All good points. Most of my post was based on old carburated engines. I could have mentioned the exceptions, but I didn’t want to take six paragraphs to explain myself.
Still, as a mechanical engineer, I see the H-D engine as a poor design. Sure, you can run the rear cylinder rich or skip fire the rear injector. That will help keep the cylinder temp down. But it seems more like a band aid to a poor design.
Every other big motorcycle company (I’m sure someone will come up with an example to prove me wrong) has gone to predominantly liquid cooling. There must be a reason for it. And, if you can one example of two engines with the same displacement, compression, and configuration - except one is air cooled and one is liquid cooled - and the air cooled one produces more power, I’ll eat your hat.
I’d rather you didnt eat my hat, though I am curious if there is an example of similar engine types with one being water cooled and the other air cooled. Im not arguing with you that the HD is more effecient(I meant it when I said they were massively detuned to meet federal emessions standards). I know of many dealer people who keep waiting for HD to go liquid all the way.
The water cooled do succeed in stabilizing temperatures which helps stabilze sizes, though the specs are still in the thousandths for piston/cylinder clearance. I think HD sticks with the air cooled v-twin for recognition, not for engineering. Im not sure if your aware, but the bottom end of the HD engine has been of essentially the same design since the knucklehead came out in 1936 :eek: The biggest variation in design has been number of cams, they went from 4(Knuckle, pan, shovel, ironhead, sportster evo) to 1(evo) to currently 2( all TC’s, aka blockhead) (Im still speaking of big twin engines).
Speaking of companies trying to move away from air-cooled it amazes me how many companies are making air-cooled cruiser knockoffs to compete with HD.
Fry
I love this thread. I love everybody in it. I’m a fairly easy-going person, and I’m working on becoming even more zen, but I have fantasies about killing people riding loud motorbikes. Shooting them off their bike with a bazooka. Stringing up razor wire across the road and having them flipped off their bike as they drive into it, with them only partially cut in two by the razor wire so they aren’t killed instantly. Laying down caltrops on the road and having them drive over them, and their tires exploding and the bikers being flung at full-speed, face first into the rough pavement. You know, stuff like that.
I pretty much hate everybody who’s driving a vehicle that makes me want to plug my ears until they’ve gone by. YOU’RE TOO GODDAMNED LOUD!!! We’re living in a society here, people. The people around you aren’t looking at your blatting ride and thinking, “Oh yeah, that guy is a stud. I want to do him right now.” No, actually, we’re thinking, “Goddamn asshole.”
Yeah, we have noise bylaws that I’m sure all of these assholes are violating; laws mean nothing if there’s no enforcement.
I didn’t want my hat to get eaten either - that’s why I offered yours. I’m basing my aircooled/liquid cooled assumption based on what I know. Small single engine airplanes run aircooled engines. They put out as much power/displacement as they reliably can. An 0-360 is 360 in^3 and puts out 180 HP. Now take a 350 Chevy V-8. Less displacement, but reliably puts out 300 hp from the factory. Both are tried and true designs that have been around for a long time. Both are four stroke, pushrod, naturally aspirated engines. The 0-360 is horizontally opposed instead of a V, but that’s as close as I can get off the top of my head.
I couldn’t agree more. And, since they’re not having trouble selling thier bikes, I don’t see any reason for them to change.
I think we’ve probably derailed this thread enough.
Back to the “Fuck you guys with your loud pipes!” comments.
looks like a lot of people don’t like the noise. again: do people who regularlt drive these things suffer hearing losses? If I am parked next to one (at a light), my ears seem to ring for 10-20 minutes AFTER the thing roars off. this leads me to suspect that a H-D emits noise volumes at the threshold of auditory damage.
You can get pipes that make bikes quieter. Thought I’ve only ever known one person to do so. I remember sitting on my bike next to his when he started it and it made no sound. I had to ask him if he had started his bike.
Jerks like these and the ones who do stupid shit make all bikers look bad and I hate it. I hear people talk about dumb asses and then they look at me as if I would do something that stupid. People only see the idiots and then forget they see people like me who are just out for a ride. There in is part of the problem, they don’t see me since I’m not an ass and it makes it more dangerous for me to ride. So even us motorcyclists don’t like loud pipes.
One last minor derail. We are still a little apples and oranges regarding those two engines. The o-360 is a 4-cylinder. For another apples oranges comparison the Subaru 2.5i has 175HP, though it is only 156 cubic inch 4-cylinder. Obviously much more efficient. The O-360 turns ~2700RPM, the 2.5i turns 6500RPM.
Fry
I hate it anytime one set of assholes makes the rest of us look bad. My Triumph Tiger is also modified. I even put a restricter back in to quiet it down a bit but raise the power to the sweet spot.
Once a year I ride on a charity dice run. It’s the only time I get to ride with a couple of friends. Once we were in a line waiting to get out of a parking lot and a guy on an Electra-glide ahead of me is sitting there in line;
Rev!
Rev!
Rev!
Finally my buddy rolls up next to him and shouts EXCUSE ME as loud as he can. Many heads turn. “Do you want to pull to the side, I’ll help you with a screwdriver about that.”
“What?” says the loud guy.
“There must be something wrong with the idle on your carb, I’ll help you fix it.”
“Huh?”
“Your bike won’t stay at idle, you have to keep reving the throttle, must be something wrong.”
The guy looks around and sees a dozen people in hysterics. It was a priceless moment. Since then I’ve offered similar advice to other knuckledraggers that can’t sit still waiting for a light to change.
That’s because just about everyone who buys a Harley immediately replaces the stock, perfectly legal, quiet, non-annoying exhaust with barely muffled pipes, or worse, straight pipes, which are really a length of cheap chrome-plated pipe not worthy of the name “exhaust system.”
Really, Harleys are not annoyingly or illegally loud when they leave the factory. But by the time they leave the showroom, they usually are.
It might. But the rider of the bike probably doesn’t hear as much of the noise as you do as it passes.
Riding a motorycle, any motorycle, with legal pipes or not, can cause hearing loss. It’s wind noise that’s the culprit. Even wearing a full-face helmet, I wear earplugs when I ride at highway speeds. So do most of the motorcyclists I know.
Interestingly, that might be illegal. In California it’s illegal to operate a motor vehicle while wearing earplugs – unless they are ‘custom fit’ earplugs. Last time I checked (a couple/few years ago) there was a question whether the cheap foam earplugs were ‘custom fit’. Certainly they don’t comply with the law’s intentions, but since they expand to fit the ear more or less exactly they fit the letter!.
Yeah, I picked mine up at just over 3000 miles as an ex-demonstrator with all the options (though the dealer removed the Akropovic silencer and put the OE item back on, the meanie ). My previous was an F650 and the difference is amazing - nice taut riding position, the motor’s orders of magnitude smoother and the belt drive helps as well.
Now if only it would stop pissing down all the time. :rolleyes:
We’ll never get an apples - apples comparision. The displacements were pretty close, but you are correct that the O-360 redlines at about half that of the chevy 350. This is kinda bugging me now. I’m off to find some apples.
Sorry Brewha, I couldnt find apples, or pears, or anything identical other than the air/water cooling. I think you might find something WWI that was converted to air or to water, but I havent had time to find one. I tried thinking of lots of different engines I know of, not one led to anything.
Fry
How about the Volkswagen vans? Didn’t they get converted from air cooling to liquid (waterboxer)? I don’t know what else might have been changed at the same time, though. Fuel injection, maybe. Don’t know much about VWs myself.
I ask a lot of waitress and cafe owners which they would rather have come in and the answer I get almost always goes like this:
A group of Harley riders.
A group of street rods.
A group of old folks on a tour bus.
A group of crotch rocket riders.
A group of teenage punks.
About engines and new tech.
Take most any stock auto engine to a 7000’ elevation, open the throttle wide and run at 90% of rated RPM by adjusting load and see how long it lasts. *Hint, it is not designed for that. *
That is what small aircraft engines are designed to do. It will always be apples and oranges.
The ‘Pond’ Racer used big special built $$$$$$ auto engines. They blew regularly. P&W round engines built in the 40’s run wide open at Reno and last. Even over boosted, they last pretty good.
The Porsche engine in the Mooney did not catch on.
The rudest and most dangerous rider is the under 25 male on a 600cc and up crotch rocket.
Aircraft killed my ears, not motorcycles. :::: shrug ::::
I know what you all should do. You need to have a class action suit. That will give you $$$$ and punish the folks with loud pipes which everyone knows is only rich lawyer and doctor Harley riders and they have deep pockets. :: Sic’ em King. ::
I’ve got one of these pricks living behind me. I thought his fartcanned Neon was bad, but it’s nothing compared to this. I gave him the stinkeye once as he drove by but he was too wrapped up in how cool he was to notice, not that he would have cared.
I think loud pipes do save lives. The problem is they save the lives of assholes who we’d probably be better off without.
Hurray for Denver!
Really, this is just another example of competition run out of hand. It is no different from the size of advertisements boards put on the sidewalk, or the income made by top CEO’s. People will try to outdo each other untill the government puts a limit on it. Then everybody feels at ease for a while, knowing the competition stays put as well.
). My previous was an F650 and the difference is amazing - nice taut riding position, the motor’s orders of magnitude smoother and the belt drive helps as well.