How about 167hp/liter?

CBR600RR.

Oh, and you walk out with a brand new one for under 12k.

That's 167 *rear wheel* hp/liter, or ~190hp/liter going by crankshaft horsepower. Not bad...

You can do a lot when you do not have to worry about emissions, gas mileage, cooling or longevity.

Yep agreed. Also noise emissions.

Reminds me of a recent story about Honda's $184,000 RC213V-S hyper-bike and how it only makes 70 bhp in production form. Although based on their hard-core Moto GP bike, Honda had to set the rev limiter to 6,000 RPM for the production bike in order to meet local 80 db sound restrictions. Honda will however sell you a track kit that will give you back the full 14,000 RPM rev limit and 215 bhp...

...and 130 db of street-illegal noise.

http://lanesplitter.jalopnik.com/how...v-s-1717807245