TECH TORQ
the vibrations from the non-
counterbalanced engine had my
hands going numb. For that,
and many other reasons, these
models did not sell well and so
Polaris seized the opportunity.
Now being a company that is
extremely strong in engineer-
ing, from the bottom to the
top, they grasped the opportu-
nity and designed a power train
from the ground up.
I’ve done a lot of miles on
Indians over the last few years,
including riding to Sturgis
and back from LA. They are a
bloody good motorcycle and
the Thunder Stroke 111 is a
great engine and gives nothing
away to Harley-Davidson in the
roll-on stakes I can tell you.
Tech specs include displace-
ment of 111 cubic inches
(1811cc) and it is said to deliver
119 ft-lb of torque, while the
engine tops out at 5500rpm,
and delivers its power through
a six-speed overdrive transmis-
sion. Compression ratio is high
for your basic air and oil cooled
engine at 9.5:1. I’d suggest that
you go for it Blake!WARMUP
Doc, most of my mates ride EFI
Twin Cams but Jonesy is still
on a carby bike. When we’ve
pulled up for a while like at a
pub for a couple of hours or
overnight at a rally he insists
on warming his bike up for
five to eight minutes with the
choke out. He reckons the
motors need this but we can all
hit the button and just ride off
on our EFI bikes. He reckons
riding off cold will do damage
to the motors, but if that was
the case wouldn’t Harley fix it
so that you couldn’t? Hopefully
your answer will allow us to
talk him out of it cos it drives
us bananas!- Skids
Firstly Skids, let’s get the
terminology right. The Harley-
Davidson constant velocity (CV)
carburettor uses an enrichener
instead of a choke. The enrichener
cable pulls a plunger out of a
cavity in the side of the carby,
uncovering the fuel feed hole that
is fed from the float bowl.
Air rushing into the carby
venturi creates a vacuum at that
point and draws fuel from the
bowl past the enrichener valve
and into the throat of the carby.
Essentially it works on the
same principle as a butterfly
choke, to enrich the mixture,
but it does it more efficiently.
Now tell your mate that
between 30 seconds and one
minute is the ideal time to
warm up a Harley-Davidson
engine before riding off, accord-
ing to Harley engineers.V-ROD TRUTH?
Hi all at HEAVY DUTY, youput out a shithot mag!
Doc, I was disappointed to
see the V-Rod dropped from
the Harley line-up a while
back. Talk is that it wasn’t
going to meet EU emissions
standard. I wonder how the
hell that could be as it was
designed by Porsche, who
are a world leading engine
manufacturer? Surely it
could have been made to
comply, as there are lots of
air-cooled engines, such as
the 2019 Harley-Davidson
models that meet the strict
European compliance stand-
ards? If the ‘not meeting
standards’ is not true what
is the real reason the model
was dropped?
One more thing please, my
bud Pete reckons you used to
have a V-Rod. What did you
think of it? I’m thinking of
getting one.- Rozza