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Hero Impulse with Karizma engine tested
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Our 2011 Bike of the Year winner, the Hero Impulse has everything going for it but we always felt that lack of grunt and really hoped for it to have a bigger engine for some serious off-roading fun. And guess what? Here we have a special one off Hero Impulse powered by the 223cc mighty engine from the Hero Karizma! Find out how its done and how it runs!
When we first got wind of the Hero Impulse here at the ZigWheels office, we were naturally all very excited. After so many years, we were getting a motorcycle from an Indian manufacturer that was actually designed to handle more than just smooth tarmac. And even though we were all giggling like schoolgirls after we had our first ride on the bike, there was one unanimous verdict. Everyone thought the bike didn’t sound anything like a dirt bike should and we all wished it had more power to make short work of any terrain the countryside might throw at it. One very obvious question, at least on my mind, was why didn’t they plonk the Karizma engine into the Impulse?
While Hero MotoCorp couldn’t be bothered answering that question for me, thankfully Amit Nangre, a diehard motorcycle aficionado from Pune, was thinking of the same question and he decided to take a stab at answering that himself. Ever the resourceful fellow, he bought himself an Impulse, ripped out the 149cc engine, sourced himself a 223cc mill from the Karizma and proceeded about the job of fitting it into the Impulse’s frame. Now while this might seem like open-heart surgery, and to a certain extent, it might be, you’d be surprised to know that it’s a far less complicated procedure than one might imagine, and nothing a bit of planning and ingenuity can’t see through.
The Karizma engine is based on the 230cc Honda engine which the Japanese company has doing duties on a large number of bikes internationally. Incidentally, the crankcase on this engine is almost identical to the one on the Honda NXR 150 Bros, the South American bike which Hero MotoCorp brought to India as the Impulse. So to fit the Karizma engine into the Impulse, all Amit had to do was slightly adjust some of the clamps on the top of the block and on the crankcase to be accommodated into the dirt bike’s frame, and voila – it was pretty much a direct bolt-on. The tip of the larger exhaust manifold from the Karizma engine was welded to one end of the Impulse’s exhaust system, a free flow muffler was added to the other end and the job was complete.
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Readers' opinions ( 7 )
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Rocky Rahul
i have AN IMPULSE blue colour.... im really loving this off roader .. i run this bike almost 80 to 100 kms every day in the chennai city traffic.. it gvs me a good mileage too.. can yo try and modify the front mudgaurd for the offroader... coz it splashes all the dirts during rainy season...?
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aaradya
fine one more questions is can we just replace the hero impulse head and bore with karizma s head and bore can we whether all the dimensions fit perfectly .
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abhi
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siddhesh
yes.. as far as there are no internal engine mods on...you can even put d cbr's engine on dis one.
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pranav khanna
its a very impressive job done with the impulse engine been replaced with karizma but does this comply with the legal formalities with the authorities
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