Royal Enfield drop a turbo-charged engine into a Himalayan!
The UK design facility for Royal Enfield have obviously been bored over the lockdown, as they wheel out a turbo-charged Himalayan
FORCED induction is becoming a bit of a buzz word at the moment, with Kawasaki, Yamaha and others being reported to be working on whacky new turbine-boosted powerplants.
Royal Enfield Himalayan review
Although, one thing we haven’t see so far is a forced induction off-roader – until today that is! The MJR Roach, as the bike has been dubbed, is the result of the team at Bruntingthorpe working away over the lockdown – presumably somebody left the lid off some thinners or something because this thing is mad!
Starting with a stock and standard Himalayan, the team has ditched many of the original parts, replacing them with either bespoke items or off the shelf enduro parts. The biggest news comes in the form of a Garrett GT 125 turbo, mounted just before the under seat-exit of the exhaust. While boosted engines can massively increase power outputs, we must bear in mind the Himalayan’s fairly modest output to start with – the boosted version puts out a claimed 50bhp. While that may sound meagre, it is actually doubling the output of the 411cc engine.
To help the engine along the rev-limit has been raised, an external waste-gate was added and a custom-built exhaust and ‘screamer pipe’ fabricated. Chassis-wise, the bike features a set of lowered motocross forks and a 21” front wheel. Another cool addition is the swingarm, built specifically for the build by Royal Enfield-owned Harris Performance.
While we don’t expect the MJR Roach to be hitting the dealers anytime soon, it is nice to see Royal Enfield exploring idea paths a little less trodden. And as we’ve seen with the standard Himalayan, they aren’t afraid of leaving the classic styled bikes in favour of something different – so who knows…
Royal Enfield MJR Roach Himalayan turbo concept
Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
