TWOSTROKES LIVE ON

During the 1970s some motorcyclists wanted to make a moral issue of how many piston strokes an engine needed to complete its power-producing cycle—four strokes good, two strokes evil. And many a racing fan has referred to the long period of two-stroke dominance as the “forgotten era.”

I don’t see this as a moral issue. Twostroke or four, an engine must carry out the same four essential tasks of intake, compression, power, and exhaust. A twostroke fits two of those into each of two piston strokes, while a four-stroke provides (roughly) a separate piston stroke for each task. Either way, it’s the same air and the same fuel; combustion of a compressed fuel-air