VOLUME ISSUE FEBRUARY , P81
is plastic, and this joins up to the massive
single 78mm throttle body we took from a
Chevy V6 car motor that replaces the twin
throttle body setup of the stock motor."
S&S are understandably coy about giv-
ing any performance figures—we know it's
pumping out north of 170 horsepower—but
it's the tremendous torque that grabs you
when you have the Challenger pointed in
your desired direction of travel and you give
the noise tube a solid twist.
Exiting the notorious turn 10 onto the
back straight at Chuckwalla, the Indian
pulls up the hill like a stream train that's
been fed too much coal. A lightened crank
of unspecified weight, allowed by the rules
in 2022, but for 2023, has been mandated
at 10 percent weight reduction over stock,
sees the Challenger tearing towards its
redline like a four-cylinder sportbike. But
unlike the latter, which can reasonably
expect a redline somewhere in the realm
of 14-15,000 rpm, the Indian Challenger
tops out at 7700 rpm on the AiM dash and
datalogger.
As I'm charging up the hill towards turn
11 at Chuckwalla, the number-one bagger
barking at the horizon, I'm reminded of the
speed the Indian Challenger showed at
Daytona, when O'Hara went from the back
of the grid to the win on the line by blitzing
past Harley-Davidson's Kyle Wyman in a
fashion that must have been a bit embar
-
rassing for the Motor Company.
