900RR all the way up to the 2019 CBR1000RR. Honda had specifically made it clear that this Triple-R is “track focused.”

To retouch, the new 999cc inline-Four shares the same 81 mm x 48.5 mm bore and stroke of the RC213V-S. That’s a 5.0 mm overbore and 6.5 mm understroke compared to the 76 mm x 55 mm architecture. This was done in the interest for more top-end power, something which Honda WorldSBK and EWC riders complained about lacking in the older model.

Other changes include DLC-coated camshafts that actuate finger-followers compared to the previous shim-under-bucket set up. Honda claims that this reduces drivetrain friction by 35% and inertial weight by a whopping 75%. A timing gear on the crankshaft turns the camchain, hence camshafts in the opposite direction of the crankshaft in order to reduce inertia.

The new connecting rods are titanium, halving the weight of the old chromoly steel ones. New forged pistons are made from another type of aluminium alloy that are 5% lighter. The piston skirt is coated with Ober while the pin clip grooves are coated with nickel-phosphorous.

There are other changes as well, in fact too many to list. But all these changes and new stuff lets the engine liberate 215 hp at 14,500 RPM and 113 Nm of torque at 12,500 RPM.

Please go to this article for more technical details: 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade Debuts

Honda’s test riders are currently hard at work in adapting the bike to WorldSBK and EWC duties.

There are two models, of course – one base and the high-spec’ed SP version. No news yet of when it’ll be available in Malaysia, but we expect it to be officially launched something between May to August 2020.

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