I got ya. I never ran any of my "Stock" Gen 1's on a dyno. They all had at least a pipe, jets and an air box mod.
That fall off in power on a stock bike is quite severe.......it should be short shifted when racing IMO. No need rev the piss out of it, it would only slow you down.
I totally disagree. The rpm drops in each gear shift are NOT optimal by short shifting. You fall out of the rpm range where power starts. Is it harder on valve springs? Not really since your not really revving it beyond a safe point. But yes it would be harder on valve springs as compared to shifting at 8500 rpm.
If you talk to Dale Walker and other guys of that era, you will find out most of them revved beyond the power range too, and that's how they pulled better numbers than most people.
I ran mine quite a few passes and found the sweet spot for it. 4000-4500 rpm was the perfect launch point and shifts on the tach of 10,200 ( which is probably an honest 9600-9800 at the motor ) made the best et's and mph for me. If I shifted lower my et's grew. I tried shifting all over the place and that 10,200 mark on the factory tach ( again optimistic factory part ) made the best runs time and time again.
I have strings of time slips with 10-15 runs in a row that fluctuated by hundredths if I did my part correctly.
I had a 10.90 in there somewhere in the bike ( 11.02's and quite a few of them at that ), I didn't own it long enough to coax it out. 1.68 60 ft time and 124 mph out of a bike with a pipe only and no other tuning proves that the bikes are capable IF you can do the magic number. I am not a light weight either 235-240 lbs dressed.
I never dyno'ed my bike either. I never ran a tune on it, I just rode it and took it to the track. I guess my point is, that if your going to drag race, it takes alot of effort to try different things to see what works. If your only going to beat on the street with it, then just short shift, as that extra .2 tenths you pick up at the track means shit on the street most of the time.
So if you do go to the track, don't just look at the dyno sheet and pick your shift points, test other points, heck super short shifting might make it faster, you just never know. But a dyno is NOT the tool to use to determine shift points, its only a baseline to give you a start. Gearing , tire size etc, can change all that, as it does with the Vmax.
Todd