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Confederate X132 Hellcat Combat Sets Bonneville Record

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Confederate X132 Hellcat
Confederate X132 Hellcat

There’s been a rush of emails in my inbox lately announcing lots of new motorcycle speed records, it must have been a good year for the salt. This one just came in and it’s actually pretty impressive. The new Confederate X132 Hellcat Combat set a record of 172.211mph in the APF3000 category (unfaired, naturally aspirated, pushrod v-twin, over 2000cc). What that means is it’s the world’s fastest big block American V-twin motorcycle ever.

The X132 has a 132 cubic inch (2,163 cc) 56° Fuel Injected V-Twin, sporting about 150 foot pounds of torque and 132 horsepower.

Many of us have ridden a motorcycle well into triple digit territory, but we’re usually laying on the tank behind a fairing, this record was set out in the breeze which is not only a bit more challenging for the rider to keep things straight and narrow while fighting the wind blast, but the engine has to push a rather non-aerodynamic hulk up to that speed.

Makes a person think those big V-Twins aren’t the slugs the inline four crowd makes them out to be. Nice work Confederate. Congratulations.

Link: Confederate Motors

Video below:

Posted on Filed Under: Motorcycle Racing

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Comments

  1. more of a challenge for the rider than the bike 2163cc holy crap but lets not forget the B king 1300cc inline 4 naked restricted to 155 mph a production bike
    for 13,000$ now 9000$ on the used market.
    how much is a confederate 60 70 thousand i love v twin power suz v twin power was always scarry but the only way V twins are competative is by getting weight brakes and cubic inch advantages look at drag racing, harley didnt really get a standing against Suz unti the got a cc and # break but hay fast is fast no matter how u do it on 2 wheels of couse.

  2. Pretty cool. That’s right up there with the 750cc A-G class (special frame, unfaired, gasoline) inline fours a couple decades ago. It’s a good thing it’s such a large motor, it wouldn’t have broken any records if it was in the 1650cc unfaired push-rod class.

    I imagine the rider had to hunch down quite a bit; it would have been brutal trying to stay on that little seat at that speed. At least it doesn’t have ape hangers 😉

    This is a nice looking machine and I doubt Bonneville record breaking was their primary design goal. These bikes definitely bring a much needed design and quality, dare I say precision, craftsmanship to the arena of custom built bikes. All it needs now is some TSM (turn signals and mirrors) and a license plate and it’s good to go.

    -todd

    • A simple detail that I thought was cool is that instead of clip-ons, a standard handlebar was simply flipped upside down. Simple, functional and like it was done in the old days.

  3. “Many of us have ridden a motorcycle well into triple digit territory, but we’re usually laying on the tank behind a fairing,”

    It wasn’t all that long ago when the only people who would be seen on a bike with a fairing were motorcycle cops and old married couples on full dressers. I have personally done 130MPH with no fairing and no helmet and no leathers. That’s the way it was.

  4. Pretty un-remarkable considering the price, a new ducati v-twin 1199 pushes out 195hp, albeit not using a pushrod engine. Id guess if you stripped the fairings off and tucked stuff out the way it’d do 170+ easy. The ducati’s considered pricey even in its standard trim, but still gives allot of change at £15,000 when compared to the confederate. Remarkably un-impressive.

    • Ducati looses a third of the torque to that of the Confederate. 98 compared to150. I imagine that is a bit of an equaliser.

        • So for the Hellcat we have 150lb at 3000 rpm (with most of the HP as well) vs 100lb at 8000rpm (similar HP to the wedge motor at this RPM also). Excuse my rough figures I’m going off the S&S website not sure if the engine is the same as what goes into the Hellcat. Guess it really is comparing apples to oranges.

          • 150 ft-lb at 3000 rpm is 86 hp. 100 ft-lb at 8000 rpm is 152 hp. So, yes, the 150 ft-lb motor is half as powerful and will accelerate at around half the rate (86 / 152 = 57%) of the 100 ft-lb bike.

            This isn’t peak horsepower though, just the power made at peak engine efficiency (i.e. the “meat” of the power band).

            -todd

            • Oops back to school for me (or get my spectacles checked) I read the graph wrong on the S & S wedge.

              • I think they have a couple typos on their chart. It clearly shows 120 ft-lbs but they claim 97.5 ft-lbs and 110.6 HP. Maybe the key is where they state “corrected”.

                -todd

              • They have two engines on the one graph I was looking at, I mistook the torque of the 117 engine for the HP of the 132. Now that would be an engine! Dam.

  5. Cool news I guess but there are so many categories for everything, and it just gets less impressive. I didn’t even realize (though I don’t keep a close eye on salt runs) there was a “unfaired, naturally aspirated, pushrod v-twin, over 2000cc” record.

    • There certainly is a pretty wide range of categories which is hard to keep track of, without looking over the list, I wouldn’t begin to know what they are, but that presents an opportunity for a lot of guys to go out there and take a crack at the salt. They can learn first hand how hard it is and either back up their big talk or go home with a new appreciation for what the record holders actually accomplished.

      • It’s good that it has such a large engine, otherwise it would not have a record. There have been a number of smaller engine, unfaired, naturally aspirated, push rod twins that were faster than this. It may not be THE fastest push rod twin but it is the fastest one that is larger than 2000cc.

        -todd

  7. is it just me or do the confederates have a bit of a vincent-ish look to them- this more than most? maybe its just seeing it blasting across the salt, tho it would look even cooler if the rider was lying flat ot in a bathing suit and sneakers….
    the price does seem a bit ridiculous considering what much less money can buy, but to each his own, i guess!

    cheers,
    rob

  8. Reminds me why I love my MT-01 so much. As much as I’m not a fan of Harley and all the culture around it, the V-twin pushrod engine has more caracter then all inline-4 engines put together (and I’ve had those too). The Confederate I think is around 45000$. And if I had the money, I’d have one parked in my garage. At 25000$, I’d get one for sure.

    • +1 My MT is awesome too! Does it need to be bigger? No. IF it was it would be just that much more fun. These bikes top out around 200kph, who needs 300kph? Theres very few places to ride that fast, so why try?

  9. Interested to know the gear ratios involved.
    Theres no replacement for displacement but Im doubtful this twin is as broadly capable of the same an inline four; with less than half the displacement can do.

    Either its fast on accelleration and then drains its tank at 5500rpm. Or its a semi doggy drawn out top speed puller. Why choose one?

  10. Y’all obvioisly don’t know anything about running flat-out on the Salt. 170 mph on the street is NOTHING like 170 on the Salt. A 170 mph streetbike *might* do 120-130 if it’s lucky. And, as far as the negative comments about Confederate are concerned… Grow up. Y’all know nothing about motorcycles. Period.

    • Bit of a generalisation to say people with negative views “know nothing”. I’m an aerospace engineer and have owned, ridden and worked on dozens of motorbikes but because i think less of a company or think the bikes ugly i know nothing. Think you need to appreciate that most people drawn to this website wont be your average 15 year old youtube keyboard warrior.

    • right, and a 170 mph salt bike would get eaten for lunch by a 250 from a stop light. It’s highly doubtful this attempt was done with street gearing.

      -todd

      • ‘Til you run something at Bonneville, you 2 guys (?) sound exactly like “your average 15 year old youtube keyboard warrior”.

        “I’m an engineer!!!!”? Not one I’d hire.

        • Based on what?? my original comment and point was that the power figures for the 2163cc are low. Especially given the hefty price tag. My ktm 990 puts out the same power from less than half the cc (yet again i realise its not a push-rod engine) . I’m well well aware that riding on the street and the salt flats are entirely different. But on an unfaired bike that wasnt designed to run at the salt flats this highlights the riders achievement (which i never questioned) and does little to sway my opinion that 2000+cc and 132bhp at $50,000 are un-impressive.

          • Anyone who looks at motorcycles with through a $/mph*bhp/cc equation sure misses the point.

            Or do they?

            The near mint ZX9R I bought a few years ago for about $3000.00 makes the $/mph/etc.. ratio of your KTM look downright pathetic, doesn’t it? Get the point?

            As someone with experience in the expensive American bike business, I’ve seen LOTS of customers who owned a tourer with accessories, a cruiser with accessories, and often something like a hotrodded Buell or Sportster also parked in the (rather large) garage, just for fun. The featured bike cost a bit less than the other 3 combined, and in my opinion, far more fun and interesting.

            This Hellcat isn’t my dream bike, either, but it still looks like a lot of fun. If experience is anything to go by, it makes the KTM (and just about everything else) a very forgetable bike.

            Sometimes I wonder if some of you guys got married to a woman that lined up potential husbands, got out a ruler, wrote down the results on some graph paper, and….

            • I cant honestly disagree with any of what you have just said but for me there is a point where to much money and not enough tech/ingenuity/originality becomes less inspiring and becomes more about brand image and show..and with confederate this comes at a premium, i cant just cant imagine id have 5X as much fun on the confederate as i would my ktm, or POS 1956 villiers engined norman b2s. There are numerous ingenious/ridiculous projects on this site that capture my imagination and spark interest. All of which look to have been undertaken on the tightest of budgets and are reliant on engineering skill and the creators drive/ambition. To see a production motorbike, albeit low volumes, (which sources major engine components from s&s cycles) turn up and run at bonneville just highlights to that me rider skill is the main factor here and not engineering prowess. I find the quality of finish styling, and fact that it looks like every component was machined from billet impressive. The 172mph (which is only 3mph faster than record set 6 years previous) not so much.
              I don’t mean for this to come across in “15 yr old youtube keyboard warrior” fashion, for me its two bikers talking..

              • I shouldn’t cross the “15 year old youtube keyboard warrior” line – sorry – and I agree with everything you just posted.

                I think the Confederate is far more art than science. Really fun art – that I can’t afford.

  11. Wind resistance and traction are the enemys on the salt flats. All the power in the world does you no good if you can’t overcome traction problems.

  12. Any comments above about the appearance of the bike are completely irrelevant, in case those commenters missed it, this is about going 172 mph on the salt and that looks pretty good to me.

    • Got to agree. Anything going for a record I usually give a free pass to with aesthetics. …and obviously the same to anything about practicality. Though I wll say there are far worse looking bikes out there.

  13. This doesn’t change my opinion that “those big V-Twins are slugs”, because it’s about output. Sure, if you fit an 8-liter V-10 into a Corvette frame it’ll go fast, but it’s no Porsche. This is an engine so oversized it can’t be used to hot-rod the majority of big-twin bikes on the road due to fitment. It’s making impressive numbers because we’re failing to consider that they’re not impressive for the displacement. My best estimate puts it around 6 hp/L over a stock Harley, which would be disappointing IN a stock Harley if you spent a few hundred bucks on a cam, air filter, and drag pipes, and re-tuned. In the end, it’s still an air-cooled lump, scaled up, and put in a powercruiser/streetfighter-thing that went on to fetch a land speed record that probably didn’t have any other takers.

    I owe some honesty after all that flaming, though. Any pursuit of speed is noble. I just personally find the idea of a $45,000 bike wasteful. Maybe someday it will be the norm, even without considering inflation. Maybe luxury motorcycles will become as commonplace as luxury cars. I think a luxury anything should have the luxury to match, though, not just brand cred, which is worth less than nothing to any thinking person.

    • are you inferring that a car with a large displacement engine can’t handle as well as a car with a small displacement engine? this is the perfect example of the flawed ideology that is specific output(HP/L); it really means nothing! the chevrolet corvette Z06 equipped with a 7.0l LS7 V8 handles every bit as well as the 3.6l flat-6 equipped porsche 911. further more, that massive, inefficient, 7.0l pushrod V8 weighs the same as the small, technologically advanced, 3.6l flat-6 of the porsche(both weighing in at ~440lbs). now, why would anyone ever take the 3.6l over the 7.0l if they weight the same? even if they had equal HP(the 7.0l has 505, the 3.6l with 409, but lets just pretend), why would you take the 3.6l over the 7.0l when the larger engine will have MUCH more meat under the curve?
      BTW, the car you’re looking for is the dodge viper, with 8.4l V10. i would highly suggest you check out the accomplishments of the 2008-2010 dodge viper ACR, with it’s porsche 911 shaming handling numbers.

      • I have a friend with a lightened 800 hp Z06. Insane (yet very drivable) street car that would eat any Porsche costing 3X as much.

  15. 170+ mph on an unfaired bike is awesome. A 2,163cc V-twin with fuel injection is awesome as well.

    10 years ago, I had a 1996 Nissan 200SX SE-R. It had a 2.0L engine that put down 140hp and 132 ftlb of torque. Yes, it was a DOHC four cylinder with liquid cooling. However, it didn’t have VVT or anything like that. Further, that engine wasn’t brand spanking new in that car. 4-5 years earlier it was available in the Sentra SE-R. While the bike is very cool, I’m not terribly impressed by the power output.

  16. this is just what i don’t understand understand about the cycle world, the huge obsession with specific output(HP/L). there is no other metric more talked about in the cycle world than specific output, yet it’s one of the most meaningless metrics when it comes to throwing your leg over the seat and going for a ride. the quantities that matter when you’re riding a bike are HP/torque curves, weight, and frame geometry. the engine’s power efficiency is purely irrelevant when you’re carving a corner or blasting down a straight.
    and when it comes to racing, specific output is put under an even larger microscope. no one cares about variety, no one cares about the quality of racing, all of that be damned if HP/L isn’t equal. as a huge fan of sports car and GT racing, i just can’t even begin to wrap my mind around this. through the use of engine air restrictors and weight adjustments, we can watch great competitive racing between a 4.0l rear engine porsche 911 and an 8.4l front-mid engine dodge viper. no one slings mud at the viper for having more than twice the displacement, because it’s all about variety and the quality of racing. so why is this such a bad idea in bike racing? frankly, motoGP is akin to NASCAR and F1, all 3 of which i find ungodly boring. what is my favorite bike racing right now? AMA superbike(eslick vs young at homestead anyone?), you know, the DMG operated series hated by every “real”/hardcore racing fan. love the variety, love the action!

    i realize that this rant ended up far longer than intended, so as far as the initial topic is concerned, i love this bike(especially the one in the video), the video is very well made and edited, and that’s a hell of an accomplishment on the infamous, unforgiving salt! congratulations confederate, and thanks for the quality video! and thanks for posting this, paul!

    • The reason Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes and Vipers race against each other in the same class is because they’re comparable in ability, their lap times are competitive. Explain to me how the Porsche RS3 (non-turbo, RWD) does it with almost one third the engine of the Viper if both cars are built to the same regulations.

      As for specific power, how much better would the Viper be with DOHC, VVT, 4 valves per cylinder, and direct injection? Considering that it’s easier to tune power out of smaller cylinders, lets be conservative and halve the improvement of the Porsche. The Porsche makes 40 bhp/L more than the Viper. Hypothetically add modern features to the Viper engine and add 20 bhp/L. It now makes 933 bhp, up from 600. That’s just too much power; the car would be undrivable. Let’s shave off a few liters until we’re back to 600 bhp. It’s now 5.4 liters, making the same power as an 8.4-liter engine, with better fuel economy (not to be overlooked – especially on a race track).

      I don’t think it’s not an achievement to get on this unfaired, admittedly not-streamlined bike and max it out. It’s a great achievement for the rider, who is inarguably awesome and brave. I just don’t think the engine is worth changing my mind about aircooled, two-valve, pushrod, port-injection engines. We’ve surpassed these technologies with something better in every metric that counts, what’s the advantage here? If Harley made the same 45-degree V-twin with water jackets, 4-valve OHC heads, and direct injection, they could make twice the power with the same emissions equipment. That would mean this bike might break 200 mph on the flats. That’s so impressive it’s scary.

      If I took an S1000RR, set up as a factory-naked, onto the flats, and matched the Confederate’s performance, it wouldn’t surprise anyone. That I did it with half the displacement wouldn’t surprise anyone. The performance of the S is well-advertised and its success in competition is undeniable, it’s just a well-known bike now. I suppose the Confederate was an achievement worth note because it’s so uncommon for a big twin to do something like this, but what does that say about big twins?

      It’s about lighting your path with a $45 kerosene lantern or a $14 flashlight, if you want tradition, or you’re playing Gandalf for Halloween, a lantern looks the part, if you want something that fits in your pocket, doesn’t start with matches, and doesn’t have a fragile glass globe, you use a flashlight. Confederate buyers are looking the part, with an anachronistic machine, and paying more than three times the price for that privilege.

      Now, I don’t think any differently of someone who pulls up next to me in a Viper than I would of someone in a Porsche. They fill the same general subset of the population in my mind, auto enthusiasts. I share their passion, I’m glad they chose to buy that car instead of a luxury sedan or SUV for the same price. I lust after the performance of each car just the same. I want to know what it feels like to row through the gears with all that shove under my foot. If all other metrics were the same, though, if all sports cars looked the same, came in black, sounded the same, cost the same, I’d probably buy the car that reached the goal more elegantly, doing with 3.6 liters what it took another 8.4 to do. It’s not the same, though, and the burble of a V-twin isn’t the same as the whine of a straight-4. Is a different appearance worth a $31,000 premium? That’s like paying $273,000 for an $85,000 car because you look cooler in it.

      • first off, the street equivalent of these cars do not run equivalent lap times. the dodge viper ACR runs ~ 2 seconds a lap faster than a corvette Z06, and the Z06 will run ~ 2 seconds a lap faster than the 911 GT3 RS. these are big differences in lap times. so how do sanctioning bodies level the playing field? exactly like i said in my previous comment – engine air inlet restrictors and ballast weight. the HP gap between the 3 cars is closed up quite a bit, and the weight difference is relatively large because, while the porsche will never match the vipers top speed and acceleration, it will make up for it in the corners(and especially coming out of the corners with all that weight on the rear tires). the cars aren’t built to the same specification, each car has its own individual specifications that put all the cars on a similar performance level.
        and if you look at the AMA superbike race at homestead i referenced earlier, the suzuki had the top speed all day long on the EBR, but eslick reeled him in HARD in braking and took young on the inside of every corner. the bikes were equaled up in lap times by way of performance adjustments(weight, power, etc.), yet they still kept their individual advantages with the inline 4 showing it’s superior design/development advantage on the straight.

        your theoretical situation of adding all of these ‘modern’ features to the viper V10 has no basis in reality. it assumes that manufacturers are chasing specific output without a concern for cost, when they simply aren’t. they lay out a target performance level for their car, then determine a target HP level they need to hit to make that performance happen. then they’ll also consider other things such as fuel mileage. what i’m saying is that, if the SRT crew added all of those features to the viper V10, they wouldn’t have a 9xxHP engine, because they aren’t after a 9xxHP engine. they would still have a 6xx-7xxHP engine because that is their target. and it goes without saying that the absolutely MASSIVE engine in the viper is one of the biggest features of the car. i guarantee that chysler would lose buyers with a DOHC 5.4l viper that makes the same HP as a the pushrod 8.4l V10. buyers like the shock factor, the sheer ridiculousness of the viper.
        the 5.4l feature laden V10 producing the same HP as the 8.4l pushrod V10 also wouldn’t match the 8.4l in area under the curve and also torque. in equivalent aspiration, there is simply no replacement for displacement. assuming equivalent curb weights, the 8.4l V10 will put up better performance numbers, regardless of the fact that it’s producing the same peak HP as the 5.4l. compare the power distribution of your ‘standard’ inline 4 and your ‘standard’ V-twin, their’s something to be said for the fat HP and torque curves from idle to redline of the V-twin. if i may again reference the EBR vs suzuki at homestead-miami, the V-twin EBR simply came off the corners better than the suzuki I4 because of that fat power curve.
        on a side note, the viper V10 does have variable valve timing, using cam-in-cam technology. it isn’t used to create more peak HP, it’s used to create a fatter HP/torque curve.
        also, development costs need to be considered as well. that technologically advanced 5.4l V10 is a FAR more expensive engine than the ‘old tech’ 8.4l, for basically no performance advantage at all.
        you are off the mark as far as displacement and fuel economy is concerned. fuel economy has everything to do with engine mapping/tuning and almost nothing to do with displacement. example – chevrolet corvette Z06 equipped with the big ol’ 7.0l V8 gets 15 city – 24 highway – 18 combined MPG while the 3.8l flat-6 porsche 911 GT3 RS gets 14 city – 21 highway – 16 combined MPG.

        as far as the HP that the confederate is making is concerned, no one is considering that confederate doesn’t even have 1/10th the budget of BMW to develop an engine. it costs a LOT of money to push specific output limits – the higher you get the more money you have to spend to move it up that much further. BMW has a profitable car division and a profitable bike division with HIGH sales and MUCH higher profits year to year vs confederate. people will criticize confederate for not having higher specific output when they simply don’t have the money to push specific output.
        and, before you mention harley-davidson, it’s irrelevant. the ONLY people that complain about H-D’s low output engines are the same guys that would never own one if they produced higher HP/L. it’s haters, that’s all. if H-D’s customers began moving to BMW touring bikes because they have more efficient engines, you would see H-D put more cash into a technologically advanced engine. but their customers simply don’t care. and why should they? if 75HP in a 700lb bike is good enough for them, then it’s good enough. it’s like telling someone they should complain to their boss about their pay check then they are completely happy with their pay check.

        one more side note, you mention car prices at the bottom, the porsche 911 GT3 RS has an MSRP of $135,000, while the dodge viper ACR has an MSRP of $98,000. don’t forget that the dodge viper ACR is ~ 4 seconds faster on a given road course as well. so your porsche 911 GT3 RS may have a more technologically advanced engine that produces a higher specific output – but it costs ~ $40,000 more and is ~ 4 seconds slower on the track. is it worth it just to say your engine is more efficient? that, in a nutshell, is my entire point.

        enjoying this conversation BTW!

        • Reminds me of conversations I have about bicycles… Most people talk about weight, carbon this, deep wheels, expensive that blabber. When the 3 most important things are:
          – geometry that fits the rider.
          – geometry that is fast.
          – geometry that correspond to type of racing.
          A round tube old fashioned bike with perfect geometry will have to weigh a lot to be slower than the latest fashion superlight carbon thing…

          You thus see people turn up with woeful set-ups (very long head tubes on non 6 feet 11 riders are a dead give away) that are crap in the corners or/and waste energy by having a constant slight weave… But it looked good in the adverts and felt comfy in the shop.

          Due to this I have been trying to read about motorbike geometries and suspension dynamics. IC bikes go faster and are heavier, thus encounter problems more vividly, so I think one could find good useful info. And I found it very hard to get anything (outside of mr 46’s front grip woes).

          But if I need advice on how to make my HD louder or how to nitro boost my 4pot…

  17. It’s interesting to see a few individuals going to the trouble of commenting for no other purpose than to criticize someone’s accomplishment.

    • it’s an article about a bike with an air cooled pushrod V-twin – the haters ALWAYS have something negative to say.

      BTW, have you considered writing an article discussing specific output(HP/L), peak HP vs area under the curve, and displacement vs performance? as you may have noticed, this is a topic i’m VERY interested in(my argument specifically being that HP:lbs ratio of an engine is FAR more meaningful and important than the HP:L ratio), and i would love to hear your thoughts on this subject!
      thanks paul, i love this site and i love your topics and writing!

  18. Unfaired 172 mph on the salt is a tremendous accomplishment. I’ve walked on the salt at Bonneville (accidentally stumbled on the scene during Speed Week 1975 while on honeymoon; a stroke of luck) — and I’m amazed anything can get enough traction to go anywhere. Yes, it IS salt; I tasted it. My nonprofessional opinion, based on the difference between the salt and a paved surface, is that it would be twice as difficult to go really fast on the salt. Toss in the oppressive heat and blazing sun, and it’s one of the more inhospitable places on the planet. Competing in top-speed runs in that environment counts among the more difficult forms of motor racing. My hat’s off to the folks at Confederate for having the cojones to go to Bonneville at all, and then set a record.

    To anyone who has gone 150 on a paved road criticizing someone cracking 170 on the salt, I’ll add some physics — Rolling resistance increases with the square of the velocity. Aerodynamic drag increases with the cube of the velocity. The difference between 150 and 170 is enormous. An unfaired motorcycle has nearly the same aerodynamic drag as a sheet of plywood with the same frontal area. It takes a LOT of power to push that through the air. Then there are the problems of simply hanging on, steering the bike and staying upright on a surface that isn’t optimal. I’ll say it again; a tremendous accomplishment for ANY motorcycle!

    • let’s not forget that @ 4,500 ft elevation there isn’t a whole lotta air for resistance – then there really isn’t a whole lotta air for power neither.

      I’ve refrained from going to Bonneville because I’ve seen firsthand what a week on that salt does to your machines. No thanks. I’ve always supported other people’s efforts though…

      -todd

  20. One more thought — motorcycle speedometers are wildly optimistic. Except for Harley, which seems to have figured out how to make an accurate speedo, most of the others are lucky to be within five percent (how hard can it be?). Vintage English speedometers were notoriously wrong, with riders believing they topped the ton when actually being lucky to hit 90. Against roadside radars, my B50’s speedo reads about 93% even with a larger-than-stock rear tire.

    Bearing this in mind, anyone who says they rode 120 or 130 on the road should check their clocks.

  21. by your own logic, 132HP out of 2.1L is really really poor power creation. A high spec 2.0 motor in most cars makes 200hp&200lbft. this is weak sauce from an old tech engine without adequate engine cooling to make any more power.

    Your Porsche analogy loses traction at the gas pump where the Vette is very thirsty so you pay for its inefficiency, plus you have to consider that it’s volume has to be packaged in more space,w/ more cooling, leading to a larger aerodynamic footprint and a wider/longer vehicle.

    it might have the same breaking point on a circle, but there is a level of finesse and responsiveness you’re not able to account for in raw grip numbers.

    • The new Vette gets excellant fuel mileage, until you get into the big HP region at high RPM levels. Of course a high rev engine of any type gets poor mileage, oops, I guess that includes the little Porsche. It takes FUEL to make Horse Power no matter the design, and the Porsche weighs a tad MORE than the Vette to boot.

    • as tinman pointed out, you’re simply flat out wrong about your gas pump assertion. like i said above…
      chevrolet corvette Z06 equipped with the big ol’ 7.0l V8 gets 15 city – 24 highway – 18 combined MPG while the 3.8l flat-6 porsche 911 GT3 RS gets 14 city – 21 highway – 16 combined MPG.

      also, the 2013 ford mustang shelby GT500 has a supercharged 5.8l producing 662HP(umm, overkill much? no such thing!), while getting 15 city – 24 highway – 18 combined MPG(same as the 505HP 7.0l Z06 that weighs ~ 600lbs less). granted, it is a DOHC engine, but it does not have direct injection, variable cam/valve timing, dry sump oiling, etc. fuel economy has everything to do with engine mapping/tuning, and next to nothing to do with displacement. a 662HP supercharged 5.8l in a 3850lb car getting better fuel economy than a 450HP NA 3.8l in a 3000lb car – what is this world coming to?!

      • forgot to address your final comment. you’re right, the 911 GT3 RS will simply be a “better” car to drive due to the tremendous intangibles that porsche is so good at perfecting. how ever, those intangibles – ‘feel’, ‘responsiveness’, ‘weight’, ‘finesse’, etc. – have NOTHING to do with engine displacement or technological advancements.

        also, a larger displacement engine won’t require anymore cooling than a smaller displacement engine of equal HP. heat production is directly related to HP production, not engine displacement.
        also, the 3.8l flat 6 of the porsche is physically smaller than the 7.0l V8 of the Z06. however, they have very very little effect on the aerodynamics of these cars because of their placement in these cars. long story short, a chevrolet corvette has both a lower coefficient of drag(‘slipperiness’) and a smaller frontal area compared to the porsche 911.
        you should research your arguments instead of just running with assumptions. i can’t fault you for your assumptions, but they simply don’t hold any water.

  24. Apparently and regardless of all the argument of who’s got the biggest dick, these guys made one of these motors go faster than anybody else has…..Here’s the challenge, everybody starts with the same power making configuration and finds out who can make that configuration go the fastest on the same track. That’s why they have those classes at B’Ville, it’s a level playing field. To make any unfaired motorcycle with 132 HP go that fast is not easy. I don’t care how you’re making the power, half the motor or twice, hooking it up on the salt AND backing it up is a hell of a accomplishment.

  25. One horsepower per cubic inch? Why that is almost as good as a 1960’s Triumph Bonneville! Better watch out sportbikers!

  26. “Makes a person think those big V-Twins aren’t the slugs the inline four crowd makes them out to be.”

    They’re not slugs, they’re just optimized for a different use. Inline-fours are optimized for horsepower, and they have more horsepower-per-size than this. Any modern inline-four makes more horsepower with 1000cc of displacement than this does with more than double that. The Hellcat (like most V-twins) is optimized for torque: it makes about as much torque as a typical diesel car.

    Ducati has been racing big V-twins for years. Just not *this* big!

  27. Congrats, Confederate!

    These discussions always crack me up.
    The comments can always be summed up the same, “If you ain’t got a Jap inline 4 or a Porsche, you ain’t got SH*T”.
    Pretty pathetic.

    This bike clocked over 170 at Bonneville in the real world.
    Until you can do that, I’d suggest keeping the yaps shut.