I sure hope so!!

 

We have sold many shotgunshoks for abs application and the majority of the users are satisfied with the ride. The breakout seems to be harder to firm up because of the heavy swing arm and wheel. If any of our customers with an abs equipped bike needs more ability to firm suspension, we will exchange for new design. JD

 

Interesting point, JD, on the extra weight of that fact Breakout rear end!

My tuner, Mike Lozano, who is a wrold class tuner by the way, made the same observation about my Breakout when tuning and dynoing it on his Dynojet, which is course an "inertia" type dyno, where heavy driveline components really hurt the apparent power displayed by the Dynojet. He said my heavy rear tire and Turbine wheel assembly were causing the dyno chart to read at least a handful of horses low, due to their high inertia.

However, I am surprised to hear that it takes a beefier air pressure to firm the suspension, since the heavy wheel, tire, and swingarm are NOT "lifted" by the air suspension - it's the REST of the bike that is being lifted.

However, here's something that COULD conceivably be contributing to this need for more psi: the rearward weight bias of the bike. The Breakpout IS rear-biased. I know because I had mine weighed on a set of race scales at AF1 Racing. here are the results:

Micah, the owner at AF1, weighed the Breakout personally:
320 front tire
407 rear tire
727 lb total
This is all with 3.5 gallons of gas in the tank plus the HD removable sissybar assembly. So, 736 lb with full tank & sissybar assy.

Note that 407 lb = 407/727 = 56% of the weight is on the rear.

Part of this rearward bias is due to the more radical rake of the front fork compared to many other hD models. That pushes the front wheel more forward, and thus has the effect of moving the center of gravity rearward. This gets much more pronounced when the rider gets on board, and dramatically more so with a passenger (Look at where the rider and the passenger each sit relative to the entire wheelbase).

I don't know how this compares to other Harley models.

Jim G

 

Jim I always love it when you bust out with the math guru numbers. thanks for putting it up. I'm sure I shaved a decent amount of weight with the PM wheels, ND tires and billet rear pulley. I can say that holding a pm rear rim on one hand, and the stock cast rear rim on the other, was a considerable felt difference in static weight.

 

I'm glad you got the chance to do that comaprison, raw wheel to raw wheel. Most of us only ever have the ONE rear wheel at a time, and virtually always, one of the wheels we'd like to compare weights on has some or all of the other wheel-mounted hardware on it (pulley, disk brake, tire, etc).

I keep a Postal scale with a 30 lb capacity around, specifically to weight parts whenever I think of it. A cheaper way to do this, but far less accurate, is to weigh yourself on a good quality bathroom scale and then weight yourself again a moment later with the item in your hands. It is far less accurate than the Postal scale, but it is also far better than having no weight data at all!

The weight of any rotating part is pretty significant, but the weight of a rear wheel is particularly significant because it affects not only rolling inertia for the whole bike (of which the wheel is a component), but also the inertia of the drivetrain. So, it has a greatly magnified effect. Then, to make things worse, it also has a large DIAMETER, which ups the inertia a whole lot more, for both the whoe vehicle AND the driveline. Drag racers hate the fact that their traction requirements necessitate a wide and heavy tire and therefore also a wide and heavier wheel.

Ever notice the tiny wheels used on the FRONT end of a dragster? The tiny wheels are ok on the FRONT of a DRAGSTER because a dragster does not expect to make any turns on a quarter mile run. But tiny front wheels would result in extremely poor cornering traction on a curvy race track or on the street, because there is just too little rubber on the ground.

Jim G

 

I purchased a 2013 breakout last week and have already been modifying the bike. It is a lot of fun to ride. I cannot keep a bike stock, there's no fun in that. Make it your own. I have enjoyed all the threads and pics on here. So I thought I would share my pic.

 

^ Welcome- nice clean ride, what are you planning to do on it next?

 

Thanks. I want to lower the rear, change the stock pegs out, possibly extended forward controls I am 6'3 and it is a little cramped with the stock pegs. Change out the head light for something brighter. Get it Dyno'd and the SERT installed. It has a Stage 1 download but needs more tuning with the exhaust and high flow. Thinking of changing the bars out, not sure to what yet but something a little more comfortable.

 

I thought the only Breakout version in 2013 was the CVO version. Not correct?

Jim G

 

Mine's a 2013 non CVO.


Michael