Dynoing the V-Rod was a much more straightforward process, since there was no option to run it off-turbo for a comparison. To give an idea, though, remember that a production V-Rod makes 110 hp and 74 ft.-lbs. of torque from the factory. Boosted by Bryce and company, however, the turbo V-Rod shows substantial improvement: 159.8 peak horsepower and 101 ft.-lbs. of torque. As predicted, though, the overhead-cam, liquid-cooled V-Rod's numbers come at much higher revs (horsepower peaks at 9000 rpm, torque peaks at 7250 rpm), which means that the V-Rod prefers to be revved more like a sportbike than lugged along as you would a conventional Harley-Davidson (or Kawasaki) cruiser. Apples and oranges, again.
What A DragSo there you have it-high revs and high horsepower or low revs and big torque-which would get us from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time? To answer this question definitively we turned to Bryce's star rider, Chip Ellis, to dial in some quick times. If you don't follow straight-line racing closely, you might not know that Ellis is one of the quickest wrists in the country. A former AMA/Prostar Rookie of the Year (2000) and Funny Bike (2002), Formula Bike (2003) and 600 SuperSport (2004) class champion, Ellis now busies himself pulling the trigger on Bryce's G-Squared Motorsports V-twin Buell NHRA Pro Stock bike. Today his job was to pull the trigger on V-twins of a different sort, however.
Just for comparison's sake, Ellis started on the Vulcan with an all-motor pass, keeping off the nitrous button, which resulted in a best pass of 12 seconds flat at 109.65 mph (all quarter-miles times are uncorrected). Agreeing that this was the best we'd see without juice, Ellis headed back out with the nitrous system armed. After burning the rear tire down to within a millimeter of its life, Ellis pulled off a picture-perfect launch and tripped the lights 11.423 seconds later, at 117.65 mph: .577 seconds quicker and 8 mph faster thanks to the shot of giggle gas. Good times.
Satisfied with his times on the Vulcan, Ellis sidled up to the warmed-up V-Rod next. Since there is no such thing as an on/off switch for a turbo, we can only report the boosted results on this bike-but they're good. After a few cursory warm-up passes to get used to the bike, Ellis threw down a 10.816-second pass at 125.53 mph, a healthy improvement of .494 seconds and 10.53 mph over a stock V-Rod (using previous sister publication Motorcyclist's V-Rod times for comparison). Note that the top-speed differences between the stock and boosted V-Rod are even bigger than those of the stock and juiced Vulcan-this is a good indication of just how much horsepower the turbo V-Rod makes compared to the Vulcan (159.8 compared to 129.03).
Ellis turned in nearly identical reaction times on each bike (.276 on the V-Rod versus .274 on the Vulcan), so we know the rider was not a factor when we compared the difference in times between the two bikes. The Vulcan was the easier of the two bikes to launch; the much larger rear tire and greater weight made tire slippage virtually a non-issue on the Vulcan, and allowed Ellis to feed the bike more throttle sooner. But even though the V-Rod required a defter touch with the clutch and throttle to get it out of the hole, its lighter overall weight ultimately proved advantageous. Remember, the Vulcan outweighs the V-Rod by a full 130 pounds-we'd have to toss a passenger on the back of the Harley to even that score. At the 60-foot mark the V-Rod had a razor-thin lead of .003 seconds (1.684 seconds versus 1.714), and by the 300-foot mark that advantage opened up to .253 seconds. At the 1000-foot mark the turbo V-Rod was .496 seconds ahead and at the finish line the ultimate difference was .607 seconds, with the G-Squared V-Rod taking the win.
Street LevelAfter the drag racing was completed, for one final comparison we took the two bikes out on the back roads of Cook County, Georgia, for a little spin. These were, after all, streetbikes, so we were curious to see how the turbo and nitrous compared on the open road, as typical riders would use them. In other words, let the roll-ons begin. We started with both bikes cruising side by side in top gear at 45 mph. On signal, both riders nailed the throttle (plus nitrous button on the Vulcan). In top gear the torquier Vulcan walked all over the V-Rod, working up a yawning, eight or 10 bike-length lead that would hold all the way up to around 115 mph, at which time the V-Rod's turbo would have had time to spool up and it would blow by the Vulcan with a 10-15 mph advantage. Fourth-gear roll-ons yielded a similar result except that the initial jump by the Vulcan was smaller due to the fact that the V-Rod was higher in the rev range for this test and closer to its power peak. Repeating this test in third gear (with the V-Rod this is the meat of its high-revving powerband), the turbo Harley would easily leave the lumbering Vulcan in its dust.
Both of these cruisers are fast and fun, but in very different ways. The nitrous Vulcan pounds you with torque and effortlessly leaps away from stoplights in a way that makes the rider feel invincible. The V-Rod, on the other hand, takes a tick to spool into its power, but then it's lights out to any and all cruising competition. Either bike is a riot in its own right, and definitely closer (in both spirit and numbers) to the power cruiser ideal. Which you prefer depends on whether you're an old-school, meat-and-potatoes muscle head who appreciates the nitrous-fed brutality of the big-inch Vulcan on juice, or are a more futuristic Mad Max type who prefers the more athletic and high-tech spirit of the turbo-charged V-Rod. Either way, your shaggy-haired neighbor's Civic doesn't stand a chance.