Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

over a stock FL motor. Enough said. We phoned Harley-Davjdson and ordered the stuff. We would be remiss if we did not note that all the Screamin' Eagle parts are intended for racing use only - not for the street, something that folks in Milwaukee made very clear to us before they shipped the parts for our buildup and subsequent dyno testing. With parts in hand, we then got with Ron Bartels, who hooked us up with one of his special projects-type dudes, Dave (Above) The cylinder heads are ratorqued to Herley-Davldson specs, which call for torquing to 30 ft.-Ibs. and then adding a quarter tum to each head bolt. Rivera. The 33-year-old service technician has been spinning wrenched at Bartels' for seven ¥ears. When he isn't building up a stroker motor or putting the finishing touches on some radical, Bartels-built pro street or custom, then he busies himself by preparing some quite successful Harley-powered dragsters and land-speed bikes - if the slew of first-place trophies that reside on his workbench are any indication. Any spare time is spent aboard his 89-inch .FXR while cruising with his friends in the Southern California-based Mongols M.e. Rivera knows Harleys and horsepower. Both Rivera and Ron Bartels were a bit skeptical that we would actually see our projected 75 hp with the parts we had procured and more than once they tried to sell us on a sure thing in the form of our parts plus their Bartels' "street port and mill" head work, which they say would have given us an additional 10-15 hp. We remained adamant that the bike not be permanently altered in any way, but if it had been ours - oh, lordy. The first step was to head into Bartels' ultraclean Dynojet dyno room for base~ line testing, where our Bad Boy delivered a true-ta-form 45.1 h.p and 58 ft.-Ibs. of torque at 5200 rpm. From that point we went on to the teardown and buildup P......... procedure as you see it here, which took just about 11 hours from start to finish. Once completed, we fired the Bad Boy up, and right away we knew we were going to see an improvement; the telltale exhaust note blared a rump-rump-rump that could not be ignored. Back on the dyno, with only minor fidding, we nailed down a reading of 74.7 hp and 80 £lAbs. of torque at the same rpm! Furthermore, the machine was now a true joy to ride. As the second dyno graph clearly shows, the bike pulled much harder everywhere in th.e powerband, which eliminated the need to constant!y row the gearbox in order to keep the engine pulling. The only real clues that the machine was hotter than stock were the loud bark emitting from the pipes and the tick-lick-tick of the solid cam. The extra exhaust noise was easily quelled by short-shifting the engine where necessary, the annoying tick an , unavoidable tradeoff in the search for performance. We'll take it. As far as we were concerned, the mission was a success, and it proved two things: 1) The people at Harley-Davidson do know how to design parts that will make their own engines run hard, and 2) it doesn't take that much money or time to do it, especially if you're willing or able to do the work yourself. l:N PrIce Da.alpHan ~.~~.?~_ ~-~.!.~!!?.~! ~~~:.~ ~~~-~~_!:!~:~-~-~.~ 3.~~.~£:~~ ~~~_~~.~~.~_~E!_ ~.?~~!?~?~ ~.i!':..~!!:.!ll!)~ ..~~~.~ _ ~~~.:~~_._ ~.i!':..~!!:.!~.~~.~ Labor 1 t hours @ $57 per hour _ ~.~;~_ . ~:~.~ . ~?;~.~ . ~.~.~.~:~ . ~.~.~.~;!?Q . $627.00 T-. _ .t3C!8-85 Hartey.o.vhl. all Inc. 3700 W. Juneau Ave.. Milwaukee, WI 53201 4 t 4/342·4680 ......... ~ 4141 Uncoln Blvd. Marina Del Ray, CA 90292 310/823·1112 (Abova) Rivera adjusted the new pushrods by rotating the rear wheel until each rod was off the fat part of the cam lobe and than tightening each to a "0.002 roll" which meant that the pushrods could spin freely. but with no free play from end to end. (Left) Carburetor adluatments came next. We drilled out the stock 142 main lat to a 147. To ensure maximum power on the dyno, _ also drilled out the soft plug over the air screw and set It to one and a half turns out. That was all the modification necessary. (Above) Screamln' Eagle air cleaner and. breather kits were simple swaps, yet vital components In the search for more horsepower. Here Rivera mounts the alrcleaner backing plate to the carburetor. (Left) Our Screamln' Eagle module of choice was an XL version, and It posed one of the few problems In the buildup as the unit we got was wired with the wrong connector. Bartels' carne to the rescue by swapping us for the correct unit. (Above) Almost done: The finished engine, complete with Screamln' Eagle sllp-on mufflers, awaits only the Screamln' Eagle Ignition module before _ head to the dyno room. (Left) Back on the dyno, Rivera (left) advanced the Ignition 10 degrees. Ron Bartels (right) then fired up the machine and gave us what we were after, a reading of 74.7 hp and 80 ft.-Ibs. of torque at 5200 rpm.

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