Benda's ambitious engine projects include 1,700 cc inline six
By Ben Purvis
When Benda - then a little-known Chinese upstart - showed a pair of V4 engines at the CIMA show back in 2021 there was no shortage of scepticism about their production prospects. Today the company's range includes 500 cc and 950 cc V4 cruisers so the fact the same company has shown a trio of ambitious new engine designs at the 2025 CIMA event is now being taken rather more seriously.
The first of the new engines is also the wildest of all: a 1,685.6 cc inline six-cylinder. While there are other six-cylinder bikes on the market - the Honda Gold Wing, for example, and BMW's K1600 range - the Benda design is a first for China, even if the 2,000 cc flat-eight offered by rival Chinese brand Souo means it's not the biggest in terms of capacity or cylinder count.
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| Inline six-cylinder |
There are clearly overtones of BMW's K1600 motor in the Benda design. Its overall layout is similar, with cylinders canted forwards at an extreme angle, positioning the transmission above, rather than behind, the crankshaft. The Benda motor's 72 mm bore and 69 mm stroke hint that the similarities continue inside the engine as well, as BMW uses the same bore and a slightly shorter stroke for its 1,649 cc K1600.
Just a case of China copying the west again? Not quite, as the Benda design also adds the company's own dual-clutch, semi-automatic transmission, which is innovative enough to be subject of a patent application around its design and layout. Unlike Honda's dual clutch motorcycle boxes, the Benda design takes its drive from both ends of the crankshaft, with one clutch on the left and one on the right, each driving a half-length input shaft that carries four gears - even numbers on one shaft, odd numbers on the other, allowing two ratios to be selected simultaneously and gearshifts to be made seamlessly by disengaging one clutch and engaging the other. There are eight speeds in total.
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| Boxer twin |
There's no indication of where the new engine will find a home, but a future touring model would be the most logical destination for the design.
The second new engine is a boxer twin or, more accurately, two of them, each combined with a hybrid system to add a dose of electric power. One of these engines appeared in Benda's 'P51' concept bike - a machine that's intended to become a production model in the future. Details of the bike are slim, but it mirrors design registrations for a 'BD250' model, indicating a 250 cc capacity, with the hybrid drive intended to up performance to around that of an 800 cc bike. A standalone boxer twin engine was also on display, with a similar appearance but a capacity of 698.6 cc from a 76 mm bore and 77 mm stroke. Again, it's intended to be used along with a hybrid system to add an electric motor.
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| Inline four-cylinder |
Finally, Benda displayed a 548.6 cc inline four-cylinder engine, similar to the design used in its existing LFC700 - and bearing some similarities to the Honda CB650 motor - but with an ultra-short stroke to allow stratospheric revs. The bore is the same 67 mm used by the 676 cc LFC700, but instead of that bike's 48mm stroke, the pistons travel just 38. 9mm. Benda claims the result is class leading specific output, with more power than other, similarly sized engines, although no exact figures have been revealed.
