So I've been obsessing over the Indian Scout for about half a year now with the full intent of buying one early next year. I've spent countless hours lurking the Indian Motorcycle forums online, familiarizing myself with their production and service issues, comparing their specifications to all of the competitor motorcycles in its class, and building up one hell of an Indian Scout eye candy folder on my computer in the process. Half a year into this obsession I'm still convinced that it's my dream bike and far exceeds 99% of its direct competitors in terms of performance and price point.
Today I learnt something pretty astounding about how Polaris has marketed their two Indian Scout models. Something that casts a bit of a dark cloud over Polaris (though I'm not necessarily surprised), but also something that may save me $1600 when I make my final decision in 2018.
In 2011 Polaris Industries acquired the Indian Motorcycle brand and began developing a new line of models to compete with Harley Davidson, Triumph, and the Japanese brands. The Indian Scout 60 was their first middleweight cruiser, designed to compete primarily against the Harley Davidson Iron 883 and the Harley Davidson Sportster 48, but they also needed a bike that would compete against the Harley Davidson Sportster 1200, so they developed the Scout 69. Both bikes were released in 2015 and both bikes smoked the competition in terms of engine performance, handling, and price point (though neither have come close to reaching the sales figures of Harley Davidson, no surprise there).
Competition aside, some confusion arose in the Indian customer base regarding the 22 horsepower difference between the Scout 60 and the Scout 69 when the only mechanical difference between the two bikes is a cylinder bore disparity of 134 cc. Even more confusion arose when Motorcycle Magazine did a
dyno comparison test between the two bikes, revealing an unusual similarity in torque and horsepower between the two bikes up to 6000 RPM, where the Scout 60's power drastically drops off. This led Motorcycle Magazine to speculate that Polaris must have programmed the Scout 60's ECU to reduce power at 6000 RPM, artificially producing the 22 horsepower difference between the models.
At the same time, DynoJet, a very popular aftermarket performance modding company, was performing dyno tests of their own and coming to the same conclusions, ultimately discovering that Polaris had added a line of code to intentionally prevent the throttle butterfly valve from fully opening beyond 6000 RPM, significantly decreasing the top end power of the bike. Knowing this, DynoJet went ahead and developed the Power Vision CX, an ECU tuning device that allows you to disable that restrictive code, improve fueling ratios (beyond factory EPA restrictions), modify spark timing for high octane fuel, raise the RPM limiter, raise the top speed limiter, and improve throttle performance with a simple ECU flash no more complicated than transferring files via USB, for $380! They released dyno test charts demonstrating that by removing these ECU restrictions they were able to bring the Scout 60 up to a performance level only 2 or 3 horsepower below that of the Scout 69, which is $2000 more than the Scout 60! This is a much more realistic disparity reflecting the 134 cc bore difference (and the higher compression ratio of the Scout 60).
So at the end of the day it looks like all Indian did to create the Scout 69 was over-bore the Scout 60 by 6mm, leaving the Scout 69 with less compression and a narrower torque curve, though a few more horsepower, and then artificially handicapped the Scout 60's ECU to produce a publicly marketable difference between the two models that justifies the added $2000 price tag. For those of us that have discovered this, it means we can save $1600 by purchasing a Scout 60 and re-flashing the ECU with DynoJet's $380 tuning device, effectively transforming it into a Scout 69 in 20 minutes.
I'm ****ing stoked, and if all of this holds true for another few months, I'll have an Indian Scout much sooner and for much less money than I had originally intended on spending.