Run of the Mill?
Unboxing a new delivery can be a little moment of joy in your day. Unboxing a delivery of Evotech Performance motorcycle parts will make your day. Perfectly packaged in recyclable materials, with all the fixings required, Evotech’s premium motorcycle parts mean time tinkering on your machine, fitting the custom designs with ease. And after that, a little ride out for a shake down test, obviously.
The icing on the cake – inside the box in front of you is a piece of British engineering. Manufactured at Evotech Performance’s design, production and despatch facility in Lincolnshire, the deceivingly simple appearance of the motorcycle part in front of you, bears the hallmark of time-served engineers and metal specialists.
A flagship part for many years is the bespoke Motorcycle Crash Protection that is individually designed for each motorcycle model. Let’s take the Front Mounted Evotech Crash Protection for the Ducati XDiavel V4 (2025+) as an example. Whilst the 60mm large crash bobbins are the widely recognised protective element, you may be surprised to learn the precision shaped aluminium mounting bracket is equally vital. Evotech’s manufacturing knowledge and production processes ensure the bracket stays strong during a spill, reducing the risk of failed parts damaging the motorcycle. That’s before we take into consideration maintaining the motorbike’s sleek aesthetics and ensuring an accurate fit to existing mounting points.
So how do Evotech make sure the machining of the bracket is just right? The answer is a delicate mix of premium materials, the latest milling machinery, supportive CAM packages and experienced engineers.
Every crash protection bracket is milled from rolled billet aluminium. Billet refers to the shape the aluminium is purchased in, although it is always a rigid, solid block which is then milled into to create the final product. For Evotech, our billet aluminium is mainly a rectangular prism, but it can be supplied in a cylindrical shape also.
The alloy composition of the aluminium is also a consideration. Crash protections brackets are CNC-machined from 6000 grade aluminium, known for its strength and durability. We also regularly produce motorcycle parts from 5000 grade also, often better for adding bends for parts such as lever protectors and exhaust hangers[1].
With roughly 50% of Evotech’s metal motorcycle parts produced from billet aluminium, Evotech have invested in a range of high-speed, up to 5-axis milling machines from manufacturers Brother and DMG, each specialising in different sizes of part to be milled. Each machine runs a two-part operation system, milling one side of the material before being manually turned over for the other side to be machined. With a very quick 1.5 seconds chip-to-chip and regular RPMs of 16,000, the pace of milling is impressive. 75% of the milling machines also have additional robotised material feed for lights out running, increasing our productivity.
As mentioned in previous blogs, Evotech motorcycle parts begin life as a CAD design, uniquely designed to fit the bike with precision. If only the next step was simply pressing ‘print’ on the nearest production machine. The reality, however, is a complex weave of decision making, metallurgical and machinery knowledge and years of experience to ensure the accurate, premium part is manufactured correctly.
To turn the design of the XDiavel Crash Protection into a reality, it is handed over to Production Manager and Director, Nick Cooper, and the team of 4 CAM programmers. A variety of considerations need addressing: stock size needed, order of milling, first stage and second stage clamping, number of parts milled together from one billet, with the constant desire to reduce metal waste in mind. The crash protection bracket is then meticulously programmed with the production process run through a computerised simulator to check the accuracy of the processing. If all is good to go then a single prototype will be produced for testing and approval. Once this gets the thumbs up, the part is handed over to the machine operators, well-practised in the precise settings and complexities of the machines, for a full production run.
Having joined the company 25 years ago, Nick is able to reflect on the pace of change in metal manufacturing. When he first started, many of the processes that are now automated were by hand. A Hurco Hawk 5 CNC Mill was the advanced machine of the time, requiring much more input from the operator as tools were changed by hand. As the range of machines and their capabilities have improved, so has the complexity of design which he knows the current milling set-up can easily handle. ‘The introduction of 5-axis machining is easily the best advancement,’ he says, ‘I like to think we are running ahead of the crowd in what we can achieve with the milling machines, but there is still more we can do.’
With the Evotech Crash Protection (Front Mounted) for the Ducati XDiavel V4 now on a full production run through the factory, the finished product will soon be for sale on the Evotech website. Whilst to many, it may look like any other part you are unboxing, we know it is made from the highest quality material, on the most up-to-date machines by our skilled, trained engineers. You can’t ask for better than that.
Shop for Ducati XDiavel V4 Crash Protection
Before production, we have to design our Evotech products. Click here to read how we design our products on site.
[1] Evotech have recently invested in a non-destructive Positive Material Identification handheld analyser. We will regularly test the materials before production runs to ensure the correct grading and quality are being used to craft our premium motorcycle parts.