ENGINEERING

ALTHOUGH the bike doesn’t use any radical metals in its construction it’s quite a step forward for Harley with an all new engine, frame and totally new styling unlike any other bike before it. It’s also Harley-Davidson’s first move away from their traditional air-cooled twins to a liquid-cooled 60-degree motor.

Earl Werner is head of engineering, he said: ” 99 years is a long time and has a big influence over any bike we build so we build with an eye to the past and we don’t want bikes that confuse that message. We employ loads of tech weenies, guys who love technology, but we have top be careful to avoid flaunting technology.

I spent 30 years in the car industry and when you did something new you made it obvious. If you built a fuel-injected engine you wrote Fuel Injection on the bumper. ”

” At Harley we try to make that technology less obvious and only use technology that contributes to the customers enjoyment of the motorcycle. This bike has an all new platform that will continue to evolve. It’s not a replacement for any of our other ranges, it’s another branch on the family tree and should appeal to new customers.

The engine itself is based on the motor used in the VR1000 race bike that’s being campaigned in AMA Superbikes, the US version of British Superbikes. With 1130cc and 115bhp at 8250rpm at the crank it’s the most powerful Harley-Davidson production ever produced by the factory, and the new engine is called Revolution. With a claimed 74ft-lb of torque that’s putting out similar levels of torque to a Hayabusa.

As reported in MCN previously when we ran some spy shots of the bike we now know as the V-Rod, Porsche Engineering in Stuttgart were heavily involved in developing the engine. The relationship with Porsche started in the seventies when Harley couldn’t cope with the amount of work it had on its hands, so they turned to Porsche.

The head engine man, Jeff Coughlin, lived in Germany for some months to work directly alongside Porsche in the development of the new motor to bring it up to the kind of horespower levels required. In development it spent 500 hours on the dyno alone, twice the time of Harleys normal engines and that doesn’t include riding them extensively on the drag strip and on the road.

The motor uses a one-piece forged crankshaft and dual overhead cams with hydraulically tensioned chains to drive the valves and the high-flow four valve heads. It’s fuel-injected and the bikes airbox sits underneath the dummy tank as Harley needed as much room as possible to make the bike breath correctly.

The radiator is hidden behind a plastic and aluminium shroud with twin-cooling fans. Harley actually went through ten different radiator setups before the found the perfect answer, including one not much thicker than a sheet of paper. Although it looked great it didn’t actually work!

In the frame the engine’s rubber-mounted and has a balance shaft to minimise vibration. It runs through a hydraulic clutch and a new five-speed gearbox and a belt drive like every Harley in the range.

The bike’s powder-coated frame is stronger than any other Harley frame in the past and the bends around the top of the frame were formed using a Hydroform process where water is blasted past the tubes to form the strange bends in the metal. As you might expect with a dragster style bike, the wheelbase is a massive 1713mm (67.5 ” ) and features a 34 degree rake and a 38 degree fork angle. Big numbers but it certainly doesn’t feel like that when you ride it.

At the front there’s big 49mm forks and at the rear there’s a new polished cast aluminium swingarm with twin shocks at the rear adjustable for five steps of pre-load. There’s also braided brake hoses front and rear with four-piston calipers at the front and rear. The wheels are polished aluminium solid discs and there’s aluminium on the side panels, front and rear mudguards, chain guard and air cleaner cover. Despite suiting the V-Rod’s styling the aluminium also weighs 50 per cent less than steel parts. But the bike’s overall weight is still a colossal 270kg.