Once again, gear ratio has nothing to do with ACTUAL horsepower. Engines work, transmissions --- transfer based on ratios or gear reduction/multipliation. My comment was based on someone on the thread saying the trans affected horsepower, it does not.
I fall a little into both camps on this one.
To your comment above.... We measure rear wheel horsepower for our bike readings. And "in my opinion" that has everything to do with how efficient any given drive system is over another drive system.
Good drive system, bad drive system, motor hp will remain the same throughout. Remember we're reading RWHP, not crank hp at the rear wheel.
Why is it then that a car engine can produce say 500 hp at the crank and on a chassis dyno only produce say 410 hp? The motor still has 500 hp but you can't read that, you only read the rear wheel hp with the loss of the drivetrain. That's why sticks are more efficient than automatics, less drag and moving parts.
Why do car guys look at the newer "old" 200-4R for better hp gains than say a 4L80E, which is the new version of the 400 but electronic and an O/D?
You are right, transmissions control how fast things get done. The only thing a motor or chassis dyno measures is torque. Hp is a formula based on torque x rpm, on other words how fast the work gets done. You can have tons of torque but still not have much hp, again torque x rpms.
So I have my SERK and have two pulls done, one in 6th and one in 5th, I'll see different rear wheel hp numbers for each.
Just like a car, there will be loss through a drive system. Most dyno readings I've seen here for the '07s and newer are usually done in 5th gear. 5th is still not 1:1, but it seems to be the preferred gear. I don't know what they do on older 5 speed transmissions, do they pull in 5th or drop to 4th? Again it should be a comparison between the same bike on the same dyno between its baseline pull and the finish tune pull; not my pull in Sturgis to someone's pull in NJ.
That being said though, I had mine dyno'd at Sturgis and after running a canned map from Power Commander for 6 month without any complaints, the dyno tune gained me smoother running bike, 9 rear wheel hp and also gained 6 mpg. My hp was only 89.6 and that's with V&H duals and V&H Ovals. I had the SE-AC as well as the PCMIII. I was a little let down from the low numbers compared to others here, but the bike ran better and I am a happy camper.
As I said very early on in this, this "is my opinion" only and I'm open to other ideas.
