Mats,
I'm strongly suspecting there's a bit of nitrous oxide involved here... so don't take-up the beer and firecrackers just yet!!
Just to make a comparison, the current naturally aspirated V8 F1 engines are running in the region of 16bar bmep (maybe 17bar from the better engines when on the engine dyno under transient conditions) with all manner of harmonic tuning making the torque curve quite sharp and spiky. Which is quite the opposite of what we have here.
Turbocharging simply wouldn't give this sort of torque characteristic unless it was heavily choked at high mass flows or had VVT or very sophisticated wastegate control. Choking the flow is not a good solution unless there's huge intercooling capacity somewhere (I know it's a quad, but it's still quite small and difficult to stuff things into the available space), and not only is VVT expensive and therefore unlikely, where is the noise?? Most damning of all though, if high flow at high engine speed is being purposefully avoided, why is the engine not making more use of the extra air at lower engine speeds; or on the other hand, why choke the turbo so early if the engine will safely run to 8500rpm?? No, turbo is not likely in my view.
Supercharging is a strong possibility, but as for the turbo argument, I don't hear any drive-belt or compressor noise (ok, perhaps not best to judge based on the video alone), and again, why wait so late in the engine speed range before using the extra air, and how is it available for just a short engine speed range??
It could be crying out for a bit of calibration of course in either case... not forgetting the apparently 'fluffy' fuelling in the video.
One last thing, just before the WOT pull, the rider touches something in the handlebar region. Could this be the rider arming the nitrous trigger system?
So, contiman mon ami, is this N2O 'chemical supercharging' or something else???
Cheers... Paul
ps. as a complete aside, wait until you see the bmep figures for the 2013 season F1 engines. 1.5litre, four cylinder, direct injection, turbocharged... VERY BIG numbers!
