There’s a difference between the cruiser and touring bikes
if rode goldwings and in my experience they are not as comfortable as the electra glide
the transmission is clunky and they are like a kite in the wind
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- Thread starter bigpoppa
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if rode goldwings and in my experience they are not as comfortable as the electra glide
the transmission is clunky and they are like a kite in the wind
I think Ryan and Zack gave fair reviews and I’m a HD guy. They are not for everyone and the market has much more diversity of offerings.
I accept there is an added expense of made in North America but, HD can offer modern technology without abandoning its core. They just haven’t figured out how or the attempts have been lame.
They won’t go away but they will struggle through the transition. Possibly as they try to win back owners of Indians?
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I accept there is an added expense of made in North America but, HD can offer modern technology without abandoning its core. They just haven’t figured out how or the attempts have been lame.
They won’t go away but they will struggle through the transition. Possibly as they try to win back owners of Indians?
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AllistonGT
Well-known member
I think you maybe onto something!
AllistonGT
Well-known member
But would you buy one if they did?
Nice.
money -> mouth
I am not a cruiser guy. If I had unlimited funds, it would be the last type of motorcycle that I would stick in my garage, after I collect all the sportbikes, dual sports, nakeds, enduros that I've ever lusted after.
But the V-Rod would be the first cruiser I'd get, in a heartbeat.
It would also look like this:
Damn, son!
bigpoppa
Well-known member
Nice.
money -> mouth
I am not a cruiser guy. If I had unlimited funds, it would be the last type of motorcycle that I would stick in my garage, after I collect all the sportbikes, dual sports, nakeds, enduros that I've lusted after.
But the V-Rod would be the first cruiser I'd get, in a heartbeat.
It would also look like this:
Damn, son!
Never got to ride the v rod, but if I had infinite funds, and wanted a harley, it would be a toss up between the low rider s and the v rod
sburns
Well-known member
Not a Vrod, I am more of a cruiser tourer. Now if they put something like a Vrod engine in an Ultra, yes I would.
(which I believe is what Indian is pretty much doing)
My greater point was HD has slowly been transforming their bikes to be more modern, less shake, less clunks, less noise, more performance etc. The M8 is a step in the right direction, but it's still hanging off old tech and ideas. They already had a modern engine in the Vrod (years ago) which could have been updated all this time. Imagine the difference it would have been today. I believe they could have offered up choices between an updated Vrod engine and a classic vtwin engine to riders of some of there touring line.
Not sure of the engineering required, but that's not a bad idea.
Well the upside is most bikes have a soft drive (chain or belt). That's makes a swap of powerplant a manageable packaging issue. Cool concept to allow be to buy heritage or modern lines that are more than just a trim package.
Brilliant bike. It's a long reach to the bars and pegs for a shortie like me (HD sells a Reduced Reach Controls Kit), but the straight-line power is phenomenal. Then you have to brake hard for the corner because the lean angle is like 30 degrees before you scrape chrome. That gets old, fast.
One thing the cruiser guys know how to do is showcase the engine. And the frame of the V-Rod does it so well:
Not a concept, Porsche was actually commissioned by HD to design the engine.
I'm not a cruiser guy, either. The V-Rod is the one product H-D built that had non-zero appeal to me.
I like the Indian FTR1200, and if I were to ever diverge from sport bikes, that one would be under consideration.
I confirmed a year ago that not enough cornering clearance is no bueno for the way I want to ride.
I like the Indian FTR1200, and if I were to ever diverge from sport bikes, that one would be under consideration.
I confirmed a year ago that not enough cornering clearance is no bueno for the way I want to ride.
More engineering stuff (that F9 didn't really touch upon but it's related to the bore/stroke situation that he did touch upon). There are some limiting factors built into the traditional H-D engine layout.
The 45-degree V angle basically imposes a narrow-bore long-stroke design on them because if you try to have a large bore diameter, the cylinders would hit each other at the bottom unless you made the engine crazy tall. IIRC the V-Rod engine had a 60 degree bank angle. Looks like the Polaris/Indian engine has a 49 degree bank angle ... it still has a longer stroke than its bore, but every degree helps with allowing a bigger bore.
The other dumb design feature is the knife-and-fork connecting rods. I know why they do that ... it's to allow the front and rear cylinders to be aligned on the crankshaft. Everyone else that builds a V-configuration engine has one bank offset from the other to allow proper single-piece (non-forked) connecting rods to be side-by-side on the crankshaft. For sure the forked connecting rod is some combination of heavier and weaker because of this. And that means ... lower revs.
A V-twin engine that has a bank angle of other than 90 degrees needs either a balance shaft or to have a separate crankpin for each cylinder which is offset by a very specific bank-angle-dependent angle in order to not have brutal first-order vibration. Not knife-and-fork con-rods on the same crankpin!
The 45-degree V angle basically imposes a narrow-bore long-stroke design on them because if you try to have a large bore diameter, the cylinders would hit each other at the bottom unless you made the engine crazy tall. IIRC the V-Rod engine had a 60 degree bank angle. Looks like the Polaris/Indian engine has a 49 degree bank angle ... it still has a longer stroke than its bore, but every degree helps with allowing a bigger bore.
The other dumb design feature is the knife-and-fork connecting rods. I know why they do that ... it's to allow the front and rear cylinders to be aligned on the crankshaft. Everyone else that builds a V-configuration engine has one bank offset from the other to allow proper single-piece (non-forked) connecting rods to be side-by-side on the crankshaft. For sure the forked connecting rod is some combination of heavier and weaker because of this. And that means ... lower revs.
A V-twin engine that has a bank angle of other than 90 degrees needs either a balance shaft or to have a separate crankpin for each cylinder which is offset by a very specific bank-angle-dependent angle in order to not have brutal first-order vibration. Not knife-and-fork con-rods on the same crankpin!
BigEvilDoer
Well-known member
Close, but not quite...
Buell commissioned Porsche to design a v-twin engine for race purposes.
HD said, "Oh Cool! I want that!" and promptly added 70 pounds of dead metal so it would fit in a cruiser (i.e. V-Rod)
Buell said, "Well Poop! It's too heavy for a speedy go fast thing now... I guess it's all yours!"
I think that's splitting hairs, Buell being wholly owned by HD at that point.
Even the Porsche Engineering website states it was HD, not Buell:
Harley-Davidson V-Rod - Porsche Engineering
www.porscheengineering.com
Chris-CJ
Well-known member
45, 60, 90 degrees of separation between the two, fascinating differences that impose technical design!
@ Brian P: thank you for the share.
Will be great to know your take on 180 degrees of separation.
Examples, starting with BMW's R32 of 1923 to the R18 of 2020.
Boxer engines? (whether BMW or Subaru ... or the old VW air-cooled)
Obviously there's no issue with restricting the bore size, the main nuisances to those are the shape of the overall package which imposes some layout restrictions to the vehicle around it, and they have some different machining and assembly techniques because there's no "oil pan" allowing easy access to all of the con-rod bolts. The latter isn't really an "issue", it's just different from how a normal in-line or V-configuration engine goes together.
The BMW flat-twin works well with what BMW built around it, but that's not an engine layout you would choose if cornering clearance mattered a lot or if you want chain drive for one of a wide variety of reasons. It has to be longitudinal and that means shaft drive, and that means you're stuck with the final-drive ratio that the bike was built with. All fine for the applications where they use it. There's a reason the S1000RR wasn't built with the flat-twin (or flat-four, if you wish) layout. Or even the laying-flat in-line longitudinal layout that BMW used on the K bikes.
In a Subaru, the boxer engine layout works and fits because the entire rest of the vehicle is built around that engine layout - although you could build a vehicle with the same drivetrain layout and with an in-line or V-configuration engine (see Audi), that drivetrain layout isn't constrained to using a boxer engine. What isn't practical, because of its shape, is using a boxer engine in a transverse application! An in-line or V engine fits transversely no problem (in the driveway, I have one example of each).
Likewise, the old VW flat-four fit well with the way the rest of the vehicle was engineered around it. Again ... quite a number of VW flat-fours have been replaced with later-model VW in-line engines. VW even did it themselves when they put a diesel engine (inline four) in the rear of a Vanagon, which otherwise used a boxer-four. You just can't fit a boxer engine in some other drivetrain layout back there.
The boxer configuration does wipe out one headache of an inline-four ... the second-order harmonic imbalance is cancelled instead of amplified. Doesn't need balance shafts. Despite that, I don't find Subarus to be particularly smooth-running.
Obviously there's no issue with restricting the bore size, the main nuisances to those are the shape of the overall package which imposes some layout restrictions to the vehicle around it, and they have some different machining and assembly techniques because there's no "oil pan" allowing easy access to all of the con-rod bolts. The latter isn't really an "issue", it's just different from how a normal in-line or V-configuration engine goes together.
The BMW flat-twin works well with what BMW built around it, but that's not an engine layout you would choose if cornering clearance mattered a lot or if you want chain drive for one of a wide variety of reasons. It has to be longitudinal and that means shaft drive, and that means you're stuck with the final-drive ratio that the bike was built with. All fine for the applications where they use it. There's a reason the S1000RR wasn't built with the flat-twin (or flat-four, if you wish) layout. Or even the laying-flat in-line longitudinal layout that BMW used on the K bikes.
In a Subaru, the boxer engine layout works and fits because the entire rest of the vehicle is built around that engine layout - although you could build a vehicle with the same drivetrain layout and with an in-line or V-configuration engine (see Audi), that drivetrain layout isn't constrained to using a boxer engine. What isn't practical, because of its shape, is using a boxer engine in a transverse application! An in-line or V engine fits transversely no problem (in the driveway, I have one example of each).
Likewise, the old VW flat-four fit well with the way the rest of the vehicle was engineered around it. Again ... quite a number of VW flat-fours have been replaced with later-model VW in-line engines. VW even did it themselves when they put a diesel engine (inline four) in the rear of a Vanagon, which otherwise used a boxer-four. You just can't fit a boxer engine in some other drivetrain layout back there.
The boxer configuration does wipe out one headache of an inline-four ... the second-order harmonic imbalance is cancelled instead of amplified. Doesn't need balance shafts. Despite that, I don't find Subarus to be particularly smooth-running.
