Hypothetically....cruiser w/sportbike engine?

Years ago I used to ride with a wide range of guys from work. The sportiest bike was a buell x1 lightning, but the rider was a stereo typical Harley cruiser rider...couldn't take the curves well... I know not all are like that though...and there was another newby on an fz1....

One of the other guys rode an Electra glide, but he was also MSF instustuctor certified, so he was a pretty good rider all in all.

I'm not the fastest guy around, but I'm not horrible either especially on my tdm, but I would have to work hard to stay in front of the Electra glide ridden as well as it was unless the road was REALLY tight....then I could walk away from the group...

So the moral of the story is don't judge a book by it's cover...so to speak. A good rider can take a crappy, or average, bike and wax the floor on a poor rider on the best bike.

Cruisers can be ridden through the twisties at a spirited pace. Sure, but the pegs get ground off and pipes get scraped. If you already own a cruiser, by all means go ahead and scrape them up in the corners. But if you're not already pigeon holed into one, and looking to build or buy, why would you not look at the many other bikes better suited to the task. It's like saying a Buick Roadmaster can be driven around a race track with anger. Of course, anything can be driven hard. That doesn't make a Buick Roadmaster a good platform to build a track car from.

In reply to Petrolburner:

That is boring

So with the Yamaha MT01 they decided to make a Buell?

In reply to Petrolburner: I agree with you 100%, but the OP seemed like he had a line on a cruiser frame and a "sport bike" motor. This being GRM...and a bunch of enablers to not always do the most logical thing...I just said it could be done and might be cool, not that it would be the best bike ever . The build thread is filled with many such projects...it's just something different.

On the one hand, I would say this whole plan is completely backwards. We should be putting V-twins in sportbikes, not I4's into cruisers. But on the other hand I kinda want to see him actually build it.

And to the OP, I think you are not giving v-twins enough credit. You mention a Shadow 1100 with 35-40 HP which I couldn't verify but may have been true in certain years and models. But that doesn't mean that all V-twin cruisers are horrible wheezy things.

Bike mags do what car magazines (and their advertisers) are afraid to do - strap the thing on a dyno and publish the real RWHP. I have been reading motorcycle magazines for a while and even though cruiser HP numbers are never on par with sportbikes, I don't think they are that pitiful. On top of that you have variables like single versus dual crank pin V-twins, air vs. water-cooled, shaft vs. chain drive (remember we are talking HP at the wheel), etc. that make for huge differences from bike to bike.

Flight Service wrote: So with the Yamaha MT01 they decided to make a Buell?

I imagine that the Yamaha is A) less murderous (see picture above) and B) more reliable. A friends buell shook the carb right off the damn bike. My bike mechanic friend hates having them come in because they are not so much engineered vs pushed together in a bike shaped pile.

In reply to singleslammer:

And that is what has always made me sad.....because I still love the way the Firebolt XB9 looks, just doesn't ride like it should and felt cheap. The 675 Daytona however is every bit as good as it looks and is claimed to be.....perhaps even better than it is claimed to be.

singleslammer wrote: they are not so much engineered vs pushed together in a bike shaped pile.

Hahaha. That is a Say What entry right there.

I just have a hard time advocating many hours of custom work to make something, um, not better. A GL1800 motor in a Daihatsu van? Awesome. Even the guy that put the tiny motor into the Miata to get excellent gas mileage. That is being made better in a way, even if it's not higher performance.

In reply to Petrolburner:

So you would dislike the 3cyl 900cc 2-stroke snowmobile powered Miata?

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

That is high praise from you my friend.

Was that Yamaha MT-01 Ever available in the US? Wikipedia says it was, but I've never seen one, And I have a sharp eye for odd bikes. That thing is giving me impure thoughts!

yamaha wrote: In reply to Petrolburner: So you would dislike the 3cyl 900cc 2-stroke snowmobile powered Miata?

More horsepower than stock, less weight, better sound plus 2 stroke smoke? What's not to love about that?

HappyAndy wrote: Was that Yamaha MT-01 Ever available in the US? Wikipedia says it was, but I've never seen one, And I have a sharp eye for odd bikes. That thing is giving me impure thoughts!

http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/271/829/motorcycle-article/2005-yamaha-mt-01.aspx

Motousa said: When Yamaha showed its outrageous MT-01 last year, the MCUSA staff couldn't wait to test one of the Warrior-engined naked bikes. Well, it turned out that we could wait, as Yamaha Motor Corp. USA declined to import it to America, citing a small market for this style of bike. Still, the muscular streetfighter intrigued us, so we asked our Euro correspondent Ian Kerr to take one out for a thrashing and to report on his findings. -Ed.

singleslammer wrote:

Flight Service wrote: So with the Yamaha MT01 they decided to make a Buell?

I imagine that the Yamaha is A) less murderous (see picture above) and B) more reliable. A friends buell shook the carb right off the damn bike. My bike mechanic friend hates having them come in because they are not so much engineered vs pushed together in a bike shaped pile.

I had 3 Buells over my career. A 97 M1, a 99 S3, and then an 01 S3T. They were all tube frame bikes so not the XB series. They were all stone reliable! I didn't ride hard but they all covered 20k miles without issue. Then again, they didn't see the inside of an HD dealership after I bought them. It was nice how the valves never needed adjustment and the motors were simple I could fix them with a standard ratchet set, screwdrivers, and allen wrenches.

Good bikes if you can wrench and read threads on badweatherbikers.com.

In reply to Petrolburner:

It's all about perspective, and we are coming at the problem form two different directions. Take your Corvette, one of the highest performance per dollar percentages available. So you buy it and then spend all of your time driving it, racing it or whatever. I see it as a benchmark, I would much rather build something, shooting for the performance of your Corvette. Even if I fall short on 0-60, 1/4 mile, G force and spend 75% more doing it than what it would have cost to buy one. Then when I'm done I'd sell it, likely for pennies on the dollar, to chase some other crazy idea.

But I don't think that is what Octavious was getting at, he simply found an engine looking for a bike and new where a cheap or free chassis was located, and wondered if the two would make a good end product. I think it would be interesting.

In reply to Nick_Comstock:

There is a guy rolling around Indy with a CBX 6cyl sitting in a harley chopper......its quite epic to be honest. Anything can be done if you have cubic dollars or cubic knowledge.

I still want to drop a 10r engine in a Triumph 600TT chassis.....because trolling.

I would expect 20,000 trouble-free miles out of pretty much anything, this isn't the 1950's.

Xceler8x wrote: I didn't ride hard but they all covered 20k miles without issue.