Hi Guys, my father has just bought himself a beautiful black 2008 kawasaki VN vulcan 900 custom, after years of helping me with my hotrod (41 willys) i am now helping him with his vulcan, he has just got his first service (1000km's) and has got a set of "staggered" cobra exhuast pipes we got to put on,
what we would like to know is what time down the 1/4 mile will a stock '08 vulcan 900 custom pull (honest times), will the cobra pipes help, have heard they give a noticable acceleration increase. Do they? have also been told that the vuclan will have no trouble winding the speedo of the dial stock standard.

cheers
Willys  

hmmmm, so out of 135 "viewing's" no one can answer the question of, what will the current model VN 900 vulcan custom do down the quarter mile? interesting and disappointing.  

Maybe they're all like me...wondering why you'd go out and buy a brand new cruiser and then want to know what the 1/4 mile dragstrip times are!  Who cares how long it takes to go the first quarter mile if you're planning on 400 miles a day!  I think you bought the wrong bike for your implied intended usage.  

I KNEW THAT WOULD GET AN ANSWER OF SOME SORT (just a shame i had to "bait" the question to get a response)
obvioulsy people like to keep there knowledge to them self or maybe they just dont know and rather than say "i dont know"  they just go to ground and advoid saying anything cuase they dont want to admit they dont know,

as for the intended use.... it is for cruisin' (whats wrong with knowing what your bike will do?)   i know a 2008 vulcan 900 classic will pull around 13.8 but can not find any info on the custom, other than 54HP and 60.8 lb.-ft. @ 3,700 rpm

again, whats wrong with knowing the 1/4 times hey? my uncles got a 1999- 1340cc EVO engined fatboy  that can do 12.2's all day every day with out pushing it to the limits probably squeeze mid 11's out of it if he pushed it, best thing is its BIG, FAST (for its size)and FUN,
but sounds like these days, if you buy a cruiser then all you can do is cruise... and should not know what it can do down the 1/4.

anyway i guess we will find out for our self's but we wont keep it secret, i'll let ya's know,
P.S. just so you dont continue thinking I bought the wrong bike, it aint MY bike, its my fathers(read my first post) but i will be the rider at the strip.    

worrying about quarter mile times are what the saran-wrapped sport bikes are for

cruisers are when you care more about the ride than getting to your destination faster than a cager  

I used to own a 800 Vulcan. A really nice bike. As to your question, it is my understanding that unless you not only change the exhaust, but also change the air intake and reprogram the fuel
injection, the bike will run approximately the same as stock    

cool, some answers..
i know where everyone is coming from saying its a cruiser and dont worry about the 1/4 but... by the same token you'd have to know where we're coming from (like my 41, its a street cruiser that pulls 12.3's, just cause it dose a 12.3 dont mean i am going to do it every chance i get on the street, same with the bikes)

any way, we will be changing throtle bodies fuel 'chip' and all that biz abit later, got to get it sounding "the part" first, hence the Cobra pipes.
but we wanna know what the off the shelf times are so we have something to work with and can convert the estimated power and torque increases in to 1/4 mile time estimates, we aint after a pocket rocket's 10sec 1/4 performnace else we would have bought an R1 and worked on that, we are after a respectable streetable time, somewhere in the 12's  

Man- I wish I could remember where I saw the pipe comparo recently on the Vulcan 900. There was no 1/4 mile comparo, but a dyno test matching several popular pipes. I was surprised to learn that the dyno doesn't particularly like "drag" pipes. The ones that produced the best overall torque AND horsepower curves were the Roadhouse 2:1 pipes. I thought they sounded better too: more of a rumble and less of the "splatt" sound that I really detest in a bike.

As for your original question re 1/4 mile times, nobody's gonna be able to give you the same answers, so I'm guessing people who know that aren't bothering to try. 1/4 mile ets are the LEAST reliable predictor of performance! Allow me to illustrate:

If you ride better than I do, you're likely going to turn in better ets than I do, even if my bike makes more power and sounds like a rhino with explosive bloody diarrhea. If we ride equally well, but I'm taller or wider than you, I make more wind resistance (more drag) but your bearings are better lubed than mine(less friction,) you wax your helmet (less friction) but wear a tattered jacket (more drag) my rear tire grips better, your front tire  is underinflated, I miss a shift, you hesitate off the line, I run in a headwind, you run in a tailwind, I sit up sooner, your throttle cable sticks... NOW which one of us wins? Any of these tiny little elements can make a difference in a quarter mile. So 13.8s or 12.2s can -and often DO- come down to details we can't predict.

I learned this with a Roadrunner drag car I built years ago. Some days I'd turn in 10.24s @ 136 mph. Some days it was 11.15s at 124.  Some days my buddy would drive it faster and better than I did; other days I outdid him by a little. We thought for a long time that the car was just inconsistent, or that we were just inexperienced drivers (which we were!) but eventually grew up and realized that there's ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to exactly duplicate the same results run after run in 1320 feet. We ended up having a lot more fun with the car after we got a little less obsessed with "hitting that 10.2 again." and concentrated on doing the best we could with what we had to work with.

I just bought a Vulcan 900 Custom too. I've cracked it open a few times, and it pulls strong enough for me. My gut, based on a fair amount of experience on the drag strip, is that it's doing somewhere in the mid 13s. I also anticipate it'll get quicker as I become more comfortable and confident on the bike. So yeah. There you go. That's a "HARD TIME". A Vulcan 900 custom will do 13.48 in the quarter mile.  It'll also do 12.6, and probably 12.23 as well. Just find the right rider in the right helmet & the right jacket, on the right track, on the right day, with the right wind, right humidity, right experience, right tires, right oil, right gas, right temperature, right coolant, right form... and any of these times could be yours!  

Hope that answered your question. I fear I'd have bored you senseless if I got into real minute detail...
Happy riding. Hope you find the fun!
Mark  

WOW Mark
 Thanks, I just bought my 08' Classic LT 9 days ago and am more educated than my dealer! Speaking of which, everything is stock on my bike with the exception of the Vista cruise I had them put on. My question is this: I do want to put the Cobra pipes on in the near future, BUT my dealer say's I will NOT NEED a power commander to enhance (or set) my fuel mixture. I have heard (and read) different perspectives on this issue.Is this true???
I realize I will lose a few MPG with the louder pipes, but hey, it's all about sound huh?

Thanks in advance!   JR  

That's funny, cuz MY dealer says that you DO need a fuel processor of some type with pipes (they use and recommend the Cobra FI2000r)  I've also read that you do NOT need one with pipes only.  However, if you change the intake to a BAK, Thunder, or something like that you will most definitely need the processor.  

Thanks.... There claim was that the Cobra pipes still had baffles and they've seen a need for the power commander. ALSO, they are really hitting me hard on this so-called "First Service", they claim they check every nut & bolt for safety, change the oil/filter and want to charge me $100. I'm no professional, but I do service all of our other vehicles, seems like a money scam to me??  Thoughts???  

Correction: The dealer DOES NOT see a need for a Power Commander.  

Willys, I am with you on the drag, I am an avid racer and a 12.5 quarter is the best I could do, but that is with a dragster exhaust, hypercharger, and powercommander. Stock best 14.1. Mile per hour ranged from 115 on a kill tune and good 60ft to a less than exciting 90 on stock components. I am in the works of making mine lighter with carbon fiber components i.e. fenders, covers, shields, and working on a carbon gas tank with internal bladder.  

Are you nuts, that bike's not made 4 the qtr it's a mid size cruiser.  

As DocTkd said, the exhaust isn't the only thing that restricts the engine's ability to breathe. Kawasaki makes all their V-Twin cruisers with restrictive intakes too, so you have to open up the airbox also.

That said, the only VN900 I've ridden was stock with the windshield removed. I needed to accelerate up a short ramp from a stop sign, to merge into traffic on the interstate. Accelerating uphill from a standstill, the bike easily got up to 85mph so a quick tap of the brakes matched speeds to merge. I didn't bother shifting up from 3rd gear until after I merged. I doubt if it was a full quarter mile, but I didn't bother to measure it. I ran away from the guy on the VN1500, who was trying to keep up with me, but he caught up again, once he got on the interstate :-)

If you look around at mtorcycle events, for one that takes place at a small dragstrip. I'm sure you'll find them organizing "run what you brung" bracket racing. As long as it isn't an all Harley event, you'll see just what the VN900 and many other cruisers can do. I used to go to lots of those small events across the south and there was always a wide of variety of stock and modified bikes running in drags, dirt ovals and mud. Watching street cruisers racing in the mud is hilarious, even if you're sober :-)

regards,
Joe