Bajaj Pulsar 180 DTS-i

The 180 DTS-i sticks with an all-alloy cased, four-stroke cycle engine that’s clearly based on the earlier tried-and-tested powerplant. Its single-cylinder is air-cooled and still displaces 178.6cc. Bajaj has used its patented DTS-i technology, which ensures the engine’s twin-plugs are set to ignite together in one instant, thereby delivering higher power output as well as improved fuel economy. The bike also employs ExhausTEC, or a resonance chamber sitting on the silencer that helps pack a healthy punch low in the bike’s power band.

There’s a marginal bump up in power as the bike now delivers  17.02bhp at 8500rpm and 1.45kgm of torque at 6500rpm. While straightline performance is just about identical to the outgoing model on paper despite the new 180 weighing in a few kilos more than its predecessor, the rider benefits from a relatively more refined feel now.

Throttle action is nice and light, with a quick response always at hand, and the bike revs cleanly all the way into its redline without any glitch. It’s a flexible engine too, with five, well-spaced gear ratios that ensure a rider need not play too much with the ’box to extract optimal performance. The cable-operated clutch on our test bike worked well at all times.

We managed to hustle the new 180 from rest to 60kph in 4.83 seconds, going on to pass 100kph in 14.18sec en route to a creditable true top whack of 120kph. We discovered that speedometer error, which was pleasantly absent on the earlier 180, now plays a part on the new Pulsar.