Lightning Rod

LIGHTNING ROD

Turbo Connection electrifies a V-Rod

You've got to admire a guy who calls his website www.boostisgood.com. That’s “boost is good,” for those of you who have trouble with word games, and it’s an indication of Turbo Connection owner Brian Olson’s philosophy that what man made, man can make madder with a turbocharger.

For example, the 2005 Harley-Davidson V-Rod shown here. What started off as an ordinary two-wheeled street-rod has been transformed into an extraordinary one. The first production V-Rod this magazine tested (CW, November, 2001) made 107.9 horsepower and 73.7 foot-pounds of torque-good but not great numbers for a liquid-cooled, dohc, four-valve, 1130cc V-Twin, even if it was way better than anything previously seen from the alleged Motor Company. Well, rolled up onto CW’s in-house Dynojet dyno, this Turbo Connection V-Rod spun the drum to the tune of 160.6 hp and 112.8 ft.-lbs. Now that’s a motor we’d like to keep company with!

You may remember Turbo Connection as one of the suppliers in our article about the Lockhart-Phillips USA Triumph 955i (“Jumping Union Jack Flash,” CW, March,

2003). In business since 1992 developing systems for cars and snowmobiles, Olson got into bikes in 1997, specializing in latemodel Triumphs. His most recent development is a Rocket ill turbo that makes just shy of 200 horsepower and 200 footpounds of torque! Considering that Olson’s shop is located just down the road from Sturgis and the annual biker rally, it’s not surprising that he soon started dabbling in Harleys as well. Want a 150-horsepower Evo or Twin Cam? He’s your man. But he saw real promise in the VRod, which he says has a torque curve similar to that of his beloved Triumph Triples.

Centerpiece of his $5995 VRod kit is a self-lubricating, variable-vane ¡Boost (formerly Aerocharger) turbo that sits on the right side of the crankcase. Exhaust gases enter it through Turbo Connection’s own header pipes and exit though a SuperTrapp muffler that looks miles better than the stock siamesed silencers-that’s one way to rid your Rod of the shop-class welds on its muffler tips! Incoming air enters the turbo through an exposed K&N filter, and pressurized, heated air exits through an aluminum charge tube that mirrors the stock vertical water pipe. It then passes through an air-to-air intercooler before being ingested by the engine. Though it’s a long way from the turbo to the throttle bodies, the dreaded “turbo lag” is minimized by ¡Boost’s use of variable vanes, which let the turbine spin up quicker than a traditional one-piece part.

Olson says installation should take the average home mechanic a full day. And the hardest part? “Taking off the stock parts,” he laughs.

As for reliability, he claims that isn’t an issue: “The V-Rod’s bottom end is overbuilt. We’ve heard engineers say this engine can be built up to 140 horsepower normally aspirated, and we’re only running 6-8 psi of boost, so we’re not even close to stressing it.”

While the bolt-on Stage I kit consists solely of the aforementioned parts, Stage II will add high-compression pistons and more boost, and Stage III will feature a big-bore kit, which Olson is already working on.

“We’ve got a Screamin’ Eagle V-Rod now, which has a 1250cc engine and should be really fast,” he enthuses.

Like the man says, boost is good. -Brian Catterson

Want to see the Turbo Connection crew at Daytona? They’ll be hanging around the Triumph demo-ride truck outside the Speedway. Just look for the haze of tire smoke.