u/SellMeSomeSleep

Where are you planning to sit today? We will probably sit at turn 10.

Where are you planning to sit today? We will probably sit at turn 10.

Are you still heading to the circuit tomorrow? 

Are you still heading to the circuit tomorrow? 

We're heading to the circuit tomorrow. In need of somewhere to watch the GT race in Portimau on tomorrow if you'll be watching it. 

Are you still heading to the circuit tomorrow? 

Are you still heading to the circuit tomorrow? 

Are you guys still heading to the circuit tomorrow? 

We're on for this weekend and doing the charity fun run @ 17:30 on Saturday (€15) which is one lap around the circuit with some drivers at least.   Oh and if anyone knows a good spot to watch the GT World Challenge race at Portimao on Saturday night, we'd be keen on that too.

Consider that if your bike had a normal 120mm travel fork in it, it would spend portions of time with only 60mm travel or less left as you'd be using the suspension. and you'd still be okay and this would be normal. So surely the difference you speak of won't be a big deal at all. 

note that a boring and dull feeling bike can be the one that is faster as it is soaking up all the bumps either with tyres or/and suspension travel or/and quality.   A  bike that is more capable may well make your local trails feel a lot less of a challenge and more dull as the challenge is gone. A good example would be to hop on a 26" XC hardtail and ride your current trails on it. A similar effect might happen getting something like the current Scott Spark vs your current bike.

It might be that the natural position that you hold your feet vs the angle you have you cleats set at, you have near 0 float in one direction. As in, you are using up all of your float in one direction based on how your foot sits. If during pedalling your foot changes angle just enough in the direction that you don't have any float left, you'd unclip yourself without much effort. 

Additionally, you can wrap a zip tie around the axle side of the pedal where your shoe sits on the pedal. some world cup riders to this to lift their shoe up a bit and thus make it harder to unclip. ~5mm wide thickness zip ties sort of sized ones is what I've seen and tried myself. 

Consider filming yourself while pedalling on a stationary bikeas you might be able to pick up on something that might be causing the issue

You mean on a per L basis right?   The other thing is that the bikes are fuel limited in races. In qualification not so. I'd definitely like to know the hp per L they have in qualifying while still maintaining a reasonably smooth torque curve for the sake of rideability. 

Could you rig up a bag or case for it under the belly pan of the engine?  Use an adjustable hose clamp (metal) to clamp the bag or case onto the frame down there. 

Moto2 is like this with the engines

Motocross bike engines are typically 450cc and put out around 50hp at the rear wheel and are lightweight.

Did you change the engine for something out a motocross bike?

Winding on a lot of compression damping if you have that option will help stop a lot of the diving of the forks under heavy braking too.

Plus, the further you have your weight forward, the easier it will be to have the rear come up (less weight on the rear wheel)

I'd let someone that knows bike setup a bit to ride it to see what they think.
You haven't mentioned anything about damping settings and we don't know how you are with regards to where you put your weight or move it around mid corner or your throttle control. Admittedly that is probably more one to be assessed by someone else riding it to give feedback.

Fair enough.

In terms of the two stroke engines that I know of: you've got 2 stroke motocross bikes where you should be able to get dyno charts of the torque curves easily online along with the weights of the engines. These should give you a very high power to weight ratio but with a bit of a spread of torque but probably not so good down low. You could possibly change this with a different exhaust system, perhaps the ~reed valves too but you might not want to head down that path. eg Yamaha YZ250 engine at around 47hp stock and 31ft-lb of torque.
Heck, if you're running separate drive left and right you could try running an engine for each side (eg 2x Yamaha YZ125 engines) for some novelty. Speed matching would be harder.

2 stroke road going motorycles: eg Suzuki RGV 250 or Aprilia RS250 (2 cylinder 2 stroke, the latter with a better reed valve setup) at about 60hp at the wheel, weight about 66lb, more peaky torque curve though. These engines in the world level race bike spec (better quality parts and a lot more engine rebuilds) got out to 100hp. Shifter kart engines or high performance 2 stroke go kart engines could be the go too as they are still in development and still in wide use.

And then you'd have a group of engines that have much lower hp but much more torque and a better spread of it like on a ride on lawn mower.

And then if you want to go really crazy on the power and torque to weight you'd go for a two stroke engine running on nitro and methanol. Your fuel costs will go up but your power to weight will go through the roof as the fuel itself (the nitro) contains oxygen so this would be like running an engine used in drag racing.

Another consideration given your use case will be dissipation of heat and resilience against the method for cooling the engine. All of the engines above are liquid cooled and to provide the high levels of hp, you'll need to get a lot of cooling to those engines. Can you protect the radiators+fans well enough to not have them get damaged and destroy your power source?
Air cooled 2 stroke engines will avoid the issue with damage to the radiators but you're engine performance will go down and you'll still likely need a fan to cool the engines given the lack of movement speed I assume in your use case. Think of your use case being like a tractor or earth moving equipment where movement speed is limited so the radiator + fan combo will need to be decent.

How long do these battles go for?

I'd have said a 2 stroke lawn mower given the automatic transmission request, but if you have a tracked vehicle, won't you need to be driving hydraulic motors to run separate drive speeds and directions to each track to be able to steer it? If so, is a transmission even needed as you'd just change the engine revs to change speed/load demands?
And will control of the hydraulic system be easier than an all electric system? I suspect it might not be.

Or is that the point: mainly tarmac in the run off area and some gravel at the end of it. This paired with deep air bag fencing? I don't know if this is sufficient but that is the only way around it I can see.
If the riders stay on the bike, they can pull up before the barriers, if not, well, they'll be going for a skate but at least they won't go into the horrible cartwheeling gravel can cause when part of their body digs into the gravel.

But yeah, the FIM have specific regulations for run off areas and it doesn't look like the current regs will work with the setups you mention.

Definitely a way to make a make the gravel trap after the longest straight more in proportion to what will be needed for the speed they'll be doing at the end of it.

FYI there is nothing being reported from the two main motorcycle magazines in Australia about this: mcnews.com.au and amcn.com.au

The 2 stroke Honda NSR500 was putting out over 180hp in the 1990's fyi and it weighed ~135kg vs the current ~156kg for the four strokes.
https://parts-ring.com/the-honda-nsr500/

In car racing, they speak of the braking distance dictating how good racing is. Racing series with longer braking distances (ie less or zero downforce and ideally tyres with less grip) give the drivers more wriggle room and opportunity for making passes. The bikes at present have a lot more aerodynamic appendages on them which under braking add more drag (=shorter braking distance).