Strange as it may sound, our very own TVS, which has been serving us with air-cooled engines here in India, has recently launched a liquid-cooled engine step-thru bike in Indonesia. Known as the Tormax, the underbone machine comes with a 4 stroke, SOHC, liquid cooled 3 valve engine with dual inlet ports. The 148.75cc machine dishes out 13.2bhp of peak power at 8000rpm and 12.5Nm of peak torque at 5500 rpm.
The LC engine breathes via a UCAL-VM 22 carburetor, so no FI here. The bike also has petal type disc brakes up front and at the rear. Funnily, the Indonesian website for the product reads disc brakes as ‘dick brakes’. Ahem!
The Tormax sports a horizontally mounted gas charged monoshock suspension at the rear, while doing duty at the front is a set of regular telescopic forks. One very interesting feature on the Tormax is its unique exhaust with CBR1000RR-style twin outlets. Only one exhaust opening is functional at low rpms, but as the rev needle dances up the curve, the second exhaust opening lets the gases out for a more sonorous sound.
While the power and torque output figures from the engine are nothing exceptional, it’s good to see an Indian bikemaker producing LC engines. Hope the technology is adopted on a big performance motorcycle here in India as well. Way to go, TVS.
Thanks for the tip, Payeng, via xbhp.