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Original Article:
Victory Vegas 8-Ball Project: "Evil 8" Part 3

Please discuss the Motorcycle.com article Victory Vegas 8-Ball Project: "Evil 8" Part 3 in our Motorcycle Forums below. Use the reply button to let others know your comments or feedback on the article. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, along with your thoughts and personal opinions on the bikes and products we have tested.

12er

So $1k later you lost 5hp. Sounds about right.

pm9654

I said it before, and I'll say it again. There is something wrong here, for you to LOSE power with your mods. I've been around a ton of Victorys being tuned, and have NEVER seen one drop hp/torque with a stage I added.

Kevin_Duke

Yeah, that's what we thought, too, so we asked Vic's rep about it.

"Most of our accessory pipes are built for style rather than outright performance. Our engine configuration stock already offers more power than Harley – even our least expensive bike has more power than the CVO line-up.Depending on the pipe, and if it’s a Cal-spec or 40-spec, there is a rise in torque that is favorable for the cruiser guy – the high revving horsepower numbers are not as important as the grunt."

It's strange when a pipe, filter and ECU remap can't make more power than stock.

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"The trouble with the world is that the Stupid are c0cksure and the Intelligent are full of doubt." -Bertrand Russell

Morbo the Destroyer

I think there are 2 factors at work here:

1. Victory, like most builders, is getting very good at getting the most out of their engines out of the box.

2. Factory upgrades have to meet the same EPA and CARB regs that factory bikes do. If you went with "Track Use Only" upgrades, you'd probably get more power, but not meet emissions and sound regs.

Totally unrelated comment: shouldn't the pipes be black? You're kind of blowing the color scheme there.

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Its.......A FACT!

kp1600

I really liked this project, especially the suspension mods. Good job.

I have to agree that you should not have lost power with those mods. Over on the vmc site there are several posts of dyno charts from people making basicly the same mods. Your motor should be posting hp numbers in the mid 80's to 90 hp and over a 100 ftlbs of torque.

I had mine dynoed with a stage 1 but a 2 in 2 (slipons) it made 80 hp and 100 ftlbs. People thought it was down on power also, and it was. I had a tps adjustment done to mine, I didnt run it thru a dyno again but by the seat of the pants it felt like it really woke it up.

On this site Lloydz Motorworkz they show many graphs with differant combos. Look under dyno tunning. This also a great source The Victory Motorcycle Club

I really did enjoy this project, but there is somthing wrong with the hp numbers and it could just be somthing as minor as a tps adjustment.

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2011 Victory Cross Country

Kevin_Duke

You make some good points, but either set of pipes we tried won't meet EPA sound regs. Yeah, the chromed exhaust went against our theme, but we were tired of the Swept system and this was the only 2-1 we could get at the time.

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"The trouble with the world is that the Stupid are c0cksure and the Intelligent are full of doubt." -Bertrand Russell

pm9654

Guess dyno's aren't all the same either, nor the people who run the bikes on them. My '02 92CI Vic TCD posted 78 hp with it's stage I on it.

Nice story though, would like to see more of these.

Larry

The 92" motors had bigger valves, more aggressive cams, and no catalytic converters... emissions regs are a whole lot more strict now.

The best exhaust in the Victory accessory catalog is the slip-on mufflers.

100" Stage 1 w/slip-ons:

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mlynch001

"high revving . . ." LOL! My almost stock Small block Chevy revs faster than this AND makes more POWER AND TORQUE per cubic inch! Sorry guys, "high revving" and Victory or Harley Davidson are NOT to be used in the same sentence. WHAT is the point of SOHC and 4 valve heads on something that turns this slow? Harley has it right with their V-twin, 2 valves and push rods. The SOHC 4 valve Victory serves to make the engine taller than it needs to be and adds unnecessary complexity! Looking at the RPM and power numbers, there is NO other conclusion to be made. WHERE is the payoff or the necessity for the SOHC 4 Valve design? Any Engine designer needs to ask this question when they start, not just add a feature because it speaks of "performance".

Big deal, the Victory makes more power than the Harley! ANY 600 Supersport on the planet makes 40-50% more power on 1000cc less displacement. Cruiser manufacturers would all be better off NOT getting into bragging about POWER! 72 horsepower out of a 1600 + CC engine is PATHETIC! Spending $1000 and getting ZERO is less than Pathetic! This is the definition of "Waste of Money"!

Regardless of that, I would bet that the lack of power increase is more likely due to cam timing issues. Most "California" market motorcycles use special profile Exhaust cams as a part of the CARB compliance package. No matter what you do to the intake and exhaust systems, the cams are very likely to have this engine strangled.

Finally, why does an engine with 8.7:1 static compression ratio required Premium Fuel? This indicates poor combustion efficiency or other combustion chamber cooling problems. There are MANY Air cooled engines that run up to 10.0:1 compression (or more) on regular fuel. LOWERING compression ratio so you can run more advance to increase low end torque is a red flag to a tuner for poor combustion efficiency! Jacking a bunch of ignition lead into ANY engine says that the design has problems. Requiring Premium fuel for such a mildly tuned engine should say to someone that SOMETHING is inherently wrong. That is if the lack of improvement in power numbers did not say it to them already.