Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Vee Two Sprintex Horley-Dovidson V-Rod I "if i:I",fl;f ;*:'l lii,i J,:l: I fSO6cc eell V-l'lax. going head ro head I with a Porsche Carrera with lcalan I plates in Swiuerland, the German ultm- car being left to eat Egli dust. Now I was in the most remote city on earth, about to hit the replay button, aboard rhe Sprintex super- charged Vee Two Harley V-Rod. Ne-xr to me was the cool dude wearing Oakley shades in a late-model Holden Commodore HSV - six liters of Aussie mus- cle cai bristling with attitude as it sat with a throbbing idle at the red liglt on the Roe Highway heading nonh out into the bush from Perth, Western Aus.tralia. He glanced over at me as I rolled to a nop in the lane to the riSht of him, but he didn't have a clue of what was coming next. That's because the orfy hint that this externally stock-style street rod was equipped with a Sprintex supercharger deliv- ering 4O-percent more power and 20- per- cent more torque than when it left Harley's Kansas Ciry factory was the alloy plate on the right of the ergine, shrouding the Australian- made twin helical-screw compressor - and he couldn't see that. This was a Q-bike ready to deliver a textbook sneak attack strajght out of rcur street-figker guerilla-w"arfare rnanual. The harsh light-switch actioh of the Barnett carbon clutch needed to harness the blown Barley's porky power p€akin8 with l5l hp at 9000 rpm, and the 13.9 kgm of torque delivered at half as many revs, made it easy on him. The light switched to green and he got the jump on me as the clutch paid outsuddenlywith a notchyaction, and theV- Rod's engine boSged slightly, as the Holden powered off the line with the Harley in pur- suit. No worries mate. She'll be right. As I wound the throttle wide open and surfed the Harley's massive waves of torque on the hoof, I overrode launch-control mode as the fat rear Dunlop D207 spun up hard before grippinS again and shovrng me vio- lently backward into the seat's backstop, arms fanking in their sockets as the front wheel lightened, and I fought to hang on and at the same time steer stEight with the bars waving in my hands. Hooking second Eear, then third, the torrent of liquid power kept coming on strong, and in the trademark whine of the supercharger I could distinctly make out above the muted thunder of the Vance & Hines aftermarket exhaust, as the Harley put its trotters to tarmac. I Halfiray through the imagi- nary quarter-mile drag strip that this remote blacktop in , the Australian bush had just become, suddenly the Holden was history - | caught a flash of cool dude's he-ad turned toward me as I powered past and left him for dead. By the end of the fictitious $rip the car was a blur in the ' V-Rod's mirrors - until sudden- ly, I remembered where I was. Australia, the most sparsely Want some extra oomph in your life? BY A[aN Cancanr PHoros BY Ktt EDG! i- 11: I :5 I I I ^r=. populated countn/ on the planet, is also one crawlin8 with speed camerx and trafiic cops ready to gave you a ticket for one mph over the limit, let alone 125 mph. Backing off the gas, I eased the Vee Two V-rod back down from orbit, and re-entered planet Earth. Back to chilled-out cruise mode. Oh. hello, Holden man - there you are at last! Let's face it - the idea of getting some- thing for nothing is irresistible: that's human nature. Trouble is, reality usualryfails to deliv- er the goods - as in, up to half as much horsepower again, with no appreciable penalty? Sounds too good to be true - and in the turbo era, it was. What started as an offshoot of gas-tur- bine-aircraft enSineering seemed to promise something for nothing when it came down to Earth three decades ago, First, Renault sought to turn turbocharSing to tarmac use in endurance and F I car racing, followed by Porsche and then a host of truck manufac- turers all seeking to overcome the diesel engine's traditional lack of acceleration and load-carrying torque. By usinS expelled exhaust gasses to drive a pump cofipressing the incoming charge, it seemed as if nature wes deliverinS somethinS for nearly nothing - well. untrl you read the fine print, that is. Throttle lag, a Sreater thirst for fuel, the extra bulk and weight of installation, and especially the complex upgraded cooling sls- tems needed to offset the substantial increase in heat produced by turbos - these were all factors in bursting their bubble of engineering acceptan€e in gas-engined use. There's no doubt that the thrill you get from a turbo car when you jump on the gas and feel that huSe booct of torque - but some- thing for nothing. turbo

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