On the road, the im prove ment is awesome. With a cold engine, flick on the ignition, pull out the choke, stab the go button and varooom. You ve been conditioned to expect strong vibration, but almost none shows up. Warm or cold, the Big Twin barks to life instantly every time, then quickly warms up with nary a stumble. The TC88B sounds like the Evo, but sure doesn t act like it.
Throttle response is immediate and progressive, sans any hint of hesitation or surging.
In fact, driveability from the carbureted bike rivals fuel injection. It never coughs or backfires or displays any indecorous habits that would embarrass you in good company. Both the torque and horsepower graphs read like textbook examples of how to design a great cruiser engine give those engineers a raise. At a mere 1,800 rpm there s already 66.6 pounds-feet of galloping torque, peaking at 3,400 revs with 74.6 pounds, then slowly tapering off to redline. Horsepower climbs seamlessly from idle to 61.7 peak at 5,400 rpm, shortly before it hits the rev limiter at 5,500.