would need to know more like how many miles, exhaust, tuner, what is the bike Idle rpm ( normal operating temp), do you have a clutch chatter or excesive slipage, Stock vrods do have a eratic idle but should idle at 1200 rpm, also vrods do need a much higher rpm to take off because they do have more cluch slip to take off then a aircooled because it has a diffrent torque value,all of this is normal, vrods do not like to be ridden under 3000 rpm in stock form they will buck and surge ,these are considered normal issues with vrods untill the bike has been upgraded with a tuner that can be tuned by a good tuner then a vrod will operate much smoother and be able to be ridden in the 2500 rpm range in 2d gear with no surge or buck and also idle smoothly.in 2008 the vrod had a change to a slipper clutch the result is a much better lockup, So if you due need a new clutch I would do the slipper clutch upgrade lots of vrod guys have done this, It might be you are just riding it like a air cooled HD , remember this bike can to 90 mph in 2d gear, these bike is much happier to be ridden above 4000 rpm and really dont even give you good respnse untill your in the 5500 rpm range, as far as what this engine can handle and what to excpect as far a the life of your vrod , the factory does what is called a extreme heavy duty test to all there models , Just to give you an example a tc softail model will show signs of falure at about 200 hours of constant heavy duty testing 150 hrs for dyna models , The vrod at 500 hours of constent testing showed no sign of of failure so they just shut the test down. Yea its nice to go out crusing with your aircooled friends but its like a thorobred hanging out with a plowhorse dont get me wrong I love my majestic plowhorses I have ,but there somthing about my racehorse .
