Not just "Thinking About" Upgrading my Harley

That's how I've always been. Longevity is nice, but it doesn't do much good without traction. Whenever I've driven or owned vehicles with low traction tires it's driven me nuts since I drive in rain, snow, mud, hard acceleration, etc

On the mustang, I had tires that wouldn't hook up and tires that wouldn't spin, you needed to know which ones were back there. Most cars or bikes and people driving them will never push far enough that it matters, but when you do, the difference is noticable.

A set of Dayton's I found seemed to be the best compromise for the mustang and what I always bought once I found them.
 
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On the mustang, I had tires that wouldn't hook up and tires that wouldn't spin, you needed to know which ones were back there. Most cars or bikes and people driving them will never push far enough that it matters, but when you do, the difference is noticable.

A set of Dayton's I found seemed to be the best compromise for the mustang and what I always bought once I found them.

I've never had multiple sets of tires for the same vehicle, but yeah, that could get confusing.

A few cars I've owned/driven had tires that would spin far, far too easily. Like you said, most people will never push hard enough that it matters, but if you're more performance oriented and/or drive in worse weather conditions (I do both), that's where it matters.
 
Have you run the Pirelli Night Dragons before? Curious what your thoughts are.

No, just ran the OEMs, which I think were Dunlops. They had far more grip than the bike had lean angle, that's for sure.

I mostly ride my bike on sunny days, so I don't worry about traction quite so much. The Ted needs to really worry about traction for all those twisty roads out there in Kansas.

Micheal, you really need to get off campus sometime and go on a nice multi-day trip and enjoy some GOOD roads. There are a lot of fine back roads to explore. Southeast Ohio is chock full of twisty little roads, and then you can continue on into western WV and VA and SE KY. So many good roads...
 
No, just ran the OEMs, which I think were Dunlops. They had far more grip than the bike had lean angle, that's for sure.

Yeah, and to be fair I've had no problems with the stock Dunlops thus far including when I was leaned over enough to drag the foot boards. But we'll see what I think of these.

Micheal, you really need to get off campus sometime and go on a nice multi-day trip and enjoy some GOOD roads. There are a lot of fine back roads to explore. Southeast Ohio is chock full of twisty little roads, and then you can continue on into western WV and VA and SE KY. So many good roads...

Even where we are, not too far away in Missouri there are some nice roads. Obviously not as nice as in WV/VA/KY, but still nice.

Laurie and I would like to do a bike trip to Colorado and enjoy the mountain roads. Of course one of the problems with that is the all-day ride each direction to get there, so you're talking about a 5-day trip minimum to enjoy it.
 
Been there done that. There are roads in WV that put California to shame. Southeast Ohio mostly sucks, but WV is motorcycle country. I do kinda miss the big road trips (did one from San Diego to Oaxaca With back in the day). That said, most of my trips are by airplane. It is a better tool for travel. That said, with this corona crap running awhile I'm eyeing another big bike trip...

Micheal, you really need to get off campus sometime and go on a nice multi-day trip and enjoy some GOOD roads. There are a lot of fine back roads to explore. Southeast Ohio is chock full of twisty little roads, and then you can continue on into western WV and VA and SE KY. So many good roads...
 
Great call. I'd never, ever use expected life as a main reason to buy a tire. Even when I was buying eight drive tires for my Freightliner. Traction expectations always topped the list.

I never go cheap on tires, even the ten daughters car rides on expensive Michelins, because in their class they are at the top in dry traction and far better than the others in wet traction.
 
Been there done that. There are roads in WV that put California to shame. Southeast Ohio mostly sucks, but WV is motorcycle country. I do kinda miss the big road trips (did one from San Diego to Oaxaca With back in the day). That said, most of my trips are by airplane. It is a better tool for travel. That said, with this corona crap running awhile I'm eyeing another big bike trip...

Airplanes are definitely the best tools for travel we have at our disposal. But motorcycle trips are very memorable in their own ways if you have the time. Much more about the journey than the destination. With airplanes we enjoy the journey too, but it's in a different manner.

Of course, you know this.
 
I liked the Blue Ridge mountain area with a couple of passes on the Dragon. Pretty area and usually good weather. Or since I live in the Chicago area, I would ride around Lake Michigan once a year alone. It was a nice balance of things to see and nice places to shop, and then as I went further north, then it was deserted and small towns. I usually did it in 4 days.
Now with 4 days, I can get to the coast and relax for 2 days or any place in between in the Bo.
Both are good at what they do, bikes for seeing the country and planes for getting somewhere. Both seem to focus me and reset me, force me to not multitask.
 
Yeah, and to be fair I've had no problems with the stock Dunlops thus far including when I was leaned over enough to drag the foot boards. But we'll see what I think of these.



Even where we are, not too far away in Missouri there are some nice roads. Obviously not as nice as in WV/VA/KY, but still nice.

Laurie and I would like to do a bike trip to Colorado and enjoy the mountain roads. Of course one of the problems with that is the all-day ride each direction to get there, so you're talking about a 5-day trip minimum to enjoy it.
Far-Eastern/SE OK and most of AR have some good twisties as well. Not going to quite match Tail of the Dragon or anything, but ample Ozark mountain backroads and 2- lane highways to drag a knee on if you're so inclined.
 
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I don’t ride it much anymore, but my ride is a 1999 FXSTS. The springer front looks great, but it’s not nearly as nice a ride.
 
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I chatted with the dyno shop today (just over the border in Missouri) and have my incoming dyno run scheduled for next Thursday. I'm excited - it'll be really neat to get some good data on what my motorcycle is doing now as-is, and be good to see how much it changes.

Videos to come before too long, once schedule permits. Plus I'm going to have to move the Cobra around to make room for the Harley in the garage.
 
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Only motorcyle engine powered machine I've been in/on.
 
Can't complain about riding in Ks. Stay off the interstates and enjoy the scenery. Except the freaking giant grasshoppers in SW Kansas. they taste NASTY!
 
It's been a while since I've posted updates, mostly because I've been trying to keep things sync'd where the various posts and videos will be getting posted.

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A few weeks ago I took the Harley to a local dyno shop for the incoming dyno run. This was a lot of fun for me since I've never put anything on a chassis dyno before (all engine dynos) and so it was a new experience. This also gave me the opportunity to see how the motorcycle was performing. Although I never did a 100% stock dyno run (remember it has a "stage 1" upgrade on it), those numbers are pretty consistent.

We did three pulls, and at its peak made about 75-78 HP, which is more or less what you'd expect from a stage 1 tune. However the air/fuel ratios told a bigger story. Through most of the rev range, the AFRs were in the 15-16:1 range - significantly LOP and not what you want at full power. Towards the top of the RPM range they did get more in the 12-13:1 range, more what you'd want to see, but that appeared to be less a matter of the tune in the bike itself and more a matter of the bike's built-in power enrichment mode that adds fuel if you're at high power for an extended period of time.

The real takeaway: Although the bike was making good power at peak, it wasn't running correctly at all. In reality, I think that a dyno tune on the bike as it sat, while it wouldn't have increased peak power, would've made a big improvement in the rideability of it. I tended to find that cracking the throttle would produce an initial increase in power, and after that it felt like it made more noise but no more power. My guess is that was the fuel basically leaning out and so more volume (more airflow) but not much more power. If I'd done a dyno tune a while ago, I'm sure I would've been happier with it as-is... but I still would've wanted more power. :)

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And the videos are live!

My intro video (first time trying this "instant premiere" feature on YouTube - about 1 minute until it's playable):


And the compliment on the DynoJet channel:


Let me know what you all think I'm really happy with how they came out. :)

There will be some overlap in content, but the goal is to have them still be a bit different in format and content, so hopefully both remain interesting.
 
I am concerned. It took until the 6th word in the "about Ted" section to say you were a pilot.

I figured I should at least pretend this is about motorcycles and not aviation. ;)
 
The next part of the build is opening up the boxes of goodies, and seeing what was inside. The biggest first impression that I got with all of these packages from S&S was that they were all packaged extremely well, and the kits were all very complete and high quality. I know that sounds a bit odd to start off with, but it seems like so often in these days of Amazon Prime, we're used to seeing stuff thrown in a box hastily with some air bubbles thrown in the box... maybe. So when I see a setup where time and thought has actually been put into packaging and it looks professionally done, it's impressive and speaks positively about a company. I also noted how complete every part of the kit was. Other than rocker box gaskets that need to get replaced per the Harley manual when doing the big bore kit, everything else needed is included for all of the kits.

- S&S 110 cubic inch big bore Power Package

This is the meat and potatoes of the whole upgrade, and is a very inclusive kit. Now being most of the way done with the work on the project, the only item I found that's not included in it were the rocker box gaskets (upper and lower). The Harley service manual says to replace those gaskets, so I'm somewhat surprised that S&S didn't include them. They look like they could potentially be reusable though. I'm picking up another set of them at the Harley dealer this afternoon.

The cylinders and pistons all look high quality. This kit increases the bore to 4" (an extra 14 cubic inches) without boring out the crankcase by thinning out the cylinder wall, at least where the cylinders slide into the crankcase. The arrangement is essentially identical to aircraft engines, and while the end result is a thin wall for the bottom part that goes into the crankcase, it's pretty close in size to an aircraft cylinder. I'm actually surprised how thick the stock ones were.

Forged Carillo pistons are included as well with new wrist pins and C-clips. One note is that with this setup, you are supposed to make sure you let the engine warm up before you romp on it. Forged pistons have a different expansion rate than cast, and because of this the cold clearances are much bigger. On an air-cooled engine this becomes even more noticeable since you have bigger clearances to begin with. You really notice it on this kit - the pistons have a lot of clearance in the bore. It's the correct amount, but you can also see why you need to let things warm up - getting on it hard before the pistons have expanded would definitely cause undesirable forces.

One nice aspect of this kit is that it also replaces the oil pump and oil pump support plate, two known problem areas on these Harleys. The included products are made from aluminum forgings and feel to be of very high quality. And, of course, the cams also look good and increase the air flow

Like I said, the rocker box gaskets were the only items missing from the kit, and otherwise it's extremely complete.

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- El Dorado Mk45 muffler/header Package

Exhaust upgrades on a Harley are typically done for sound and aesthetics as much as performance. While the most popular upgrades are slip-ons to increase the volume, that doesn't increase the flow by much since it doesn't go back and the looks are generally similar to stock. But let's face it, it's a Harley and if it doesn't look good then the rest of superfluous.

What I really like with this package more than anything are the mufflers. The tips remind me of the exhaust from a fighter jet. While that's about as far removed from the reality of this motorcycle as one can get, the look still works really well. The large bore header pipes with a crossover look like they'll flow well too.

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- Chrome Stealth Teardrop Air Cleaner Kit

This is a classic look air cleaner that S&S has been producing for years, and has a large air filter, significantly larger than the stock unit and even the stage 1 upgraded unit that I had installed previously when I first got the motorcycle. Like all the other parts, this looks and feels high quality.

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Finishing this up in a second post since I could only put in 10 pictures per post. :)

- Harley Davidson Oil Cooler

I'm a big believer in oil coolers on air cooled engines because of the cooling effect oil has. When you start to push the horsepower on air-cooled engine that becomes especially important. S&S recommends an oil cooler if you live in a hot environment, and Kansas counts since our summers rarely have highs below 90.

Like most genuine Harley Davidson components and accessories, the quality and first impressions are good. A lot of people comment that genuine Harley parts are overpriced, I've tended to find that they're not cheap but you get what you pay for. This lines up with my expectations there. Fittings feel solid and high quality (this is an era where a lot of oil coolers skimp out), as is the heat exchanger itself, and the hoses. Although this could be installed without doing the major surgery I'm doing (or installed independently), it makes sense to do now at the same time. This is one area where it's easy to find and get cheap parts, but it's something that ultimately catches up with you later if you do (or at least it's caught up with me). I've had cheap fittings and hoses/oil coolers fail on me in the past. Then you go from something that was supposed to improve longevity to something that now may have damaged your engine.

One thing I really like about this oil cooler is that it looks factory, and I like the look on this motorcycle to be more or less factory. This oil cooler mounts low below the airflow path that would impact the cylinders, and has a chromed Harley bar-and-shield cover that will look good.

However this oil cooler has a funny story. Not surprisingly between COVID causing supply interruptions and many people wrenching at home, and the summer temperatures, oil coolers were in short supply. So it took a while to even find one. However once we found one and DynoJet sent it my way, FedEx had an oops. What was supposed to be an overnight shipment from Montana to Kansas took a detour... via... Taiwan.

Yeah. Taiwan. Not sure what happened there, and FedEx offered no explanation. But all the parts arrived in good condition. :)

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What I really like about all these parts is that it properly completes the whole package - having the core components to help the engine produce the most power, plus the supporting equipment to make sure it can breathe, oil system support to keep the engine well lubricated, and the oil cooler to keep the engine lasting a long time. One of the real benefits of looking at these components and assembling them is that you can see the positive points of what you're gaining besides horsepower, the parts that are invisible. In the case of
 
Did I miss what you are going to do for fuel? You have a great setup for air and compression, but any changes to the fuel part of it?
Oh, I am super jelly also..
 
Did I miss what you are going to do for fuel? You have a great setup for air and compression, but any changes to the fuel part of it?
Oh, I am super jelly also..

Well I’ve failed my sponsor I guess. :)

The bike will be receiving a DynoJet Power Vision tuner that’s will be receiving a full dyno tune on a DynoJet dyno.

It will run very well when done, of that I am 100% confident.
 
Gotta love how some people will start acting like absolute twits when presented with things they either don’t like, or simply don’t understand. It’s a sure sign of a tiny little closed mind and/or a gigantic ego of distinctly puckered, annular form.

The dyno results are interesting, though really not terribly surprising. Harley has had to resort to more and more drastic measures to meet EPA requirements while retaining air cooling. When I did my big bore kit and cams, I think the bike also benefited greatly from the dyno tuning and fuel mapping. I didn’t read every word so don’t know or remember what you’re doing for tuning, but I was very happy with the SERT that allowed directly tuning the ECU rather than the “let’s manipulate the feedback loop to do what we want” approach used by the Power Commander. But... I haven’t touched any of that stuff in probably ten years, I’m betting the state of the art has advanced since then.
 
Gotta love how some people will start acting like absolute twits when presented with things they either don’t like, or simply don’t understand. It’s a sure sign of a tiny little closed mind and/or a gigantic ego of distinctly puckered, annular form.

Well this is the internet. :)

The dyno results are interesting, though really not terribly surprising. Harley has had to resort to more and more drastic measures to meet EPA requirements while retaining air cooling. When I did my big bore kit and cams, I think the bike also benefited greatly from the dyno tuning and fuel mapping. I didn’t read every word so don’t know or remember what you’re doing for tuning, but I was very happy with the SERT that allowed directly tuning the ECU rather than the “let’s manipulate the feedback loop to do what we want” approach used by the Power Commander. But... I haven’t touched any of that stuff in probably ten years, I’m betting the state of the art has advanced since then.

I can’t speak to how the Power Commander works, but the Power Vision as I understand it will load the tuners to the ECU directly so it behaves properly like a factory tune will. I’ve never been a fan of piggyback computers on the whole just because of the lower amount of control you get, but they have a place and they can work well when used appropriately.

In the case of what I had on the bike previously, it was a piggyback computer that just had you doing some canned entries and it manipulated things from there. Really a bad setup and not one that I think really had the ability to work well. I’m sure that by 2009 Harley was deep in the realm of trying to make their engines meet emissions standards with sub-optimal (for the engine anyway) tunes, but a good tuner should be able to correct those.

Like I said, big takeaway from this was that there was a lot of room for improvement as the bike was, although not so much in the peak power department more so in the driveability department.
 
The Dynojet unboxing video is live!


I need to get mine up - I have been swamped recently and these videos are long. The next installment will be the actual work on the bike.
 
Now for the meat of the project - the work!

I ended up doing the work over the course of 3 separate days (and then a few clean-up bits on day 4), however those days were not back to back and I ended up doing the work over the total of a month or more.

The first day was most of the disassembly. I say "most of" because the only item that I didn't get disassembled ended up being the cam bearings (more on that in a bit).

Really, this is simple to work on. Within the first hour or two I had most of the basic support/motorcycle related disassembly done. Tank off, air cleaner off, saddle bags and related things off, exhaust off. All of this was very simple and straightforward.

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The base engine disassembly was also not difficult. One note I had was that Harley didn't seem to have much consistency with hardware. By that I mean there's use of allen heads, torx, and standard hex bolts. Although the work was easy I ended up needing a wide variety of basic tools to do the job. I think every drawer in my toolbox got opened at some point, and standard sets didn't necessarily do the job, at least not well. For example the left side allen head bolts for the intake manifold needed a particular size allen key to get to (a socket wouldn't have worked).

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Harley makes a number of special tools, but I didn't find I needed any of them except for the cam bearing tool. There's a special tool for locking the cam and crank gears, for instance, but as an alternate you can put the motorcycle in gear, hold the rear brake and use that when loosening and tightening the cam and crank gear bolts. Similarly the aforementioned allen head belts for the intake manifold, Harley makes a special tool for it but I was able to make the correct allen key work.

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The cam bearings are a known issue on these Harley engines and S&S includes a new set of cam bearings to install. However, to pull them you need a special tool which I didn't have. Which ended the first day's work. I also noted that the rocker box gaskets and breather gaskets were not included in the kit from S&S, so that necessitated a trip to the Harley dealer before I could put it back together.

The cam bearing tool I ended up having to order twice. The first one was falsely advertised as working for my engine (Harley has different cam bearing sizes, so you need the correct tool).The second time around got the right tool. Really with the correct tool, it's very simple. Tap the tool in, pull the bearing out. Put bearing on and push it in, and it will seat at the correct position when fully tightened and bottomed out.

Reassembly I was hoping to be a single day, but it stretched out over two days. There wasn't any real blocker that stopped me at the end of the first day, just that I knew I wasn't going to get the work completed and had reached a good stopping point.

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None of the assembly work is hard, but there is a lot to do and so taking your time to do it carefully and right is slow going. I had never filed piston rings before but it's a simple enough job to do. I ended up getting the ring clearances essentially in the middle of the tolerance band (they say to aim for the loose side if you're racing, which I'm not). Harley has interesting torque specs and sequences on basically everything, all called out in the manual. How necessary those are is a good question, but it seems like with an air cooled engine that has a lot of thermal gradients and changes that it makes sense. There are a lot of areas where you're supposed to make clearance measurements, but I didn't find any of them to be problematic or requiring of adjustment.

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By the end of day 2, the motorcycle was looking a lot more like a motorcycle again, but still needed the rockers installed and pushrods adjusted, exhaust on, top end fully reassembled.

S&S includes adjustable pushrods. What they don't tell you (at least not clearly to me) is that the adjustment part needs to be pointed down. I figured that out the hard way, you can guess how. :)

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But the adjustment of them is simple - get the ends touching the rocker shaft and the lifter and then another 4 turns tighter to compress the lifter. They say you're supposed to wait 30 minutes before adjusting the next one on that cylinder, but really that's not a big deal because by the time you're adjusting pushrods, you have a lot of other things to do in parallel. So I adjusted each pushrod and then continued work on some of the other clean-up items.

Although the manual says you're not supposed to turn the engine over using the crank or cam gears to find TDC, I personally find that method to work a lot better than putting the bike in 6th gear and rotating the rear tire.

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The oil cooler was the easiest part of the whole installation. Other than needing a 7/16" allen head (I used a spare 1/4-20 bolt in reverse for that), that didn't take any time at all, and is attractive but subtle. I'm glad to have that - I always felt that even stock in the Kansas heat the bike could've used an oil cooler. With the extra power, it'll need it even moreso.

To be honest, the hardest part with the whole thing was getting the exhaust Y-pipe on the engine once everything was torqued down and that was ready to assemble. S&S has the Y-pipe as a single piece to the collector, so with the way the exhaust ports are you have to pull and stretch the Y a bit to get it on. This is a lot harder to do as part of an install than a removal and I ended up messing up two exhaust gaskets in the process (fortunately I had a total of 4 included).

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At the end of day 3 I was ready for the exciting part - first start! The first attempt was a failure... because I forgot to hook up the fuel hose. Oops. Once I did that, it started right up and ran quite well. The system sounds great and the engine has no leaks and makes no funny noises, so it seems like I couldn't have screwed up too badly! I've left the shiny coverings for the exhaust off. For the dyno tune they'll need to drill holes and install rivnuts for the AFR readings, so the shiny parts will have to come off anyway. I can just deal with those afterwards.

The morning after I got first start done I finished up some clean-up items - just getting the seat on the bike, side panels on, and other bits so that it's 100% ready to go to the dyno. Tomorrow I'm going to call and schedule the dyno tune, hopefully either sometime this week or next week.

We're also planning on mixing some fun things in a few weeks - once the dyno tune is completed and the RV is together we're planning on trailering the bikes down to the Branson area for a weekend doing some fun motorcycling. That'll be a good break-in post dyno tune and should be a good opportunity to get the real feel of the improvements figured out.

Overall there is nothing about this job that's truly hard, that exhaust Y-pipe was really the hardest. However this is one of the jobs I've done that's used the highest quantity of tools I own for the job. It just needs a lot of different sizes and types. With the clearance between the frame and the cylinders I even had to keep switching back and forth between just a socket and a socket plus extension for torquing the cylinder heads down. I don't see a reason why someone inexperienced couldn't do this if you took the time to follow instructions and not rush things. However winter would definitely be a better time to do a job like this, because if things spread out time wise (which they tend to) you don't end up missing out on as much of the riding season.

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Next up: dyno tune! :)
 

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I just don't understand why manufacturers of vehicles can't seem to get some semblance of a standard going on bolt sizes. Obviously a lot of them have discovered that 10mm is a popular meeting ground, but I get annoyed having to go back and forth between metric and SAE sockets when working on the same system. If you started out using 5/16 bolts on the exhaust, stick with it unless space/load requires something different (and when it does, stick with SAE)!
 
I just don't understand why manufacturers of vehicles can't seem to get some semblance of a standard going on bolt sizes. Obviously a lot of them have discovered that 10mm is a popular meeting ground, but I get annoyed having to go back and forth between metric and SAE sockets when working on the same system. If you started out using 5/16 bolts on the exhaust, stick with it unless space/load requires something different (and when it does, stick with SAE)!

I should be clear that this motorcycle was all in standard as far as I could tell for wrench/socket sizes. But the use of sockets, wrenches of all types, allens, and torx was more than I've had on virtually any job.

I should also note that over the years, I've acquired a lot of tools that are sometimes haphazardly placed in my toolbox (post kids I've given up on having an organized toolbox) so that doesn't help. :)
 
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many from which to choose.

There is one more thing that does require a special tool on a Twin Cam. I have a set of oil pump alignment pins that are not official H-D tools, but if your oil pump is not correctly aligned (and it's easy to have it off) it won't scavenge oil properly. The symptoms are oil puking out through the air filter, and a noticeable lack of power at sustained high RPM. Mine had both of these issues when I bought it, and when I did my big bore kit and cams I fixed it. Never had any trouble after that.

They may have fixed this on newer engines, mine was an '03 TC88.
 
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many from which to choose.

There is one more thing that does require a special tool on a Twin Cam. I have a set of oil pump alignment pins that are not official H-D tools, but if your oil pump is not correctly aligned (and it's easy to have it off) it won't scavenge oil properly. The symptoms are oil puking out through the air filter, and a noticeable lack of power at sustained high RPM. Mine had both of these issues when I bought it, and when I did my big bore kit and cams I fixed it. Never had any trouble after that.

They may have fixed this on newer engines, mine was an '03 TC88.

That's interesting, they didn't mention that as an issue to pay attention to. There were some instructions regarding turning the engine over while torquing down the screws for the oil pump to make sure it is seated, I forget exactly how that was worded.
 
That's interesting, they didn't mention that as an issue to pay attention to. There were some instructions regarding turning the engine over while torquing down the screws for the oil pump to make sure it is seated, I forget exactly how that was worded.
Yeah, that's one way to do it... and is successful a good portion of the time. I'm working from 15 year old memory here, but from what I remember that procedure would give a good result MOST of the time, using the alignment pins would guarantee it. Anyway, if you find you have issues let me know, I'm pretty sure I still have those and a couple of other Twin Cam specific tools around.
 
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Part 1 of the wrenching is live! This is the DynoJet one, I haven't uploaded mine yet:

 
Tomorrow is dyno run day! :D

Going to load the motorcycle into the trailer today and plan to drop it off first thing in the morning.
 
And my channel's wrenching video (day 1). :)

 
Yesterday I picked up my Harley from the shop post-dyno tune. I'm very happy with the results. At the end of the day, the bike went from an incoming 77 HP and 88 lb-ft to 105 HP and 120 lb-ft, with a smooth power curve the whole way across the RPM range.

When I dropped the bike off, they said that if I didn't do a clutch that if it even survived the dyno (which it might not) that it wouldn't last long after that. I wish they'd pointed that out during the initial dyno run (he said it'd be a good idea, but not so emphatically) because then I would've done it, but at that point I didn't really have the time to do it myself, so I let them put a new and heavier clutch in. The labor on that wasn't much so it wasn't a big deal anyway, and I also let them put on the new tires that I'd bought as part of it.

One of the big notes on the dyno curve is noticing how smooth the curve is, when compared to the incoming curve which was very bumpy. This is due to the quality of the tune, and while the bike didn't exhibit any poor behavior in terms of it feeling jerky or the like before, there was a feeling that it didn't seem like it was making quite as much power as what it should be. Really, it was running far too lean before and the ignition timing was also not optimal.

The two big pieces of equipment that allowed for such a good tune were the DynoJet Power Vision and the DynoJet dyno itself. My previous setup on this motorcycle had a piggyback computer on it that allowed some level of enrichment, but essentially what that did was take the stock tune and just add some percentage to it across the board. That includes all of the flaws of the stock tune which was never intended for any kind of upgrade. With the Power Vision, you've got full access to the maps like the engineers at Harley had, with all the different levers to pull to make it run right.

Joe also had a couple of interesting points. The exhaust that DynoJet picked out for this isn't one he's ever seen before, largely because it's a 50-state legal exhaust with catalytic converters. However he said that in his determination (having done a lot of these motorcycles with this same kit), there's no significant difference in horsepower, but he did notice that the power output and behavior at lower RPM was a lot more consistent than many of these bikes are that have the loudest, highest-flow exhaust you can find. With the 2-into 1-into 2 exhaust, there's more than enough flow for the 105 HP this makes, and so a little extra restriction doesn't make a significant horsepower constraint, but does even out the exhaust flow and pulses at lower RPM which ultimately provides more consistent running. So while catalytic converters aren't generally popular with aftermarket upgrades, he was actually a fan of the end result.

Joe also said that with this setup I needed to 1) make sure to let it warm up before I got started and 2) make sure to not lug the engine, where the bigger displacement and extra torque at low RPM could cause some issues. He said that the engines really liked around 3k RPM, definitely didn't want to be putting much power in below 2k RPM. This is a bit different than I normally like to ride, but he's right that I should be changing my behavior with them a bit. The warming up is critical because of the forged pistons that need to

At this point, I haven't ridden the motorcycle. Because of how the schedule worked out I had to trailer the bike home because I couldn't get a ride over. But this weekend Laurie and I are trailering the motorcycles down to Branson and we intend to ride a bunch of the pretty roads in that area, including the "Arkansas Dragon". It'll be a great opportunity to see how the bike rides. Joe who did the dyno tune rode the bike and said it rides very well. I'll probably ride it up and down the road when I pull it out of the trailer (I'll need to do that if nothing else to make room for Laurie's bike to get loaded) just to make sure there's nothing glaring before we head down on our trip, and then have more details on the end result afterwards.

I'm excited! :)
 
I have the power vision on my bike. Its sorta amazing. Congrats on the old bike that will feel new!
 
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I have the power vision on my bike. Its sorta amazing. Congrats on the old bike that will feel new!

I just pulled the bike out of the trailer and took it down the block to turn around. Even with very little throttle and riding calmly, the difference is very obviously there. I can't wait to ride it this weekend more! :D
 
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