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Indian’s Super Hooligan – Strictly Subversive

SUPER HOOLIGAN Part 3

For an idea of what 2023 Australian Superbike champion Troy Herfoss expected to find awaiting him in contesting a catch-all category that doesn’t exist outside America, I was given the keys of Tyler O’Hara’s 2023 title-winning Indian FTR.  It was supposed to be just five laps of Southern California’s 17-turn 2.68mi/4.31km Chuckwalla Raceway on the edge of the Mojave Desert, where on a bitterly cold but sunny February day I was invited to be the only non-Yank in a small group of journos invited to sample the device. But I guess the flagman must have got distracted, since he forgot to wave me off until I’d done seven laps on the factory racer. Look, every little bit helps! 

That came after ten laps on a stock Indian FTR Sport, equipped with a flyscreen, a chin fairing, and a seat cowl, as well as 17-inch wheels front and rear rather than the 19/18-inch combo the FTR debuted with five years ago in 2019. This was the first time I’d ever ridden one of these dirt track-derived Indian V-twins on a tarmac racetrack, and besides providing ideal training wheels to learn Chuckwalla’s fast but featureless twists and turns, it also reminded me how much fun these Indians are to ride in something approaching anger, even if the lower-set pegs will readily drag in turns thanks to the good grip from the Dunlop tyres. 

But the sportier steering geometry provided by the smaller wheels helps provide added agility, helped by the high, wide handlebar, while the stock FTR’s relatively long 60in/1524mm wheelbase delivers good stability

The footrests will touch down because the FTR’s riding position is relatively spacious as befits an all-statures streetbike, but switching swiftly to the RSD-built S&S-tuned factory race version of the same bike revealed that the already shorter Tyler O’Hara likes a super close-coupled riding position which was quite cramped for me in measuring 180cm/5’10” tall. Plus the super-flat Pro Taper handlebar stipulated by O’Hara for his bike meant I had to reach forward to grasp it, thus lowering my torso for a more aerodynamic stance which nevertheless felt pretty uncomfortable.  

Ironically, the one thing I’d have liked to help me stay in place under acceleration would have been a bum pad at the rear of the long, flat, raised Saddlemen seat that could have stopped me having to hold on so tight to that low, flat handlebar under the pretty vivid acceleration delivered by the tuned 1203cc 60° V-twin motor.

For swapping the stock FTR Sport for the SH racer had meant going from a sporty street-legal café racer hotrod to a full race Battle of the Twins bike which, despite its nominal 125bhp power ceiling, would surely give a good account of itself locked in battle with many more potent twin-cylinder racers. 

As a 20-year veteran of ProTwins competition, this is my kind of motorcycle. The blueprinted engine is otherwise stock, apart from new race camshafts and a less restrictive airbox for better breathing at high rpm. But there’s a freer-flowing under-engine race exhaust concocted by RSD and S&S Cycle that’s seemingly devoid of any silencing properties other than those that deliver increased performance, resulting in a stirring cacophony of the sound of thunder, interspersed with relatively frequent pistol-cracking backfires on the overrun under braking into a turn. 

Some other Indian Super Hooligans were fitted with a much quieter Italian-made SC-Project pipe with a large titanium silencer, but not the test bike, which appears to be even skinnier and minimalist when you ride it without the bulk of a silencer.

Despite its tendency to run on into turns after you’ve closed the throttle, you soon come to terms with the backfiring, which is presumably caused by unburnt fuel in the combustion chamber on a motor jetted too rich for ambient desert conditions. But on the other side of a given turn the motor’s huge eagerness to rev made it seem unlikely that the crank hasn’t been lightened compared to the stock FTR Sport I’d just been riding. Which it hadn’t – but the free-breathing motor with a single injector per cylinder and twin 60mm Mikuni throttle bodies makes the most of the extra hit of top end power seemingly delivered via the race cams to broaden the strongest part of the powerband, and the way Lloydz Garage has reflashed the stock Polaris ECU has surely also helped with this. 

It was all sufficient to propel Jeremy McWilliams on an identical bike through the Daytona speed trap at 166mph/267km/h last year – some going for an unfaired 1203cc V-twin, and a strictly subversive turn of speed for a bike that was never conceived as being a road racer. 

Yet that hasn’t been achieved at the cost of sacrificing the Indian motor’s wide spread of torque, which made it a forgiving ride as I completed my Chuckwalla learning cycle. It pulled well from as low as 3,000revs before coming on strong at 7,000rpm in a punchy way which the standard FTR Sport hadn’t done nearly as emphatically, before hitting the soft-action rev-limiter at 9,500rpm. 

Keeping it revving that high was easily done via the stock six-speed gearbox whose ratios suit the bike well – although the two-way IRC race-pattern powershifter was a disappointment, with a harsh change that needed refinement, plus the actual lever itself had a sort of kink in it which prevented me getting at the pedal, so I had to shift gear on the kink. Easily fixed if it were my bike, I’m sure. But compared to its street-legal cousin, the Hooligan racer had a much more vivid pickup from a closed throttle, sending the front wheel in the air exiting Chuckwalla’s slower turns in second gear – all accompanied by the raucous racket from that under-motor exhaust.

In compliance with SHNC rules, Indian has retained the stock FTR’s main frame and swingarm plates, but has fitted a 75mm shorter RSD-designed Trac Dynamics chrome-moly swingarm to reduce the wheelbase to 1450mm in pursuit of more agile handling. Coupled with the unchanged stock 25.7-degree head angle with a special set of triple-clamps delivering what bike-builder Roland Sands confirmed was 121mm of trail, that nimble yet stable steering was aided by the reduced rotational inertia and unsprung mass of the twin lightweight Dymag UP7X forged aluminium wheels which the Super Hooligan racer carries. The rear one of these is a relatively narrow 5.50in item bearing a 180/60-17 Dunlop KR441 slick, so it’s not over-tyred at the rear, a common fault among those who think bigger is best, but don’t consider the increased drag a fatter rear tyre brings in its wake, reducing top speed and also making it harder to shift the bike from side to side. That absolutely wasn’t a problem with the Indian Hooligan, which made nifty work of Chuckwalla’s tighter turns, thanks partly to the handlebar which even in fully legal form delivered a welcome degree of leverage in changing direction. It’s even sweeter-steering and sharper-handling than the FTR Sport streetbike.

Having moved weight rearwards via the shorter swingarm and the larger RSD aluminium fuel cell extending rearwards under the seat after Tyler O’Hara ran out of gas at Daytona in 2022, Indian had made every effort to increase front end weight bias, from lengthening the cantilever Öhlins rear shock by 20mm to lifting the rider further up via the raised Saddlemen seat. This also provided extra clearance when cornering at extreme lean angles. But even with fully adjustable Öhlins front suspension that’s supposedly sourced from the FTR R Carbon version of the model – though I’m sure the fork legs had heavily modified full-race internals – there was pronounced front end chatter from the Indian racer at full lean in a couple of Chuckwalla’s faster turns.  

Unfortunately, with just seven laps allocated to me I couldn’t begin to try to resolve that, but for sure Messrs O’Hara and McWilliams didn’t race the bike like that – though I’m sure they didn’t have to cope with the backfire, either. It would have been nice to have more time to spend getting the fuelling and suspension set up ideally on a bike that by winning seven of the eight 2023 Super Hooligan championship rounds was amply demonstrated to be the class paragon.

No complaints about the Indian’s braking, though, and there was much less weight transfer than on the stock FTR Sport under the super stopping power provided by the Brembo brake package, via twin 320mm steel discs with four-piston Stylema M4 Monoblock radial calipers, a Corsa Corta 17mm master cylinder and custom Spiegler metal brake lines. 

Braking hard for the tight second-gear hillside chicane while leaned over to the left saw the Indian hold a tight line leading into the crest-top entry, and it was forgiving, too, without insisting on sitting up and heading for Mexico if I miscalculated my entry speed when cranked over for a fast fourth-gear sweeper, and touched the front brake lever to lose a little momentum. 

Weighing 429lb/196kg with oil/water, no fuel and bereft of street equipment, the Indian racer is about 90lb/40kg lighter than the FTR Sport, so there’s that much less to stop. But the way the Brembo package delivers such ferocious but usable stopping power is totally addictive – and effective.

As indeed is the whole motorcycle. Indian has delivered a contradiction in terms – a well-behaved Hooligan of a motorcycle, that’s a thrilling real-world ride. The 300 owners of the street-legal replicas of this racer have a treat in store.

Specification

Indian FTR Super Hooligan 


Engine: Liquid-cooled 60° V-twin four-stroke with chain-driven DOHC, four valves per cylinder and single gear-driven counter-balancer

Dimensions: 102 x 73.6mm

Capacity: 1203cc (73 ci)

Output (quoted): 125bhp at 8,250rpm 

Maximum torque: 87 ft-lb/120Nm of torque at 5,900rpm

Compression ratio: 12.5:1

Fuel/ignition system: Closed-loop EFI with stock Polaris ECU reflashed by Lloydz Garage, single injector per cylinder and 2 x 60mm Mikuni throttle bodies

Transmission: Six-speed with gear primary drive and multiplate oil-bath slipper clutch

Chassis: Tubular steel trellis frame using engine as fully-stressed chassis member

Front suspension: Fully adjustable 43mm Öhlins inverted telescopic fork with 120mm wheel travel

Rear suspension: Fabricated Trac Dynamics chrome-moly steel swingarm with fully adjustable Öhlins TTX cantilever shock with 120mm wheel travel

Head angle/trail: 25.7degrees with 121mm trail

Wheelbase: 1450 mm

Weight: 429 lb/196 kg with oil/water, no fuel

Front brakes:  2 x 320mm Brembo steel discs with four-piston Brembo Stylema M4 Monoblock radial calipers, Brembo Corsa Corta 17mm master cylinder and Spiegler metal brake lines

Rear brake: 1 x 10 in/254mm Brembo floating steel disc with two-piston Brembo caliper

Front wheel/tyre: 120/70-17 Dunlop KR448 slick on 3.50in Dymag UP7X forged aluminium wheel

Rear wheel/tyre: 180/60-17 Dunlop KR441 slick on 5.50in Dymag UP7X forged aluminium wheel

Top speed:  166 mph/267 km/h (Jeremy McWilliams – Daytona 2023)

Year of construction:  2022

Words by Alan Cathcart. Photos: Indian Motorcycle and Brian J. Nelson (MotoAmerica race action)

Indian’s Super Hooligan – Strictly Subversive | SuperBike