Why do cruiser bike engines rumble and sport bike engines howl?

Answer 1

RPM mostly. Have you heard a V8's engine in a street car? Low and rumbly, right? Listen to the same engines tuned for racing and they sound like angry hornets. Higher engine speeds sound whiney and buzzy, where low engine speeds rumble.

Same with motor bikes. The sound difference is because Harleys and other cruisers make power at the same engine speed that super sports idle at. Example: a HD Dyna Glide makes peak torque @ 3000 RPM. My sport bike makes peak torque @ 10,000 RPM. I removed my mufflers to re-paint them, and started up my bike out of morbid curiosity. An open header sport bike at idle sounds like a HD with loud pipes at cruise.

Just remember, horsepower = torque*rpm/5252, therefore, high performance engines/ High Revving engines will always be whiney.

Answer 2

Has to do with how the engines are configured from the production unit. Cruiser engines are tuned for, look ahead to it, cruising. pastime motorcycles are actually complete blown racing motorcycles with a headlight and turn alerts. The engines are different because the motorcycles are made for different using varieties. it must be unnecessary putting a pastime motorcycle kind engine in a cruiser by way of way maximum folk experience a cruiser. An engine with a 14,000 RPM pink line must be unnecessary in a bike the position the common cruiser rider does not take the engine a lot above 5,000 RPM. it must be unnecessary to construct a cruiser that does one hundred eighty MPH at the same time as your customary cruiser rider would not move a lot swifter than the speed reduce. Cruises are even different than traveling motorcycles as Cruisers are not rather setup for lengthy distance using. Cruiser riders want the stump pulling low end torque. they prefer the engine to be extra responsive at low RPM. The decrease horsepower large V-twin engine does a sturdy job at this. Like evaluating a Cadillac engine to a Ferrari engine.

Answer 3

Because the basic designs of the motors are different.
Cruisers have a V usually, which came from the old rotary aircraft motors. These were low rpm engines.
Sport bikes use an inline 4 or something very smooth, and made for high rpm.

Answer 4

Cruiser bikes are tuned for low engine power and torque and generally the mufflers are designed to be quieter than a sport bike. Sport bikes are all about horsepower and the engines wind much higher to make all that power, hence the howl/scream/wailing they make.

Answer 5

The "howling" is an expression of joy. The rumbling is just attitude. Trying to be bad-***.

Answer 6

It's a simple distinction of design.
Between the two, it's primarily the Exhaust System that finally controls the sound coming out.

Marketing and research have shown that specific types of sounds actually sell bikes.

Answer 7

2 cylinders vs 4 4 inch bore vs 2 inch my RC revs to 10 5 and it sounds great a large bore produces a diff. power pulse you can feel this at 25 feet from my can smaller bores do not make such a large power pulse and the cylinders fire closer together so there isn't such a big power pulse Thanks for the ten points

Answer 8

Cruisers top out at 5,000 RPM, sportbikes top out at 15,000 RPM. Lovely Italian twins have the sound everyone likes.

Answer 9

The number of cylinders make a large part of it, The muffler system is part of it also. My Honda 550-4 When I had the 4 into 2 muffler on it made it sound like a twin.(Jardine)

Answer 10

Because they are like people.
When some are told to go to work, they grumble and move.
The rest whine.
The harder they have to work, the more they whine.