The Balvenie Double Wood 12-year old single malt is my personal fave - about $55 per 750ml here. It's as good a scotch as any I've ever had. I like it better than the more expensive Balvenie 15-year-old Single Cask, or even the very expensive Balvenie 21-year-old Port Wood... and better than all the Glenlivets, Glenfiddichs, Gelmourangies, Glenmyasses, etc. It's just more enjoyable in my opinion - especially with a Hoyo de Monterrey Excaliber #1 Maduro.... it's like smoking chocolate!

The guy I work for loves that awful Laphroaig... purists love it, and it always gets high ratings... but I think it smells like a friggin' gas station toilet... nasty stuff.

 

I have a pretty stock and clean looking 85 FXRC. Nice bike. But the Twin cam engineering impresses me more. Better crankshaft with massive straight crankpin, better oil pump and scavenge system, better electrical, better pushrod geometry, more oiltight, stiffer semi-unit construction, plus I REALLY like the 96" six speed grunt. I don't ride the FXR very much any more. It IS the smoothest of all my HDs, however.
The Evo did save HD, no doubt about it. But, considering how primitive the Shovels were, it wasn't all that hard a job.
I thought that HD would go to a four cam design, like the sportster, but they save a fair amount of money by using the two chain driven cams.

 

Plainly a man of taste! But Laphroaig (congratulations for spelling it correctly!) has its supporters, including me! We are of course little more than a day's drive from the umpteen Scotch distilleries.

 

Yes, failing chain tensioners and sissored crankshafts catapulted Harley ahead of todays modern day marvel designs but I believe they have those un-noticable setbacks worked out.

 

I thought the Sportsters were Evolutions too? I have been told for years that they are almost bulletproof, and from what I have seen, they sure are tough.

 

The 4-cam arrangement of the Sportsters has its origins in the K engine, which was sidevalve, so I doubt if Harley considered using that set-up for the Evo successor. The main reason for going to the twin-cam set-up was to reduce noise for the environmental lot, hence the chain rather than gear drive.

 

Drink all the Laphroaig you want, Graham... you won't have any competition from me! YUCK!

Must be nice to live so close to all those Scotch distilleries though...

The MoCO had finally worked out every little kink in the Evo by 1998... and then started with a fresh set of brand NEW kinks with the TC88!

I suppose they called the new Sportster engine an "Evolution" in 1986 because it had the aluminum cylinders and heads, like the Evo Big Twin had - and the term "Evolution" was their big marketing buzzword back then. It probably served to tie the whole product line together in the customers' minds. But the Sportster Evo is a completely different engine from the Evo Big Twin.

From what I have read, The TC88 was all about keeping the EPA happy while getting more power for the big heavy bikes. It's more complex than the Evo Big Twin - but cleaner and quieter - at least the way the EPA measures things. The TC does have some good improvements over the Evo - beefier lower end, better pushrod geometry, etc.

However, the fairly large number of aftermarket engine manufacturers still making Evo-style high-performance engines would seem to cast considerable doubt on the reasons why the MoCo felt they needed to develop the TC88 instead of continuing to refine the by-then bulletproof late 90s Evolution big twin - but that's the decision they made back then. I suspect that by 1998 the MoCo needed a fresh new marketing pitch as well, and it was probably getting pretty difficult to get people to fork over $12,000 to $15,000 back then to buy a bike with a 14-year-old engine technology in the face of all the "modern" Asian imports with liquid cooling, shaft drive, etc.

<RANT>
Having said that, I will also say that I HATE working on my wife's Yamaha V-Star 1100! It has some of the weirdest engineering I've ever seen. I have take 15 pieces of crap off to even get TO the part I'm trying to work on. The entire airbox is a gigantic plastic thing under the tank that's just goofy!

When we bought it, I didn't realize that you had to take OFF the entire front exhaust to even change the oil, then then take off the big right side engine cover - which makes what should be a 15-minute job a 2-3 HOUR one. Ridiculous! The owners manual doesn't even tell you HOW to change the oil - it just says to take it to a dealer... REALLY! Well, a $200 Barons oil filter relocation kit made THAT nagging issue go away - now the oil filter is a little spin-on type out in front of the engine like it should have been all along... just like a Harley. Who would design an engine like that??? Thinly-veiled contempt for the customer...
</RANT>

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley-...olution_engine

This should tell you all you need to know about the Evo (as long as you don't own one, in which case there is A LOT more you need to know!)

Edit: Man, I didn't realize I was responding to an old thread! I didn't read the date and only read about the first 3 posts. I threw an Evo link into a Whisky discussion!

 

I pointed out the age of this old thread earlier - but who cares now? I'll go read that link.

In my mind Evos, whisky, cigars, and women (ALWAYS women!) go together very nicely!

 

http://www.discogs.com/Scotch-Evolution/release/184560

apparently there is a connection