Little did I know that this perception was about to change. I had seen the dyna figures, up from a leisurely 59 kW and 135 Nm to a massively improved 95 kW and 210 Nm. I had read the technical details that explained how SAC Raging Bull had worked their tuning and technical magic on this machine.
Armed with this knowledge, my leathers and my Race Logic road test equipment it was time to put SAC Raging Bull and their Blackline to the test. The first assault on the senses starts when you punch the start button, this Harley barks into life and settles into a grumpy idle that promises much.
Trundle out onto the road, short shifting through the gears and the low speed rpm rideability of this bike impresses. Twist the throttle in anger when the road opens up and the full 95 kW is felt most, this Harley accelerates like no street friendly Harley I have ever ridden does. Back it off again and use the 210 Nm of torque to accelerate in any gear when you want to overtake with ease.
I came away from my road riding session very impressed and with a new respect for what can be achieved with a Harley Davidson if you really know what you are doing within a proper tuning workshop and not just by fitting some parts from a catalogue.
From here it was down to my test strip, which is an unused airfield runway for the actual recording of the test data numbers. It must be noted that I am a 6ft 2in rider that weighs in at 100 kg during my off week from the gym, and I also haven’t seen too many 65 kg Japanese superbike friendly riders on America’s most loved iron on my rides out with the hardcore Harley guys.
So taking this reality into account and without trying to kill the clutch and launching the bike from an unprepared and sticky drag strip surface without the benefit of doing a burnout on a nice soft drag ready tyre, I was very happy to see that I could do repeatable 0-100 km/h runs in the low 5 second bracket, along with quarter miles in the low 13 second bracket at around 170 km/h while getting to 200 km/h in just over 800m. The in gear times were just as good and represent what a good all round performance package should deliver.
These are speeds and times that are really quick and move this Harley into a completely different league when it comes to what you might have thought an everyday street Harley is capable of. To put this into performance perspective, your hog will see off the likes of BMW’s V8 M3 for long pieces of road.
SAC Raging Bull also put some effort on the cosmetic side of this ride, but the big story here is how well this bike now performs under all conditions. Your Harley can be upgraded in cost friendly stages too, from basic and mild to something quite wild. I can only tell you to take the time to talk to the guys at SAC Raging Bull and make a plan to ride their project bike before you spend a fortune elsewhere, you won’t be sorry you did so!
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