liferider
Looking forward to retirement
Ok Wrench heads, need input!!!! 3 years ago I purchased a 1997 HD Ultra Classic with a 88 Evo motor. The Owner told me the bike had 40k miles on it but the motor ran rough. He wanted $3500.00 due to a tax problem he needed to go away. Well I figured for that price, worst case a new engine. So I took off from North West Louisiana to Orlando Florida and back nonstop. Got the bike back and sure enough the motor was for shit. Making bad noises. Put the bike on my bike stand and went to work pulling the engine. 1st thing I went into the right side of the engine. Pulled the outer cover, pulled the stock ignition and looked at the cam and pushrod area. Bingo! a 1/2 of a bearing race that was stamped rington. That was a cam bearing race for the Torrington cam bearing. But the cam bearing is still there. Ok a phone call is now due. I called the old owner and told him what I found and he owned up to having it fixed a few months earlier but thought Seminole HD had done a good job. So I pulled the heads, push rods, jugs, and then split the case to get to the back sump area housing the crank, plus pulled the oil pump and the oil reservor tank. After cleaning everything and removing all the metal parts, chips, and needle bearings. Installed the crank, sealed the case, installed the jugs and assembled the engine. I installed a new Torrington cam bearing, a new andrews 27 cam, and went in with a power commander ignition system,ajustable push rods, and bolted on a new 2 into 1 Thunder header. The bike runs Great! In the Black Hills last year while my BDM sat broken with a bad starter at the shop for 4 days the Ultra was fun to run around on. Not as muscular by far as the S&S 107 but it was fun. Now I am looking to increase horse power. But I still want reliability. A port & polish head job is roughly good for 10HP for $800.00. But in doing that I can jump to a larger cam also. A big bore kit will cost $999.99 and will jump it to a 106 cu in with 10.5-1 compression. Anymore ideas.
