The Hindu Business Line : Flame from one spark plug

The spat between TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto came to head earlier this year, when the High Court in Chennai restrained the former from making its bike — Flame 125 — with twin spark plug engine technology.

Even as it attempts to go on appeal against the restraint order, TVS Motor has adopted plan B for the model. Accordingly, TVS has removed the contentious twin spark plug option in the Flame’s 125cc engine and replaced it with the conventional single spark plug option.

TVS says that the engine, which has been jointly developed with AVL of Austria, continues to leverage its intrinsic technologies despite the absence of the second spark plug.

The Flame features a three-valve engine that employs two separate induction ports called power and swirl ports.

The power port creates a tumble motion to the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber enabling crisp throttle response and a linear power delivery.

On the other hand, the swirl port allows for lean burn characteristics, utilising the unique flow of air-fuel mixture to burn efficiently even during lean mix conditions.

This improves torque and reduces the need to shift down to lower gear slot while riding in city traffic conditions. TVS says that despite the fact that one spark plug has been removed; the peak power and torque characteristics of the Flame remain unchanged.

The fact that one flame front will not be available in one corner of the engine must have been a difficult handicap to overcome for engineers in TVS, especially because the original had been tuned to perform with the use of twin spark plugs.

So, TVS engineers have retuned the engine, changed the mapping to suit the presence of a single spark plug and have reset the gear ratios to match the performance characteristics of the engine when it was first offered with the twin spark plugs.

TVS has also simply plugged the spot, with a blank, where the second spark plug would have been located.

We rode the new TVS Flame and the first impressions are that though the engine doesn’t seem to have lost any of its punch in terms of performance, it also continues to be rough and sounds a bit on the harsher side. The impression that one gets at high revs is that there seems to be too much turbulence in the engine.

But apart from the overly gruff exhaust note and relatively harsh engine noise, the bike performs very well and the overall feel of the Flame is that of a superior executive-commuter bike.

The Flame has been priced at Rs 46,000 (ex-showroom).

S. Muralidhar

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