Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

··IN E. -.V W Steve Schiebe : T R IE · '. tomer Penske has in the world, correct? Yes. I think in the long run that will be quite advantageous. Although the fork hasn't worked very well, the rear unit seems to be working very well. Penske hasn't been giving us much help with the development in the traditional sense, but what they do is basically provid e us with an excellent product and all the parts you need to do whatever you want.. If you want to make it much worse; you can make it much worse. So we 've had a bit o f a development process to get it to its current pe rformance le vel. But it hasn't taken that much. Th e basic hardware we under stand well because we knew the process up front would be the Harley team doing the work on the shock. Sometimes we get suggestions from them, but in the end we know more about how they work because we did it that way - we don't simply run over to Brand-X technician and say it's doing thi s and it's doing that, and he walks over and does what he does and it' s better. We fix it. We diagnose it. If there is something a rid er feels or we see while he is on the track, we are working on it from th e moment it appears. Other people are not in that pos ition. From the view of other s ide of the garage, most of your problems seem to be related to fuel delivery, correct? It really hasn't been one specific thing. A fuel syst em on a fuel-injected motorcycle is much m ore complicated than a carb u reted system. Fuel recirculation and getting the air out of the sys tem basically we were taking air in the inlet system in some cases. In previous races we 've had trouble with where to put the pump so it is not susceptible to heat and it is out of the way, and so on. We just needed a little bit more time to get the package on the bike and get it to work now we've got it. The fuel tank appears to be different than in previous races. It's new , brand new at Mid-Ohio, It's a carbon fiber one-piece unit whereas our older units were a carbon shell over an aluminum tank - those gave us trouble with the welds cracking. And for racing that's not the way we wanted it to go anyway - the carbon/aluminum piece was an intermediate step to the final carbon tank. Did you have some safety concerns with going to a carbon tank? Yes, I've seen some carbon tanks out there that are not safe, and I wasn't interested in using them . The construction was suspect. I wouldn't be l OO-percent confident that the bottom wou ldn't ha ve fallen out of som e of tho se uni ts. So we wanted to make su re we had a sound, well-engineered system that we could depend on. We now have tha t. Are you are still using the original Weber fuel-injection s ystem that debuted at Daytona, or has it been replaced by an updated system? We've moved some of the components around, and that ma y have given the appearance of a different system. We would move the voltage regulator for instance when it was cau sin g us some trouble, and in a way that is hard to identify. We'll move th e regulator and the problem goes awa y only to show up another day - all it has to be is a wrong wire in the wrong place an d it can cau se havoc. It takes a while to identify an d cure things like tha t. My theory on this is to get th ings to w ork together well a nd develop from the re . We haven' t changed much. We haven't changed many components and obviously you can't change the frame on the superbike - we ha ven't had reaso n to anyway. In principle we haven't changed anything the forks and triple clamps are the same as what we started th e season w ith we 've ne ver changed th e rear suspe nsion ratio or anything like that. I'm real comfortable where 'w e are right now . You're going to have to step up a fair amount in horsepower at some point. Will the chassis have to change a great deal at that point as well7 That's unpredictable. I'm hoping that we won't have to and don't expect it \ will. Using more horsepower could bring on new chassis symptoms. I'm interested in the privateers racing it. If it was the only factory racing bike out there, I'd be disappointed. I want other people and Harley dealers to buy one and participate with a min imum amount of major development that a factory tearn might be able to devote to something, but the p rivat eers wi ll not. Yet there should still be some challenges that they would enjoy. We are a very history-conscious company so there is a lot of tradition involved in this bike. From that aspect we are a little bit d ifferent. Have you done any wind-tunnel testing with the VR? No. Conventional wisdom is that you are building the VR a little bit sturdier than you would generally have to for increased strength, and you will whittle away at the weight as time goes by, Correct? There is some titanium on it, but things are generally on the stu rd y sid e. As I , say, I like th ings a little heavy in the interest of longevity. If I was the only customer, that would be the wrong choice. There are going to be many other customers who are using the product. I would like it to be known as a durable, tough little engine. I've been impressed with how things don't have to be just perfect and the VR runs just fine , The power 's not where it needs to be but well work on it. I expect the durability w ill stay where it is until we get the power. The weight is fine righ t now, we went through tech a t 361 pounds at Mid-Ohio - we're ligh ter than so me of our competitors. We were at 370 a t Phoenix and we had an aluminum fuel tank on it - that was a significant chunk of weigh t there. We were adding unnecessary weight to the bike, and it wa s obvious to us. It was the direction we had to take at that time. What did you do at Roush engineering? What was your road racing career like? . At Roush I worked on many different programs. I was never very specific in . where I worked - various power tra in programs. Fuel injection was one, and the development of various engine component programs. I had really no involvement with any of the race tearns other than short stints here and there - it was more conversational than anything. My racing career was not illustrious. I've ridden the VR and it just makes me understand what the riders are saying it's easy to place yourself in their shoes. I never try to put my opinion in there, my riding the bike just makes it easier to understand what the riders are saying. Sometimes I can make a better translation into what he is tryin g to say. Early in the development , I d idn' t wan t the riders to rid e th e bike befo re I d id . I wanted to be su re the bike was safe and to be sure it worked the way I wanted it to work. When will we see a VR streetbike? I understand Willie G. Davidson was seen riding one at Loudon, and Mark Tuttle had one at Road America that he rode in on from Milwaukee. We couldn't see one soon enough in my op inion. Th e re are so me significant noise and em issions issues tha t need to be resolved for it to be U.S. legal. When will we see a VR-powered Buell? Not soon. I think Eric (Buell) is pretty busy just with wha t he has on his plate at the moment. The re is also the same noise and emission issues as mentioned previously. When will customer race bikes be 'available? They are available (now) for orde ring any d ea ler ca n o r de r o ne . We ha ve orders for 10 or 12 machines righ t now. Every tim e we d o better a t th is, th e phone ri ngs a little bit more. At this point we w ill not be a ble to deliver many bikes this race season. It's pretty late in the season and not man y people are interested in competing this season. But we will have them all built by the end of the year. The 50 being built are streetbikes, just not s tree t legal in the states: It will be stree t legal somewhere in the world. Any idea when you might try some international racing? There is quite a bit of interest from our international dealers because it would really help th em w ith th eir customer bases. We hav e enough to keep us busy right now jus t in Am erican superbike racing - we want to concentrate on that. If you look at Harley -David son as a company we seem to concentrate on one thing at a time and then we move on . How would it affect the Harley-Davidson VR team if the minimum weight were raised to 370 pounds for twins? I don't see any reason to do that. I sup- · port the current World Superbike rules, most people seem to think that the rules th ey have in ex is te nce right now are quite equitable. And the results suppo rt that view . I think the Harley team expected their best results to come at Loudon, not really expecting anything momentous to happen at Mid-ohio or Brainerd. I really did not expect to be on the front row, that was an unexpected surprise. I know that we do no t have truly comp etitive horsepower , ye t I know that we hav e a chassis tha t wor ks very well and a good dea l of enthusiastic riding by Miguel. I did not have the expectation of doing that well at Mid-Ohio. When I saw the times on our watch I waited to see if it would stand. I cou ldn't hear the announcer so th er e were quite a few anxious mom ents th ere. We , too, thought we would have a good chance in New Hampshire, and Miguel was doing very well in the few laps he was out there. He did a great job of qualifying the machine only to have all our hopes dashed by a stone. After that, yeah, morale could have been better, but I think this has done a lot to boost us back up again. Th is demonstrates that we are truly close. I th ink that was demonstrated to my self that morning, anyway. A lot of the team had that feeling like we're there, but it wasn't until that morning that I had it too - in black and white. We're close. C'I

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