What's the attraction to V Twins?

I've got to ask what's the big deal with V twins? In the early days they were merely easy, add another cylinder to a transverse crank.

Oops! the rear cylinder seems to run hotter. What we gonna do?

The problem seemed to be self regulating, less HP meant less performance till Honda sold their corporate soul with the Shadow.

Whom ever decided that the shadow was a good name and even a good design was a fool! Today, I believe that Hardly Davidson has realized a boost in sales simply because Honda and Suzuki and Kawasaki decided that they best imitate the motor company. I haven't checked the numbers but I believe that my KZ1100 will outrun any Hardly except a rod, which is more correctly a Porche.

My point is why is the motorcycle community addicted to transverse V twins when clearly most other designs yield more power?

Hey I'm as loyal as they come. I've got the best V twin that Ma Kaw has offered, a 1600 Mean Streak. I can tell you that it can't come close to my 1100 for acceleration.

What's so special about a V twin?

KZCSI

Jeeez! Are you kidding me? This is the easiest question to answer I've ever seen on here. (And you're a moderator...for shame)

The answer is: See, him over there has one, and him over there has one.

(Can you say Baaa, baaa?)

My guess is that the proliferation of the twins is simply to copy the sound and styling of the heritage and history of Harley. If Harley were to ever change their basic power plant configuration it would only be a matter of time before the other manufacturers followed suit as Harley is still viewed (arguably) as the pinnacle of coolness in the cycle world. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the big twins (including Indian) were pretty much the only multi-cylinder game in town until the Brits started with their inline twins.

As much as we love the inline-four design (most of us 4 juggers here on Kzr) the simple fact is that Harley has been around for 105 years and our basic engine design has only around forty years of tradition. These points are certainly worth considering when asking the question about the attraction to V-twins.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada

1977 Kz650 Custom - 14,000 original miles, bought new by brother in 1977. Current re-incarnation includes- 810 Wiseco, WG Mikuni 29 Smoothies, 750 GPz cams, intake valves, modified head, Dyan ignition and coils, plus too much more to mention. Painted Moon Dust Silver to re-create factory paint scheme. Not much can keep up with this old girl up to 70 mph. This bike will never be sold and probably passed on to my teenage son when his testosterone levels off!

1982 Ferrari 308 GTSi. 3.0 litre, aluminum V8 Four Cam Engine with a sweet shifting five speed. Rosso Corsa Red with tan leather interior. 56,000 miles. Looks and rides like it just came off the showroom.

2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser. The yellow tank that will go anywhere-anytime!

1998 Jeep Wrangler TJ - 6 Banger with a five speed.

2007 Chevy Uplander (for my bride)

Good question KZCSI
I could never understand it. Always thought it was a North American thing.

I was born in Ireland and grew up there and to us "Europeans" the V twin configuration was just another engine design - e.g. the Vincent - which was superceeded by the more modern 4 and 6 bangers.

Having said that I think with my background if I ever went the way of a V twin I would be more inclined to look for a Guzzi (remember that cool Guzzi police bike in one of the Dirty Harry movies?) or perhaps a Ducati.

I'd love to have a v twin. A 90 degree v twin made in italy.

Scott

I've never even ridden a v-twin, but the guys that have them rave about the "torque". That's what I was talking about with my buddy with the 85,000 mile 2003 Harley. He said how the torque of that Harley was so great, meaning you have power at any RPM. So you can't accelerate zero to 100 in 7 seconds? Maybe a Harley has 50% more power at 2500 RPM than a Hayabusa or whatever the thing is called, but the Hayabusa has 150HP at 12,000 RPM where the Harley ain't even going to attempt that. So the Hayabusa has to shift down 3 gears to rev up to 12,000 rpms to pass a string of cars where the Harley simply gives it the gas. There are 2 different ways to ride at the minimum, one is reved up to redline in every gear to keep speed, the other is just relaxed riding. I see this in my two trucks. I have a 460 gas E350 van and a diesel F350 truck. That gas engine is "fast" if you can call it that, for a van, but you have to rev it up. The diesel don't seem all that fast, but has good power at lower rpms. Where this comes into play is highway climbing hills or towing heavy loads, the diesel is so much better because it will perform well at any rpm at any load. The gas has to shift down and rev up to 4000 rpms in 2nd gear where I can run the diesel in 4th no problem. So a probably unrelated scenario, but I can see it. I'd rather just roll on the throttle and go than shift down, run 12,000 rpm to get power.

Hey Ron, I'll bet the low end torque is more related to the stroke of the pistons than it is to the configuration of the cylinders. My bet is that Kawasaki, Honda and Suzuki could have done as much with their four cylinder designs torque wise if they had wanted.

The real question is why didn't they want to?


KZCSI

Well, the closest explanation I've ever seen, well more of a rationale than explanation, is that the relaxed lope of a large bore V-twin single crankpin engine somehow best matches the human heartbeat. Yeah, I know that sounds kind of hokey, but in a weird way it kind of makes sense.

The reason I got into Harleys was that about age 30 or so, I realized unless I did something drastic I was going to kill myself on a bike. I needed a bike I could enjoy at low speeds, not just at high speeds. So instead of the new Triumph Speed Triple I was lusting over, I got a used Harley.

Whenever I get on my Shovel, I crack a wide grin at anything above walking speed. The sound, the feel that I'm sitting in the bike instead of atop it, the solid build of the bike, all of these complement each other and its just plain damn fun to ride the blasted thing.

I must admit I have never ridden a metric V-twin, so I can't speak for those. But I imagine it is a very similar experience.

I've ridden a boxer twin BMW and came away feeling at best neutral if not somewhat negative about the experience. Not to knock on Beemers, I lust after the K1200S, but that's a transverse inline 4 just like my Z1.

My first love is V-twins. Yep, read that I have a GPZ, and I won't get rid of it, but I never get rid of any vehicle.

But I have owned the guzzi style (a few CX500's), a Japanese wierdo (Yamaha Vison), rode the Shadow, rode a V-star, and even lately rode a Road King. Nuff to say that it is just my style.

IF I get up over 6K on my GPZ, I start to get concerned. Things are going by fast. And I definitley know what gear I am in. And I shift too close to curves. In and out.

On the road king, I am tooling along at 50MPH, wonder "when did I last shift?" and gear up two gears. And when I hit the same twisties, I was in one gear for all takers.

I saw an SV650 running hard against the 4's in the hard curves up here, and holding his own: able to concentrate on riding vs. when to shift to keep up.

My next bike? A twin or my other favorite "sport" bike: a flat 4.

Overweight

Underpowered

Overpriced

Outdated

.....

Fun starts at 6krpms....

Why do some men love fat women? Why do some men love skinny women? Different wants and needs. Some may not even know why or be able to express why. Kind of like why is a favorite color a favorite color. Any mechanical beastie operating as it was meant to operate to me is pleasurable. Pick the right machine for the right job and you are 100% good to go....be that v-twin, twin, thumpers, inline 4, flat 4, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, gas or electric, hyperintensive improbability generator, warp engine, sterling engine, horse, twisted rubber band, particle accelerator, rocket, steam engine or any of hundreds of others. Just best not to limit your horizons and get pigeon holed into believing one way and only one deserves merit or longevity.

You can't lump all V-Twins together, there's a bunch of difference between a HD, a Ducati, Moto-Guzzi, KTM Super Duke, etc.

Yeah, V-twins must be seriously under powered, that must explain why Ducati has been kicking butt on the track.

V-twins are narrow, look at the width of a KZ1000 motor, then compare it to the width of a V-twin.

90 degree V-twins don't vibrate like the fours do.