The following is taken from "Car Talk":

"By 'lugging,' we mean that the engine is struggling to accelerate. How would you know it's struggling? Because when you step on the gas to accelerate, it doesn't go faster. It might bog down, it might buck, it might lurch. And you might get noises from the engine, like pinging or knocking. If any of those things are happening, you're going too slowly to be in fifth gear, and you need to downshift."

Since it is nearly impossible to cause a modern [healthy] Harley engine to knock, ping or buck at 2000 RPM, the only possible way to have the engine struggle to accelrate is in top gear while pulling a trailer up a very steep incline. Otherwise, that bike is not going to have much trouble accelerating.

To answer your other questions: idle is typically between 950-1050 on my twin cam, and redline is 5500.

 

I agree. I routinely ran my Evo RK at 1800 rpms in high gear to maintain a given speed, although I never accelerated more than lightly from that RPM. The heads have never been removed from that bike and it's still running at 110k miles. Road & Track magazine raised an interesting point in their "Technical Correspondence" section a few years ago by mentioning that although operating at lower revs does increase the load on bearings, raising RPM's unnecessarily causes more friction, thus more wear, by making every component run faster. The result is more wear unless the engine is actually lugging, which is manifested by rough running. I've never sensed rough operation when running either my Evo or the new SG at 2k RPM's or even lower, and I'm convinced this engine speed is not "lugging," thus not causing any damage to the engine.

The magazine also used this as a reason not to use the engine for braking, citing that brake pads are cheaper than engine components, and you should use your brakes instead of the engine by downshifting to stop the vehicle.

 

Ever think of it like this, when you git under 2200 rpm's besides yer bearings yer making yer pistons tilt in the cylinders when you lug it. Got any idea what that does !

 

best thing to do guys is service your bike every 3000 miles keep the air pressure checked in your tires & ride it like you stole it!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Okay, I can just feel the RK guys laughing at us. I'm gonna ignore the tach from now on. Apparently the boogie monster lives in there and I don't wanna let him out.

 

Thanks...2000 is not too far from mid range I guess. When I drive one of my vehicles that are manual transmission I won't let them lug either. If they accelerate without straining it's ok. I have a friend that has one of them Yammeehaw 1600 twin bikes with the pushrods and it came with a rev limiter set at 4300(?). That doesn't seem like a wide range of revs to me but it gets the job done...

 

It's your bike, ride it like ya stole it........no wait, that would take you up over 2000 rpm.

CN