Harley's 2000 and 2450cc V-Twin Motorcycles?

Any new mega-displacement liquid-cooled Harley-Davidson motorcycle engine would incorporate some of the technology from the VRSC Rod series V-twin engines.

Is Harley about to join the displacement race? That topic has been buzzing around the internet with the discovery of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents mentioning a 2450cc V-twin engine. With Harley now running at the bottom of the big-twin displacement class, it's only a matter of time before Harley, which was once distinguished by having the largest motorcycle engines on the road, produces a bigger V-twin.

The EPA emissions document in question (scroll down to the last three pages, 8 through 10, of this PDF) shows testing results for liquid-cooled 2450cc and 2000cc Harley-Davidson V-twin engines. Power for the 2450cc version is listed as 98 kilowatts (131 horsepower) at 5000 rpm with 133 newton-meters (98 foot-pounds) of torque at 3500 rpm. The weight (presumably the GVWR) is listed at 1260 pounds. Since the fuel-tank material is listed as nylon, it would presumably be an under-seat style. The fuel-injected engine uses air injection and catalyst to reduce exhaust emissions.

However, don't get too excited yet. The title page (page 7) for this section is labeled as a "Hypothetical Application." There are other hints that the bike is also hypothetical. On the last page, the "Test Date" is listed as July 2007. The names of the bikes — Heritage Ultra Tail and Heritage Ultra Tail Special — sound more like jokes than anything Harley would bring to market, and a bike with a big, modern engine is unlikely to be called a Heritage. The designations — FLHTRSHCE and FLHTR-SE-9 — are those of current models, but an engine that different would likely be part of a new family, with new designations. The projected sales figures — 34,000 units a year — also seems slightly high for a bike that would certainly top $20,000. Finally, we doubt that any major vehicle manufacturer would permit such sensitive info to be released on a public website.

We expect to see larger Harley V-twins (and possibly other configurations) in the not-too-distant future (maybe even by the end of this month), but we aren't counting on this being one of them.

HTML version of EPA Document

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