Well that is cheeky! You can patent a design element like the yellow roof. Probably why Kodak won.
I worked for a forklift company that sued a Chinese company for selling forklifts copied from and painted like their machines. We won the suit and our lawyer even picked the color the Chinese firm had to use. Sort of baby puke green.
I thought it was a copyright attempt.
This is true. However, that noise switches from the release of pressure to the release of a vacuum at a certain throttle opening when coasting. Thereās a certain throttle opening sweet spot where an unmuffled four stroke engine is fairly quiet, if you open the throttle more, it gets louder, but it also gets louder if you close the throttle more. That quiet spot is the transition from pressure release to vacuum implosion noise. An engine doesnāt even need to burn fuel in order to have a loud exhaust. A truck driver using the Jake Brake for example. On two stroke engines, especially the ones where the bottom of the piston skirt controls the intake to the crankcase, the intake can make a surprisingly loud noise.
Not unlike the reason a firecracker makes noise when the pressure from the burning powder causes it burst through the the layers containing it.
A little digging shows you are correct. Conventional media doesnāt understand the difference and incorrectly calls it a patent in article after article.
There was a local woman that had a food kiosk at the mall food court. Her first name is Sony, and she called her asian food store Sonyās. Guess who sued her for using their name. I canāt imagine how anyone would assume her shop had anything to do with the electronics giant, but they made her change the name anyway.
We have customers that own the rights to colors. The paint companies will not sell anyone that pantone combination without their written approval. I believe it is also included in their trademark.
Not sure why, but I really like the harley exhaust beat. Kept reasonably subdued of course. There are idiots everywhere. One guy not far away, you can hear his bike several miles away. Ridiculous.
Harmonics are amazing. I took the mufflers off a BBC with a lumpy cam while doing some mods. The pipes terminated under the trunk area. It sounded amazing idling and could feel the thump in your chest standing nearby. It wasnāt obnoxious until you got on it. Took it to work and drove the aisles setting off car alarms blipping the throttleā¦the sidepipes on my only remaining vette sound great. Throaty tone but not loud. I also like the rap the newer mustangs makeā¦
A buddy put Flowmasters on his C4 Corvette. We joked that the mufflers were empty because it was so loud. It sounded great at idle. Sounded great at full throttle, too, but very loud. He was hard of hearing so he tolerated it for a while but eventually swapped for quieter mufflers.
Lay a firecracker on the ground. Bang. Put it in a tin can. Close the lid. Is it quieter? The sound is contained inside a box. Ok, the can will have an inlet and outlet so you get the idea.
If you put a pile of black powder on the ground and light it (I recommend a very long match, it goes up so fast that it is impossible to pull your hand away and your hands will reek of the stench of burnt hair, not to mention that it hurts) it makes a flash of fire but almost no sound. Give it a strong container to burst and it makes a loud boom.
I also didnāt talk about the backfire issue either, but I was just speaking to the source of the major noise major noise drives. There is also the noise peak at the resonance of the exhaust and tailpipe length with the engine speed.
Pipe resonance can build horsepower and torqueā¦ that is why headers work. They can also change the sound of the car. My Mustang came with a H pipe between the dual exhaust. I changed it to an X pipe with no other changes. It sounds different than the H.
A Chevy V8 racecar I had was equipped with tri-Y headers. Four 24 inch primary into 14 inch secondaries. Further fed another 14 inches into the other bank for a single exhaust capped off with a race muffler. It sounded a bit odd but it was worth 50 ft-lbs at the wheels on a dyno on a 305 V8 over a shorty four 12 inch pipes into one 24 inch long secondary into a single exhaust. The sound was very different (better, actually) with the shorty headers. Made a bit more top end hp but lost a lot of torque.
Harley has their unique sound because of engine design and spark timing. Cylinders are at a 45 degree angle. Cylinder fires, 315 degrees later second cylinder fires, 405 degrees later other cylinder fires, and so on. Look inside a timer or points cover on an old Harley and one would see a small breaker cam and a large breaker cam which keeps the spark going on that irregular firing pattern. Modern era uses electronic ignition but the end result is the same.
Main thing is it works; and nothing with an engine sounds better than an HD. An Indian or Brough Superior might be closeā¦maybe.
Like they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder @ok4450. Like the John Deere tractors Harleyās out of time āhit and missā was the result of back yard engineering that could have long ago been overcome resulting in a more balanced engine and exhaust note but somehow itās now part of the image and image is a big selling feature on hogs. Fifty-five years ago 650cc British bikes handled better and outperformed larger H-Ds Harleyās Model K was purposely designed to take on UK models but it just wasnāt enough. Of course the Japanese showed the world how to design models that targeted the divergent markets and so took over the US.
Iāve ridden a number of Japanese bikes and canāt say that I enjoyed any of them. Even a Gold Wing was downright uncomfortable.
One thing I noticed with Japanese bike riders is that sometimes they would challenge me to a race and then back down. One guy at a place where I worked finally got the bike of his dreams; a Kawasaki 900 Z1. All he did at work was talk about how fast it was and the HD I was riding was a garbage barge. True enough on that point as it was a 75 dresser loaded to the gills.
One day at lunch he was making as axx of himself and brought up racing again to show off in front of other guys. The conversation went like thisā¦
Me. OK I will race you BUT I get to pick the race.
Him. Fine, name it.
Me. For a 100 bucks?
Him. Sure.
We shake hands on the 100.
Me. Ok, from here to Dallas.
Him. But, but, butā¦ thatās 200 miles!
Me. No itās not. The race is there and back so itsā 400 miles.
Him. Butā¦butā¦thatās not fair.
Me. Why so? You agreed to anything.
Him. But that will take all day.
Me. Yes it will. So what?
Him. I canāt do that.
Me. Ok, then you owe me a 100 for backing down. Pay up. (Everyone laughing at himā¦)
He waffled a bit and I agreed to let him off the hook if he promised in front of everyone to keep his big mouth shut. He agreed and the following week wiped the bike out and broke a leg badly when he rammed a car on the way home from work.
He kept saying it was the car driverās fault which was true to some extent as she pulled a Caddy out in front of him. BUT, this was on a busy, rush hour stretch of road posted 35 and he was doing 65. Every Japanese bike rider that challenged me always backed down when I picked the race. From stoplight to stoplight? Not gonna happen; thatās not what Harleys are made for.
But yeah Iāve owned 3 Triumphs, one new BMW, and half a dozen Harleys and loved them all. One of the Triumphs was a 1950 model which had been beefed up to 820 CCs. A beast. The newer generation of Harleys from the Evo engine up are pretty much bulletproof.
A good friend of mine put 140k miles on one with not one issue. He finally yanked the top end off because he just knew it needed something. I checked jugs and heads over and they were all as new. The jugs still had the crosshatch in it which looked untouched.
Pardon the length. HDs get my adrenaline goingā¦
speaking of colors and patents . . .
Can I assume Caterpillar yellow and John Deere green are both patented . . . ?!
Theyāre both very distinguishable, as far as Iām concerned
Enjoyed your story, it reminds me of a friends thought that Kawasaki riders are the least likely to live long or something similar. They were fast.
Off road racing with street bikes through the desert to Dallas or street racing to Dallas? I would dismiss either offer.
A friend bought a new Z1 back in the day and let me ride it. Itās not my cup of tea. Itās like the Kawasaki Mach III; too twitchy for me and I prefer both wheels on the pavement at all times.
Regarding db4690ās comment about colors, John Deere heavy equipment is yellow. The JD dealers around here are called Yellowhouse for a reason.
Cat seems to have half a dozen shades with some tending towards gold but the yellow look pretty close if not exact.
All of the JD farm equipment is green for the most part. The same color as the wheelbarrow full of money it takes to buy them. Signing papers for a 600 grand combine would be hard to take.
Additional thought, is the change in pitch due to rpms due to the Doppler effect?