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RapierFugue -> RE: So what will the purists call this these... lentil burners??? (11/12/2010 8:09:21 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rulemylife
Edited to add:
Buell is part of Harley-Davidson, which sort of makes you saying that Harley has said it is not a Harley, well........sort of stupid.
Edited to extend your ignorance to new vistas, it would seem.
Since we were talking about track-based "proof", I assumed you were familiar with the fact that Harley tried to register their Buell-subsidiary race bikes as “Harleys”. The FIM (rightly) said “not a chance, coz they're not Harleys, they're built by a totally separate subsidiary, and apart from the engine use no common parts”, and Harley’s management then sensibly realised that, since the chances of a Buell winning outside the US* were zero, they were better off not fighting the decision. I assumed you knew that, but it’s now clear you don't even know that much.
It’s all moot now anyway, as Harley shut Buell down because their bikes weren’t selling in any numbers, compounded by the fact that they had such huge warranty claim and recall issues (brakes, engines, even frames FFS) that they were estimated to be losing about $2,000 on every single machine they sold. At one stage they had to recall every single Buell sold, worldwide, in a decade, for potentially fatal issues. A shame, coz I quite like Buells, although I was put off owning one by a mate who bought one, and then had to carry a small bag full of spare bolts around (I kid you not) as one or 2 always vibrated loose on each journey, even when locking solutions were used. To be fair he loves it, but he's absolutely barking mad. He holds a drag racing world record, albeit a daft one, which should be enough to denote him as a prize loon.
Now I’m waiting for you to try to claim an MV Agusta as a Harley, but that won’t work either. By all means have a try though, coz it's fun correcting you.
The problem in track racing is one of basic engine design – even the liquid cooled V-Rod is about 20 years behind current engine design standards, and the air-cooled engines around 50 years. In order to produce decent race power you need to a) be able to flow, then burn, then exhaust, large amounts of fuel and b) you must be able to operate at high rev levels, since revs = power, in this context at least. Harley’s ancient V-Twin engine designs simply can’t rev that high without blowing themselves to bits, and it’s not a materials issue, so making bits from things like titanium won’t help. Ducati got around the problem by a) using modern engine design, coupled with desmodromic valves (for which they hold the patent - a way of opening and closing valves at very high revs without the use of a valve return spring, meaning huge revs reliably) and b) convincing the FIM that V-Twins should be allowed a 20-25% capacity advantage against 4 cylindered bikes, to level the playing field, as it were. Thus you had 750cc Japanese 4 cylindered bikes up against Ducati 996 and 998 machines, then later 1,000cc fours against 1,200cc Ducatis. Even now, engine development has got to the point where it’s so expensive to make a V-Twin that can rev high enough to win (rumours were, 2 seasons ago, that every single Ducati lump in the WSBK series cost over $250,000 to make) that Ducati have now quit WSBK to concentrate on MotoGP. Oh, and Ducatis handle well, of course, which Harleys singularly do not.
Where Harley DO still do ok is in drag racing, where only the external casings are retained – every single other part is hand crafted, often from insanely expensive materials, and where they're permitted to use special fuels (nitrous methanol) to get the power output up. Also, in drag racing, initial (low RPM) torque is a bigger factor in a successful run, so grunty, large capacity twins stand at least half a chance. That said, the current World Record Top Fuel bike is a Kawasaki based, 4 cylindered engine. And, of course, drag bikes have nothing whatsoever to do with either track-based race bikes, or road bikes - they're another very specialised, niche racing market.
* where the AMA rules in Superstocks (not the faster Superbikes, where Harley wouldn’t even dare to turn up) were massively biased towards Harleys; they changed the rules on capacity and intake restriction on V-twins and then, when they realised this also allowed Ducati and Aprilia an advantage, changed the rules a further 4 times, including such restrictions as “only applies to push-rod V-Twin based engines” (an outmoded way of moving valves around that the rest of the world abandoned around 1950) and suchlike, until everyone else stopped bothering to develop bikes to compete in a series that the AMA was determined to see a “Harley” win, even if it was actually a badged Buell. A member of the then AMA national committee called the situation “a fucking farce”, and resigned, if I remember rightly.
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