Re: Harley Davidson Dyna ride height

Touches, not drags

Race bike don't use 530 chain but my cornpicker did. Back to physics 101 with
you.

Sure will - with double or quadruple the engine size to compensate for their bad
handling - which is what started all this wasn't it?

 

Yes, you surely could and it would keep spinning too due to low friction. At
120?? Like I said I never measured the actual loss on the dyno but 5% seemed
high for a racing chain. If you have actual measurements I'd like to hear them.

 

Um... how could I explain this?

Simple answer: no, you couldn't.

 

Which have a rather low C of G.... And therefore proves my point.

Horses for courses....

 

There are many reasons to put a knee down. Sometimes as a feeler,
sometimes out of habit, sometimes because you're in the process of
losing the bike and are good enough to catch it. I'd say putting a
knee down adds less time than dumping it, wouldn't you?

Oh no wait... you've never raced! That'd be your wife. And from the
sounds of it you've never ridden on the track at all, especially on a
hot 4-stroke.

Racebikes can use whatever they want. Snap a 520 chain with the power
the current literbikes are putting out and get back to me.

Quadruple? I've never heard of a 2,000 cc supersport.

Unless you're being silly enough to compare a 250 tiddler to a MotoGP
literbike. Which only emphasises how little you know about what you
creech.

 

I strapped a tank bag on my liquid cooled, four stroke, ohc, 4-valve
per cylinder bike and placed several lead bricks in it. Took it out
for a ride. It handled just fine; kind of like a Ducati 851 Superbike
that was down a little on power.

Of course, my Ducati Super Mono handles better without the lead
weights, having a lower COG than a 2-stroke GP bike..... ;-)


Ben

P.S. Didn't Honda try putting the fuel tank UNDER the engine on one of
their GP bikes to lower the COG? Iirc, I don't think that worked out
too well.....

 

ISTR that was the Nearly Ready 500, but that had so much else wrong with
it that a malpositioned fuel tank was the least of its worries.

The thing is, a higher CofG (within reason) makes it easier to flip-flop
the bike through bends. Lower CofG bikes simply can't be hustled that
way.

There was a *very* good technical article in, I think, Bike a few years
ago, with the necessary diagrams etc explaining the difference,
especially when it comes to braking. Like I said, low CofG bikes are
more prone to locking the front wheel.

I like low CofG bikes myself - like ShiteOldBoxers, and the original
GL1000 Gold Wing, because they can be trickled so easily through
traffic, but that's not the ame thing as a sports bike and a race track.

UJMs don't have too high a CofG. Vito seems to think that they're
fundamental engineering abortions that are dangerous - which is, IMHO,
bollocks.

 

Nope. It was the first NSR V-4. They put the tank in the bellypan to allow
the rear exhausts more room. And knackered the handling in the process...

HTH

Dave

 

That's right!

I knew it was one of the early 500s....

 

Bad assumption! I was licensed with AFM before you were born, just to be able
to take bikes out to test them. I built a pair of 350 Hondas that put my 130#
buddy into the top 3 consistntly but with my 250# up I could only finish mid
pack despite my flat-track experience which allowed me to slide consistently -
something not1 in 10 racers can do.

Snap a chain on a bike I built and I'll find somebody else to ride it - somebody
who knows how.

Or a TZ-250?

No, but I'd gladly compare a 250 'tiddler' to a 1000cc UJM Superbike. Last time
I saw such a race (F-USA at Willow Springs) the 'tiddler' shamed the UJMs so
badly they never let him race again!

What lap times do the MotoGP liter bikes turn vs the 'tiddlers'? Are they 10
seconds/lap faster or 1-2 seconds faster? More to the point, how many MotoGP
bikes are inline fours like your 600? And what lap times do 600 or even 1000cc
Stuperbikes do compared to the tiddlers?? And don't mention times on NASCAR
tracks. Might as well compare 1/4 mile time.

 

It all depends on the track. Take twisty circuits like (in Europe) Jerez
and, yes, small bikes can embarrass much bigger ones.

OTOH, on fast tracks (like the Salzburgring), the bigger bangers make
mincemeat of them.

it's also worth recording just how well virtually stock GSXR1000s have
done in endurance racing, although I'd not contemplate racing
two-strokes in 24-hour races...

On that note, years ago, I remember watching Team Scratch Moto, a French
outfit, campaigned first an RD500LC and then a 500 Gamma in 24-hour
races. And before that, some lunatics entered an RD350LC at the Bol, and
it finished. That was 1980, I think.

In the late 1970s, of course, Yamaha fielded TZ750s in 24-hour races.
Slightly detuned, and running total loss lighting (they changed the
battery at pit stops). The first year, they blew everything away but
blew up after something like 18 hours. IIRC, they actually managed a
second place the year after that.

I'd have loved to have seen that. I also can't imagine the sheer effort
involved in riding TZ750s for hours and hours and hour...

 

I awoke the other night, as old folks do, remembering an event from my
childhood. A half dozen of us 7 & 8 year olds had gotten into the habit of
playing space explorers. One kid's front porch was our space ship, the couches
acceleration beds for blast off, et cetera. In our imaginations the real world
disappeared and fantasy became reality - at least til supper time. Then one day
an older kid came by delivering papers. "A spaceship" he chortled "why that's
nothing but Ms Jones' front porch!" Our V-2 look alike melted and sure enough
....... We tried our best to counter the paper boy's logic, or at least ignore
it but we were never really able to enjoy that game again. Sad, but part of
growing up for my generation.

Obviously, I have done many of you here the same disservice, and I am sorry. If
you want to believe that your UJM handles a well as a real race bike because it
has an extra XX pounds of weight up under the tank, don't let me or Sir Isaac
dispel your fantasy. There's nothing wrong with fantasy. This is the 21st
Century! It's what you feel that counts! Look how many people love NASCAR
because the cars are just like the ones they drive to market every day. Thats
one reason FIM changed the formula - to allow y'all to believe that the new
bikes are just like the ones you ride. After all, if one can prove
algebraically that 1=2 then maybe more/higher weight is better. Enjoy it.

 

I'm sure there are other old folks out there like you, who toss and
turn in their tortured and sporadic sleep, only to awaken to agonized
memories of real race cars, like those good old 3.0 liter V10 F1
engines, or even older folks, peacefully muttering in their nursing
home dozing, actually believing that they've been transported back to
the times of the all conquering 1.5 liter turbocharged V8s, real race
cars quite unlike the silly 2.4 liter normally aspirated V8s in today's
laughable little play toys.

Ah yes, the good old days.

And lap times just continue their inexorable march downward....

 

So you still weren't a competitive racer and furthermore rode tracks
long before Eddie Lawson perfected his duct tape knee approach.

Times change. Maybe you should change along with them. Or at least
remain abreast of the later developments?

You are aware that sometime around oh 1986 Suzuki launched the GSXR
series which pretty much ended the practice of turning UJMs into
racebikes, yes?

And that a Gixxer 1000 will eat any tiddler for lunch by its sheer
preponderance of horsepower. Handling be damned.

Point is they are faster. And a second faster is pretty fucking huge.

Many. Including the current number 1 winner being piloted by one
spindly Valentino Rossi. The Yamaha M1.

Oh yeah and let me not mention that the latest generation of MotoGP
bikes are cutting faster lap times than their 2-smoke counterparts of
yore.

I have ridden hot 600s and a TZ on the track. Have you?

I found both had chassis up to par and that the 4-stroke had waaaay
more drive coming out of the slower corners than a tiddler.

Yes, I know you're supposed to carry more speed on a 2-smoke. That's
why those silly kids highside so much more spectacular like when they
**** up on a tiddler.

That a roadgoing motorcycle can remain competitive in so many classes
and posess a motor which lasts 100k miles without rebuild (try that on
your 2-smoke) is an amazing feat indeed.

 

Real race bikes *are* UJMs. In the sense that they're transverse fours.
well, some or most of them. Yes, race bikes handle nicely because
they're so light (and because they cost as much as a reasonably-sized
house), but your statement is that UJMs don't handle well because (etc).

And I'm afraid they do.

 

The 1967 Barcelona 24 Horas was won by an Ossa 230cc two-stroke single,
ridden by Carlos Giro and Luis Yglesias.

 

#1 - What's a "liter"? Is that what you use to spark up fags?
#2 - 1.5 *litre* V8 turbos? Pah! 1.5 litre straight-4 turbo Honda was the
bomb - IIRC the turbo 1.5 was limited on the number of cylinders to stop it
being too competitive against the 3.5 litre anything-goes naturally
aspirated engines, of which the Frerrari V-12 was still the most
competitive. Ish.
#3 - This post is obv brought to us from the future.... 2.4 litre V8 F1
cars will be racing from 2006........
#4 - Crap septic kno-shite as usual......

Dave

 

Id est, where handling and especially "flickability" count ......

....... Where horsepower and top speed count for more than handling.

Are you familiar with Suzi's old "Water Buffalo" 750 - a water cooled 2-stroke
with lube injected thru the crank directly onto the bearings. It was more like
the total-loss systems used on early bikes than the "mist" system found on its
contemporaries. Mine used less oil than my BSAs! They were popular touring
bikes here, comparable to Honda's CB-750 and BMWs. Emissions laws forced Suzi
to abandon 2-strokes and spend millions developing UJMs instead, leaving me to
wonder what would have happened had world population stabilized leaving no need
for those laws - had Suzi, et al, spent that development money differently. A
300# GSXR with TZ-like handling, but with all the reliability of the old
"Buffalo" motor? Guess we'll never find out now .....

 

Yup! I agree! I've watched them from Ms Smiths porch as we orbited Mars.

But what I actually said is that they are treacherous.

 

Sure. My wife had one. Adding the seat cowl with luggage rack and a tank bag
made it a good touring bike for a girl or small man.

Think again. There were much-modified GSXRs in that pack of F-USA bikes that
were not just blown off by a TZ-250 but were so embarrassed that they never let
one run again. The TZ put a quarter-lap lead on them during the first lap then
..... Oh! I'm sorry! There I go spoiling your fantasy again ....

Bwahahahahaha! Oops, there I go again ....

Sure but nobody over 150# should get on either one if for no better reason than
he cannot ride either one effectively.

Which proves my point above. Naturally a mediocre rider would feel that way.
You THINK the 4 had more drive because you couldn't keep the 2 on the pipe.

And you couldn't do that without falling off??

Simple explaination. The only thing that can beat a H-D on a US flat track is
another H-D or a clone. Why? Because H-D made the rules back when they
controlled AMA. Who runs AMA now?

Hell the old 70's vintage Suzi water buffalos easily went 100K without changing
plugs, so?