- Japanese inlines go vroom,
Italian V4s go vrr-vrr-vrr-vrr,
and Harley Davidsons go potato, potato, potato, potato.
Harley Davidson is one of the most recognizable brands
in the world.
They make motorcycles with an iconic style,
but they're heavy.
They got a distinguished sound, but they're unreliable.
They have 118 years of R and D under the belt,
but they're still pretty old fashioned.
But the thing about Harley Davidson
is they know how to survive in a changing world,
and their Revolution Max is a brand new engine,
packed with the latest technology.
It's aimed to make Harleys lighter, more refined,
more reliable, and baby, oh, baby,
more powerful than ever.
So today we're going to look at Harley's new engine,
get our potato, potato, potato, potato on,
and see if the Rev Max still has that iconic Harley-ness,
but with some new tech to boot.
Let's go.
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- Part of what makes Harley recognizably a Harley
is its big V-twin engine.
It first debuted all the way back in 1911,
and the latest is only their 10th V-twin design,
but the new 2021 Revolution Max engine,
or Rev Max for short, is unlike anything
that came before it.
The bikes featuring this engine have totally new designs
and make more power than any Harley to date.
But that new engine also
lacks a fundamental Harley characteristic,
and that could have some of the brands faithfuls saying,
"It doesn't shake your belly when you get on it?
"It doesn't make your hands numb after five minutes
"of riding?
"What a (beep)!" (laughs)
We all know it's what's inside that counts,
like a turducken.
So to understand what's so revolutionary about the Rev Max,
we need to start on the outside,
because the Rev Max requires a frame design
that's a bit unusual for Harley Davidson.
The Revolution Max has appeared in two bikes so far:
The Sportster S, which looks a bit like you'd expect,
and the Pan America, which doesn't.
That's because the Pan America is something totally new.
It's a heavyweight adventure bike,
jam packed with the latest technology
to take on the reigning ADV champion, the BMW GS.
It's got electronic traction control,
touchscreen, even active suspension,
pretty sick for an adventure bike.
Oh, this is me on an adventure,
Ah, I'm on an adventure, oh, adventuring.
While the Sportster S is a bit more low tech,
what it has in common with the Pan America
is that the whole bike is tied together by its motor.
Literally, unlike most Harley engines of the past,
the Rev Max is designed to be a stress frame member.
The motorcycle's frame, or or chassis,
is the structural load-bearing part of the bike,
which everything else attaches to.
Most Harley Davidsons use a cradle frame.
That's roughly a trapezoidal box constructed
by welding together metal tubes.
And the engine is supported inside that structure.
Cradle frames have been around
since the first motorized bicycles appeared
all way back in the 1860s.
And they're the most common type of motorcycle frame.
That's because they're strong, they're inexpensive,
and they're easy to produce.
And the same basic frame can be adapted
for lots of different engines and models.
Which also helps it make it be cheaper. (laughs)
Freakin' manufacturing 101.
But cradle frames do have some drawbacks,
especially when paired with a large heavy engine,
like the ones found in most Harleys.
The engine is bolted inside the frame,
but uses rubber mounting points to isolate the rider
from the engine's vibration.
Those rubber mounts mean the engine and frame
can move around independently of each other,
disturbing the bike's handling.
It's even been argued that this contributes
to an uncontrollable condition, nicknamed death wobble,
which can lead to something like this.
Unlike every other Harley currently on sale,
bikes featuring the Rev Max use the engine
as a stress frame member.
The front frame, mid frame, and the tail section
all bolt directly to the engine at different points.
So instead of it being supported by a separate frame,
the engine is a structural load bearing part of the frame.
Using the engine this way makes
for an overall lighter motorcycle,
and eliminates flecks that can lead to poor handling.
A stiffer chassis means more precise feel
and less weight means better acceleration, braking,
and fuel economy.
That's why many sport and sport touring bikes
use this frame design.
Someone might say
that this is a very un-Harley way of building a bike,
since all modern Harleys use the cradle frame,
but they actually used stress member engines
as far back as 1919 with their Model W.
So it's been done before, and if Harley did it before,
then it's not un-Harley like.
Because they already did it.
That defeats the un-Harley like position,
if you're claiming to take that position.
You know what position I like to take?
(bell dings)
Yeah. (laughs)
Unlike most Harley engines,
the Rev Max features liquid cooling,
dual overhead cams, and four valves per cylinder.
I say most Harley engine, because in 2001,
they debuted the first Revolution motor,
which had all of those, braking it was sick.
It was in the V-Rod.
I wanted a V-Rod because I had a 2003 Harley F150
and they had a 2003 Harley Davidson V-Rod,
which had a similar paint scheme.
And I was like, dude, I can have my Harley F150,
with a sick supercharged motor in it,
and I can have my sick Harley V-Rod in the back.
Just gobble up the ladies.
Because if I know one thing,
it's younger women love V-Rod motorcycles. (laughs)
The original Revolution was co-developed with Porsche
for an all new V-Rod,
a bike designed to attract new customers to the brand.
Sound familiar?
Here's a little turn in the story.
The V-Rod was well received by journalists in magazines,
but the reaction from fans wasn't so positive.
Although I think it's sick.
It was simply too different.
And many diehard fans didn't consider it a real Harley.
There were even reports of V-Rod owners
being denied admission to Harley owner clubs
and Harley dealers refusing to work on their bikes.
What, that's insane!
The bike is sick.
They built it with Porsche, the engine was, like, insane.
They stress tested that engine
for, like, a hundred hours nonstop or something.
If you want to know more, click at it up here.
I rode it up to speed about it way back in the day.
That engine's sick.
It's really, really awesome.
So maybe Harley should be worried about a repeat of that,
because the Rev Max is even less
like a typical Harley motor than the Revolution was.
It's easy to see how different the Rev Max is
with a simple spec for spec comparison.
For that, we picked the king of Harley engines,
the Screamin' Eagle. (screams)
131.
Okay, that's a street legal crate motor
based on their most advanced air cool design,
the Milwaukee-Eight.
There's a lot of numbers, there's a lot of animals.
There's a lot of towns.
All you got to know is that we're going to pick that one.
We're going to compare it against our beautiful Rev Max.
The Milwaukee-Eight, so-called because of its eight valves.
That's four valves per cylinder.
'Cause there's two cylinders.
And that's exactly what the Rev Max has.
But the similarities, they pretty much end right there.
The air cooled Screamin' Eagle is huge
with a total displacement of 2,147 CCs,
much larger than the liquid cooled Rev Max at 1250 CC.
That displacement difference explains their difference
in torque, 131 foot pounds in the Screamin' Eagle,
94 foot pounds in the Rev Max.
But horsepower is where things get interesting.
The Rev Max is the most powerful
road legal Harley Davidson engine ever built,
making 150 horse powers in the Pan America.
That Screamin' Eagle with nearly an extra liter
of displacement makes just 121 horsepower.
The reason the Rev Max makes so much more power,
because like its name suggests, it can rev.
Vroom!
That's something Harleys have never, ever, ever
really been known for, unless we're talking Buells,
but that's different.
Don't hit me up with the Buells, okay?
About to buy a Buell, about to buy 1190 RX.
You guys are going to be like,
"Yo, Jerry's got an American made Superbike?"
Yes, yes I did.
Now, Screamin' Eagle achieves peak power
around 5,600 RPM shortly before its red line.
But the Rev Max spins up to 9,500 RPM,
faster than any previous Harley.
The reason it can rev so high
is because nearly everything about the engine
was designed to do that.
We made an entire episode about what limits engine speed.
And I'm pretty sure Harley engineers watched that
before designing the Rev Max.
I don't want to say they 100% did,
but maybe, maybe one of them have seen it.
Unlike previous Harleys, it's got a short stroke,
just 2.83 inches.
And that reduces the inertia the engine has to overcome
to make the pistons change direction.
Combined with the large board, 4.13 inches,
and you've got an aggressive 13 to one compression ratio,
much higher than the Screamin' Eagle's 10.7 to one.
High compression lets an engine
extract the maximum energy from its fuel,
but it can also lead to detonation or not.
Hey, hey, it's me.
I'm Harley engine, I'm about to blow up.
(mimics explosion)
If you hear knock in a Harley engine,
just get your pocketbook out,
and then just go to your dealer and say,
"Just take my money, take my money."
But a byproduct of building an engine rev high
is that you incorporate features
that can also increase longevity, reliability,
and even fuel economy.
So to avoid knock, the Rev Max is the first Harley engine
to use a variable valve timing.
That's right, it's very similar to your Vtech Honda.
Now all the Honda boys watching perked up,
did you perk up a bit, Harley and Honda?
Variable valve timing retards ignition,
if detonation is detected, but it can also advance ignition
to optimize combustion for higher engine speeds.
The Rev Max uses two spark plugs per cylinder
to maximize the power of its combustion,
but that also uses fuel more efficiently.
And it's got forged, oil cooled pistons
to deal with the friction and heat of higher RPMs.
And those should also be more durable under daily use.
It's like manufacturers being able to build cars
that can go 200 miles an hour.
Yeah, you're not going to go 200 miles an hour.
But when you're at 70,
it's like, barely even a sweat for the car.
Same thing's going on with this engine.
And you can make it be real tough and big and strong
when you're just cruising.
It's like, frigging,
just like one warm up lap 'cross the old track.
Yeah, your boy was an athlete.
I used to run the 400 yard dash in a minute too. (laughs)
With all the differences in technology,
someone could say the Rev Max isn't a real Harley
because it revs too high, makes too much power,
and it's too durable, reliable and efficient.
But when you put it that way, it sounds really dumb.
What's inside the Rev Max is genuinely revolutionary
for Harley.
Yes, they've tried some of these things before
and that wasn't well received by some fans,
but this time, it all seems to add up
to an overall better engine.
And the thing is, it's not like this technology
is revolutionary for the rest of the engine world.
We've been doing this stuff for years.
And the fact that it took Harley that long
to implement this technology is kind of surprising.
What the heck were they doing?
Just appeasing all of their Harley biker boys,
just being like "Oh, no, we can't offend them."
They buy pins and leathers and T-shirts apparently,
that I can't buy,
but there may still be good reason to think the Rev Max
isn't a real Harley motor,
and it's actually something much less tangible,
but still uniquely Harley.
And it all stems from when the engine makes power,
not how it does.
Nearly every Harley V-twin before the Rev Max
had a few features in common.
The angle between the cylinders is 45 degrees
and the connecting rods share a single crank pin.
That shared crank pin means they're nearly impossible
to balance.
The narrow angle means the crank shaft
can't be counter weighted against vertical vibrations,
almost like a single cylinder engine,
but that vertical balancing turns into four apt oscillations
as a rotating counterweight swings back and forth.
That's the reason why Harleys are known for vibrations.
That narrow 45 degree angle has another consequence too.
Four stroke engines take two full rotations of the crank
or 720 degrees to complete the combustion cycle.
A 45 degree V-twin with a common crank pin
has an odd firing pattern.
Cylinder one fires, the crank rotates 315 degrees.
Cylinder two fires.
And then the crank has to rotate 405 degrees
before cylinder one can fire again.
That offset pattern of power strokes
is the key to the most distinctive Harley characteristic
of all, the sound.
The Harley sound is so tightly linked to the brand
that they even tried to trademark it.
They tried to trademark potato, potato, potato,
potato, potato, potato, potato.
Didn't work.
One reason why the previous Revolution motor
wasn't well received by Harley fans
is because they claimed it didn't sound like a Harley.
That was partially due
to its cylinder bank angle, 60 degrees.
The new Rev Max also has a 60 degree bank angle,
but unlike the previous Revolution
and its previous Harley V-twins, it has two crank pins.
Those offset the pistons by a further 30 degrees
for a firing separation of just 90 degrees.
This makes the Rev Max much easier to balance,
and they've claimed they've eliminated almost all vibration.
A vibration-less bike seems pretty un-Harley like.
A little poem I just came up with.
But because of the Rev Max's firing order,
the effect on sound is much more pronounced.
Cylinder one fires, the crank rotates 270 degrees,
cylinder two fires and then the crank has
to rotate 450 degrees before cylinder one fires again.
That's the same firing order you'd find
in Ducati's 90 degree L-twin,
and it makes for a distinctly un-Harley like sound.
Harley sounding like Ducatis?
Oh, why don't you just put marinara on my hot dog?
I just invented a new dish.
You can thank me later.
You can bet when diehard fans hear the new Rev Max,
the lack of a Harley rumble will make some of them say,
"That's not a real Harley."
But you simply can't please everyone.
And Harley knows that a company can't survive
by its heritage alone.
If they want to attract new buyers to the brand,
they have to innovate and run the risk
of alienating their longtime fans.
All comes down to your fan base,
Harley Davidson's fan base, whether you like it or not,
is dying off.
Also, cool kids on the block are making Harley sick again,
as well as wheelying Harleys.
So maybe they don't have to do this Rev Max engine stuff.
Maybe they can stick to their core
and get guys who race them.
They're racing Harleys now on road courses,
which is sick, doing all sorts of stuff.
Harley is coming back and maybe they don't need this stuff
to survive, who knows?
Only time will tell.
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- Let me know down in the comments below what you think.
You think this is a cool move for Harley?
Do you not care?
Do you not give a crap about Harley?
I think it's pretty cool,
I love when companies do new stuff,
although it's not really, let's be honest.
It's not that new.
It's just new for them, but still cool.
Thank you guys so much for watching this episode of "B2B".
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