so alot of people say "that's a single wait til u get a v-twin"

but i've ridden sportys, and a bunch of 750's...vulcan and a shadow....and @ low end(stop light to stop light here in west palm) i don't feel much of a difference, and in fact i kill my friend's 883.....

goin 80 they still have more breath, but i don't want to go much faster then that anyway!

my friend has a vtz 1800....and was shocked that mine is louder, and i could keep up with him. the best part was when we took a turn, and he practically had to make a 3 point turn while i kicked her down into second and did a little peg scraping(close but not really lol)

my friend has a vulcan 750 for 800 bucks for sale, but it doesn't make sense to me to go up only to a 750, the extra cc's aren't worth the weight lol

anyone else agree?

yeah the weight of a lot of v-twins negates speed and performance, but it adds stability at speeds on interstate highways, so that's the trade off, also, apparently a lot of people like wide seats, drives me nuts cause even though the seat height is comparable, your legs are so spread out straddling the machine it's like you are giving birth to it and with pegs so far forward . . . well you get the comparison.  until you go over the 1200 cc range in a cruiser the weight of other machines will really subdue the power advantage.  also for me, big cruisers seem like you riding a couch, you are on top of the bike and not in it, not sure I like that yet.

Rocco,
   Yea, my friend has a Honda 750 shadow and my Savage always got him off the line.  

A little bit of a warning. not all Sportsters are 883's.  Don't try to go against early "Large" displacement EVO Sportsters.  (1986 to 199x something 1100's and 1200's).   At only 455 lbs, the stock HP to weight raito's are in the  6 to 7 lbs per horse range.   Later sportsters added weight and are in the 550 lbs range.

 The 883's were in the 10 to 11 range which is close to the LS650's 10 something, but their 4 spd tranny isn't geard as low as the Savage/S40 so the stock 883's dogged a bit and then had to try and catch up to the Savage.    At 50 or 60 mph they normally catch up.  

-------------------------------------------------------
HP to Weight ratio's
Savage / S40
33 HP at 352 lbs = 10.67 (somewher I saw ad's saying 33 HP)

Early 883 Sportster
42 hp at 455 lbs = 10.83 (fm FSM)

1100 Sportster
62 hp at 455 lbs = 7.34 (fm FSM)

Early 1200 Sportster
72 hp at 458 lbs = 6.36 (fm FSM)

LostArtist wrote on 04/15/10 at 09:14:43:


Sorry no.

LostArtist wrote on 04/15/10 at 09:26:15:


Use same for both if comparing one bike to another.  

The numbers I gave were dry.  


EDIT:  new 883's are fuel injected,   so that means FI can get approx 10 HP more.  When will Suzuki convert the LS650!!!!   They already did the TU250.

I went for a test ride this morning on my sons new bike, Black Shadow, the one he bought from Diamond Jim.
It runs better than any stock Savage/s40 I've been on.  DJ did a fine job of setting it up, jetting/tuning the carb and creating a really good baffle for for the drag pipe.
It runs smooth, no backfiring at all, pulls strong up to 90 and then settles in at 94 mph indicated top speed.
With the Progressive 418 shocks it rides quite nicely too.

I raced a HD fatboy with my LS. I took off in 2nd gear, beat him up to about 50-60mph... only at that point it started closing in on me. And we had to stop for traffic. Quite a surprise for a friend on the harley. Whatever the result woulda been, this thing is not slow in comparison with other cruisers. It's not made to pull 200km/h, neither are other cruisers. I'm quite happy.

I still get the Harley snobs around here. But not as often as I used to.