V max vs v rod

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Eugene Brad

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My buddy was tired of seeing me scream by him on his old Harley, not sure what it was. I kept telling him to get a v max. So he got a v rod, probably because he already had a Harley jacket, and I'm still screaming by him. But he can certainly keep up now.
I'm anxiouse to ride it to see how the power compares.
What's you alls thoughts on the v rod? His is a night rod which if your into the blacked out look is perfect for that. Not my cup o tea. But his bike seems pretty solid.
Just curious.
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The v rod is a nice looking bike.The only Harley that I would consider owning.I would like the chance to play with one on my vmax.Most true Harley guys don't like them.But don't let your buddy try to fool you,that engine was developed by PORCHE.
 
The v rod is a nice looking bike.The only Harley that I would consider owning.I would like the chance to play with one on my vmax.Most true Harley guys don't like them.But don't let your buddy try to fool you,that engine was developed by PORCHE.
Oh he knows. He isn't a "hardcore" Harley guy, or purist for that matter. He just knew he needed to go much faster. For whatever reason he went v rod.
He still hasn't rode my v max, he's a yammy guy at heart too. Him and I used to do a lot of dune riding on yfz's and raptors. He messed up his shoulder and had to give up dune ridin.
I think on our next ride we are gunna do a bike swap so I can see what the v rod is made of.

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I only tangled with one Vrod, not a bad runner but not my cup of tea either. Unlike the traditional HD it at least had a fighting chance, usually the end of 2nd gear is all it takes to end things with the old v twin but The Vrod has a pretense of performance as opposed to the lethargic traditional twin. IMHO the best HD ever dreamt up but hes still not going to getcha. At least its close enough to have fun riding together.

Yamaha did it in 85, which means HD is not scheduled to catch up intil 2025 when Porsche shows HD once more how to design and build a competent V twin motorcycle engine.:clapping:
 
Brad, your typo "Porche' reminds me of a local FL mechanic that used the same spelling on his building, where he listed all the car brands he was willing to work-upon. He used the same spelling, and it stayed that way for years. He never corrected it, and not surprisingly, I never saw a 'Porche' in there being serviced. This past year, the shop finally went out of business.

I have an interesting story about the H-D outsourcing of engine design. Back in the 1970's they decided to look at better designs and they started two programs. One was a water-cooled modular engine they were planning to make in either v-twin, V-4 or V-6 designs, cylinders in a traditional forward-backwards design, crankshaft positioned transversely across the bike. The engineering was done by Porsche, it was the stillborn 'NOVA' project. AMF was the owner, and they dallied-around quite a few years, experimenting with running prototypes and static full-size models.

The other engine was a new design, a traditional air-cooled V-twin engine, done-in-house.

By now it was into the 1980's and AMF agreed to sell the company to a consortium of employees, who barely were able to scrape-together the $$$$ to purchase it from AMF. "Now what do we do?" They decided to bet the farm on a new engine, and they chose the in-house design over the Porsche-NOVA modular. That engine was the 'blockhead,' the H-D Evolution which I believe was first released in 1984. The NOVA became a never brought to market design, and you can see examples of the modular engines in the Milwaukee H-D Museum today. There are V-twins, V-4's and V-6's with different side cases, all looking promising in their concept, but now, a part of H-D history. last time I was at the museum, I got pics of all of them, and they even had a dresser mock-up with a V-4 which looks quite a bit like you-know-who.

Using an outside engineering firm for engines is a good way to take advantage of expertise in that organization. ILMOR designed an engine that became a Chevy in open-wheeled competition (Roger Penske used it at Indy for the 500, and won), and later Mercedes used a derivative of it for racing.

The Ricardo firm in England has done much work for many firms and has a long and storied history of engineering innovation, I believe Sir Harry Ricardo founded the firm in the 1920's.

Jack Roush Engineering has done work for Ford, and also for one of the prior owners of Indian. They developed a completely new engine, and guess what V-4 they bought and disassembled to inspect its method of engineering? Yes, our favorite! How do I know? I bought the disassembled engine from one of the employees. They were going to scrap it, and one of the people who had responsibility offered it to another employee who had a VMax, I bought it from him. He was a fuel systems specialist.

The V-Rod is probably close-to a full second in the quarter mile behind a decent VMax rider. Leave your VMax in fourth, and the V Rod will be very close to peaking at top speed when you're at redline. Then you shift to fifth...
 
Brad, your typo "Porche' reminds me of a local FL mechanic that used the same spelling on his building, where he listed all the car brands he was willing to work-upon. He used the same spelling, and it stayed that way for years. He never corrected it, and not surprisingly, I never saw a 'Porche' in there being serviced. This past year, the shop finally went out of business.

I have an interesting story about the H-D outsourcing of engine design. Back in the 1970's they decided to look at better designs and they started two programs. One was a water-cooled modular engine they were planning to make in either v-twin, V-4 or V-6 designs, cylinders in a traditional forward-backwards design, crankshaft positioned transversely across the bike. The engineering was done by Porsche, it was the stillborn 'NOVA' project. AMF was the owner, and they dallied-around quite a few years, experimenting with running prototypes and static full-size models.

The other engine was a new design, a traditional air-cooled V-twin engine, done-in-house.

By now it was into the 1980's and AMF agreed to sell the company to a consortium of employees, who barely were able to scrape-together the $$$$ to purchase it from AMF. "Now what do we do?" They decided to bet the farm on a new engine, and they chose the in-house design over the Porsche-NOVA modular. That engine was the 'blockhead,' the H-D Evolution which I believe was first released in 1984. The NOVA became a never brought to market design, and you can see examples of the modular engines in the Milwaukee H-D Museum today. There are V-twins, V-4's and V-6's with different side cases, all looking promising in their concept, but now, a part of H-D history. last time I was at the museum, I got pics of all of them, and they even had a dresser mock-up with a V-4 which looks quite a bit like you-know-who.

Using an outside engineering firm for engines is a good way to take advantage of expertise in that organization. ILMOR designed an engine that became a Chevy in open-wheeled competition (Roger Penske used it at Indy for the 500, and won), and later Mercedes used a derivative of it for racing.

The Ricardo firm in England has done much work for many firms and has a long and storied history of engineering innovation, I believe Sir Harry Ricardo founded the firm in the 1920's.

Jack Roush Engineering has done work for Ford, and also for one of the prior owners of Indian. They developed a completely new engine, and guess what V-4 they bought and disassembled to inspect its method of engineering? Yes, our favorite! How do I know? I bought the disassembled engine from one of the employees. They were going to scrap it, and one of the people who had responsibility offered it to another employee who had a VMax, I bought it from him. He was a fuel systems specialist.

The V-Rod is probably close-to a full second in the quarter mile behind a decent VMax rider. Leave your VMax in fourth, and the V Rod will be very close to peaking at top speed when you're at redline. Then you shift to fifth...
Thats a great history lesson. like you said in your last sentence was exactly what happened today, not enough road left to do anything with fifth gear but we got to ripping down a nice long straight. Hit about 120 and had to let off, difference being I was in fourth he was in fifth.


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More info on the H-D NOVA, w/pictures: http://vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=40132&highlight=nova

Years-ago, before Indian was in the marketplace with Polaris, I was at IKEA and saw a guy w/an Indian t-shirt on, I asked him about it and he said he was involved in the Indian legal case. He oversaw the sale of Indian to Polaris. He was the court-appointed receiver and said he had a time sorting through all the tangled ownerships. Here's my original post: http://vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=34583&highlight=indian Be sure to look at post #7 for some old bike pics sure to be of-interest, if you like the history of motorcycling.
 
A local HD dealer was having an open house recently and I got to ride a V-Rod for the first time. I had low expectations going in, but was actually surprised. It certainly handles and brakes better than a Gen 1. It was agile and felt solid, even at stupid speeds (they let me take it out alone, and I saw an indicated 125mph several times down the highway). The seat was horrible, the riding position with the feet completely forward felt uncomfortable, and it was way too low to the ground. It felt like it had power, but not like the V-Max.
 

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