Bore a 1500 to even larger? Anyone tried this?

[Troll]

Are those two roads paved?

[bikerbob5864]

Troll, I live in Iowa..............and we have signs on both roads..........."Will the last one leaving town, please turn out the lights".

[John Hopkins]

I'm sorry I should have started a new thread, this was supposed to be about the merits or otherwise of enlarging the bore on a VN1500..

I would not do it, I can't see any real advantage unless the engine is stripped because it has worn out.. Every few months I look on ebay at the prices of the larger VN1700 and the VN2000, but my Drifter runs so well I would only change if I had a big lottery win, at the moment I only tax and insure one bike each year because I object to paying so much money to the government to ride something that spends most of it's time in a garage..

To insure, tax and test the drifter costs me about $254 for the year, adding my other two bikes brings that cost up to $852.. and that is just for the bare minimum insurance with maximum no claims discount.

I'll still keep looking at the larger Vulcans but I know I am only window shopping.

John.

[CDNRatMan]

    Some dimwit in Toronto has decided that the moose hunt is to long so wants to shorten it by a week , well come here and go for a drive at twilight and see what is out there, and they stop you faster then any deer I have met.......or when you hit them.....everything stops....

[greenbarn]

We don't have a problem with deer in Wales, but aren't you allowed to shoot them? We aren't allowed to shoot anything, in fact even owning a BB gun can be against the law..No really..
I can't imagine living in a country where you are allowed to shoot deer and not going hunting at least once a week for food.

John.

There are strict hunting seasons and bag limits in the states.  Each state sets it's own season and limit.  For Ohio, the deer season (for guns) is usually 1 week, the week following thanksgiving.  Some years, they have increased it to 2 weeks. Depends on perceived deer populations and such.  Many states have longer seasons.  Some you have to put your name in a lottery to be drawn as they only issue a limited number of permits.  Oh, and did I mention that ALWAYS (as far as I know) you have to PAY for the hunting license(s) required to hunt deer???

[John Hopkins]

We don't have a problem with deer in Wales, but aren't you allowed to shoot them? We aren't allowed to shoot anything, in fact even owning a BB gun can be against the law..No really.. We get cows, sheep and horses wandering out on unfenced roads, I've had a few narrow escapes.. Some parts of England and Scotland have problems with Deer, they just burst through the hedges without warning and you don't have a chance to avoid them, The trouble is Britain is very small when you are riding a motorcycle.

I can't imagine living in a country where you are allowed to shoot deer and not going hunting at least once a week for food.

John.

[DC]

Around here, the problem is deer.

[Troll]

Sounds like you live in Iowa, John!

[John Hopkins]

We only have 246,000 miles of roads in Britain so it is not always easy to find a road not already travelled, you have over 3,000,000 miles of roads.. There are only two roads out of my town one north and one south.

John.

[jmbo]

i guess it all depends on where you ride. I plan all my trips on the back roads.  The more back the roads are the better.  Lucky to hit 70 on most of the roads I travel.  Anything faster and I'm likely to hit a cow around the next turn.

[John Hopkins]

280 miles on a road often travelled can get pretty boring..

1200 miles in 23 hours doesn't allow much time for looking at the view.

But I made a new year resolution to try my best to keep to the speed limits this year.

John.

[Bucko]

Me 2!

[DC]

I'm not one for going really fast.  I like to take my time and enjoy the ride and the views.  Basically, I just putt-putt around on my bike.

[John Hopkins]

There is a downside, at 107 mph you only get 90 miles to a 16 litre tank and that top speed drops to 90 mph if you have a strong crosswind.

Our national speed limit is 70 mph so there are not many roads left without speed cameras that you can do that sort of speed for a full tank.

John.

[jmbo]

107 mph? Holy crap! If I rode that fast the wind would blow my beard up over my head and I wouldn't be able to see the road.

[John Hopkins]

I have had 107 mph from my VN1500, an extra gear could increase that considerably.. Trouble is if they did that nobody would ever want to buy a Harley.

John.

[DC]

My Drifter seems to have more power than gears it could effectively use.  There's so much power waiting to be tapped in 5th.  It really is begging for a 6th gear.

[jmbo]

My son and I ride together a lot. He has a Harley-Davidson FLHRI Road King. Both he and I have five speeds but on the highway his bike is alway running at a higher RPM than mine. So I checked the torque spec on the two. They are within 3 lbs of each other but the Drifter hits max tourque at. 2800 vs 3400 RPM. I was told the Drifter's top two gears were overdrive. Perhaps that is why I can cruise at a lower engine speed. I'll check that out next.

[pcarrell]

I always thought the cams are simply there to move the valves open and closed.

John.

That is correct, but how and when they do that can effect horsepower and torque.

[Troll]

No, you don't personally do that, unless your are a machinist/engineer. I bought several cams for my 98" shovelhead from different manufacturers and tried them. I still have a few around. I liked the powerband, for instance of the S&S 495, but it didn't make enough peak power for what I wanted. My final decision, with the low end torque and the top end rush I wanted was an Andrews "C" grind but with a custom .590 lift. The timing and such can be altered within a small window by pressing the cam gear off the cam and putting it back on, using a degree wheel to get the numbers right. I had enough time and money, at the time to do this, so I went ahead. The final result was a SuperGlide that ran 11.91 seconds, 115.7 mph in the 1/4 mile, at the top of third gear/6,600 rpm, and was still quite streetable. I sold that bike with 254,000 miles on it when I bought my W-650

[John Hopkins]

Lift, duration, overlap and timing all effect power output. Depending on how they are done, they can make a usable powerband as wide as a table top, or as narrow and peaky as a few hundred rpm....I experimented with cams in my Hotrod HD. The stock cam makes usable power from just off idle to about 4500, the one I settled on for most uses made power in several steps, starting at 2500-4000, and then a huge spike from 4000 up to 6600....

Not that I will ever do this at my age but I'm curious.. how did you do this..

Did you simply buy several stock cams and grind them to different shapes to change the inlet opening duration and test each one on a dyno, or did you do something completely different? I haven't had that sort of dedication for about 40 years, although I can understand it completely.

John.

[Troll]

Lift, duration, overlap and timing all effect power output. Depending on how they are done, they can make a usable powerband as wide as a table top, or as narrow and peaky as a few hundred rpm....I experimented with cams in my Hotrod HD. The stock cam makes usable power from just off idle to about 4500, the one I settled on for most uses made power in several steps, starting at 2500-4000, and then a huge spike from 4000 up to 6600....

[John Hopkins]

Drifters have a little different cam grind then the other similar sized Vulcan bikes.  The grind is designed to offer more bottom end torque at the loss of a bit of top end.

I always thought the cams are simply there to move the valves open and closed.

John.

[capnconch]

The difference between a Drifter VN1500 and a Meanstreak VN1600 is only 3mph.. I wouldn't bother.

John.

The MeanStreak is cranking more rpm to get there, different gearing. Putting the 1600 cylinders, pistons etc with the Drifter gearing who knows what the top speed would be.
Capn

[pcarrell]

Drifters have a little different cam grind then the other similar sized Vulcan bikes.  The grind is designed to offer more bottom end torque at the loss of a bit of top end.