Cams for TriGlide

Dec 11, 2011
8,656
382
Lawrenceville IL
Name
Rodney
Thinking about putting cams in the 103. Which Screamin Eagle cams would work the best in the TG. The 254E or the 255 cam? Need your input please. Thanks.:Shrug:
Rod69 TOI#900
 
I have the 255's in mine. That is what the tech at my dealer recommended. No complaints so far!! Do the lifters too!!
 
The 254E may be a touch softer on the bottom end than the 255 due to its later intake close, 43 vs 25. I have no experience with the 245E, I have run the 255 in a trike and aside from its desire for good quality fuel it was a pretty good cam.
 
consider the S&S 510 gear cam. it eliminates the cam shoes, and really made my '09 t/g
a better bike to ride. s&s said that was the biggest gear cam before haveing head work. at 14k my cam shoes showed more wear that i or the shop guy thought would be normal.
 
I have the 259e cam in my 2011. I was suppose to get the 255cam. The 259e cam was a new cam.Don't know how the 255 cam reacts. I installed the SE Ported & Polished heads also. Maybe that's why they put in the bigger cams. I have plenty of power. I also have the SE tuner,10:5/1 high compression forged pistons,V&H Power Duals &Pro mufflers. It puts out 100hp.
 
consider the S&S 510 gear cam. it eliminates the cam shoes, and really made my '09 t/g
a better bike to ride. s&s said that was the biggest gear cam before haveing head work. at 14k my cam shoes showed more wear that i or the shop guy thought would be normal.

Please remember if you go to gear cams you have to worry about your crank run out instead of cam shoes. I have 26,000 miles on my TG and the shoes look good.
 
jcolson;93367&am p;quot; rel= said:
I have the 259e cam in my 2011.

I was suppose to get the 255cam.

The 259e cam was a new cam.Don't know how the 255 cam reacts. I installed the SE Ported & Polished heads also. Maybe that's why they put in the bigger cams. I have plenty of power. I also have the SE tuner,10:5/1 high compression forged pistons,V&H Power Duals &Pro mufflers. It puts out 100hp.

The 259e cam requires the installation of 10.5.1 pistons. Cam selection is a choice one has to take a lot of things into consideration. One has to look at their riding style and expectations, they have to consider available fuel quality, they have to have a means to tune it once the modifications are complete, they have to look at the everything from air cleaner to exhaust including the cylinder heads and throttle body and injector size. The vast majority of simple cam swaps won't have to sweat the heads, throttle body and injector size along with pistons.

To me in this day and age fuel quality is a big driver when choosing components for a build or cam swap.

There have been some pretty good rumors floating around that 15% ethanol is right around the corner. If a person only rides in an area with good quality fuel available they can put together a pretty stout build.

When I choose cams for my dads and my Triglides I took in to consideration we travel a considerable amount and run into crummy fuel. Last year I was filling up with 89 octane with 10% ethanol and aside from a drop in fuel mileage mine ran like a champ, I could have pumped 87 in it if I had wanted to.

Now if I kept close to home I could have put together an nice 103 or 107 build running in the neighborhood of 110 - 120hp and torque around 10ft/lbs greater. The down side is it would have required 93 octane.

Sometime I'll be posting a build I'm in the process of doing for my around town fun bike which could be duplicated in a trike if a person felt like it. Even with the build I'm doing I should be able to feed it 89 octane in a pinch.
 
consider the S&S 510 gear cam. it eliminates the cam shoes, and really made my '09 t/g

a better bike to ride. s&s said that was the biggest gear cam before haveing head work. at 14k my cam shoes showed more wear that i or the shop guy thought would be normal.

The only thing with gear drive cams is the worry of crank shaft run out which S&S recommends a max of .003 for gear drive. My 2010 Triglide with 10,000 miles had .005 run out on the pinion side, would have sounded like a cement mixer with gear drive. This engine was running gear drive until the crank shifted beyond the limits and the gears started getting noisier. I could have switched to chain drive cams and a hydraulic tensioner conversion and kept running it until either the crank shifted more and ate the oil pump or nothing happened. I opted to just pull it and build a new engine with a crank crank shaft custom built to keep it from shifting.

dscf0250hg.jpg
 
Hey Rod...Was at the dealer today to talk about installing LED lights on the tour pack...asked my tech, who has been doin' Harley's for 32 years about my motor. They dont have a dyno to fit trikes, but he figures with the 255's, lifters, Ness Big Sucker, Screamin' Eagle tuner, V&H Power Duals and V&H Black W mufflers, mine is puttin' out 90 to 95 HP with the similar mapping he did on it. If I ever travel where there is a dealer with a Trike dyno, I will have them do it and re-tune it. The 255's work just fine for me.
 
Thanks for the info Trent. Have the Stage 1, Fatshots, and PC-V. Numbers look pretty good. Will really consider the 255. Have to do some more talking to the service manager and service tech about their input. I have gotten some pretty good info from the Trike Talk Family. Thanks a lot.

Rod69 TOI#900
 
Hey Rod...Was at the dealer today to talk about installing LED lights on the tour pack...asked my tech, who has been doin' Harley's for 32 years about my motor. They dont have a dyno to fit trikes, but he figures with the 255's, lifters, Ness Big Sucker, Screamin' Eagle tuner, V&H Power Duals and V&H Black W mufflers, mine is puttin' out 90 to 95 HP with the similar mapping he did on it. If I ever travel where there is a dealer with a Trike dyno, I will have them do it and re-tune it. The 255's work just fine for me.

You might be surprised what it actually is putting out, I've seen bikes and trikes make their first un-tuned pull and be 10hp and more than that down on torque. I haven't seen many SE255 builds hit 90 hp, the average is in the mid 80's with torque around 100 - 105 ft/lbs. With the quick intake close it doesn't have the legs to horsepower, kind of runs out of breath around 4,500 rpm. A trike will HP lower than a bike due to all the parasitic loss through the drive line and the extra mass of the tires. A bike has a belt to the rear wheel sprocket and a singe rear wheel to drive. A Triglide has the belt to the rear sprocket which turns a differential with the addition of 2 axles and 2 rear wheels. When my dad had his 09 Triglide tuned the year before last when it had SE255 cams it went 73hp and 93ft/lbs torque.

It could have made a little more with cooler temps and lower humidity, it was tuned on a 88 degree day in August.
 
MSOCKO3,haven't had any pinging issues with my built engine as of yet. Last year we drove to California. The lowest octang I put in was 89,no issues.Years ago all you could get was 85.That was in Colorado. When my lifter took a dump in October I asked if I should put in SE lifters. They told me for the price,it isn't worth it. I hope this new set of stock lifters doesn't go out again & take out the cam & oil pump. I only had 7800mi.on the motor. Next time it will probably be out of warranty. I would not be a happy camper.

Jim
 
That is good info Msocko.. and makes sense,,,It will be interesting to see what it is really puttin' out when I can get it done..Will let ya know when it happens.. soon I hope.
 
MSOCKO3,haven't had any pinging issues with my built engine as of yet. Last year we drove to California. The lowest octang I put in was 89,no issues.Years ago all you could get was 85.That was in Colorado. When my lifter took a dump in October I asked if I should put in SE lifters. They told me for the price,it isn't worth it. I hope this new set of stock lifters doesn't go out again & take out the cam & oil pump. I only had 7800mi.on the motor. Next time it will probably be out of warranty. I would not be a happy camper.

Jim

Near as I can tell running some quick calculations and making some assumptions I figure your static compression is around 10.19:1 and corrected compression is around 9.08:1 and your ccp is 187 give or take. I took my figures based on a WAG that your heads are the SE CNC ported MVA heads which have a 95 cc combustion chamber, and I figured .045 for the head gasket thickness because most SE head gaskets fall in this range, I also used a dome volume of of 12 cc.

Your build actually with a good tune as you found out can run some of the cheaper fuels in a pinch with no issues.

You made the right choice passing on the SE lifters, their made by Jims and are not the best quality. I've see some pictures of them grenaded and some pictures where the rollers started taking a funny wear pattern.
 
Some one on here was talking about the rear brake kit. I was at the HD shop today & the parts guy found out the kit is from Performance Machine. Cost is $2000.00 for everything.To rich for my blood! The front brake works just find in conjunction with the back. Not worht it. Just my opinion. By the way MSOCKO3,my pistons are 10:5/1. The heads are SE Ported & Polished. They are better than the 110 heads.
 
Some one on here was talking about the rear brake kit. I was at the HD shop today & the parts guy found out the kit is from Performance Machine. Cost is $2000.00 for everything.To rich for my blood! The front brake works just find in conjunction with the front. Not worht it. Just my opinion. By the way MSOCKO3,my pistons are 10:5/1. The heads are SE Ported & Polished.

Wow, +1 passing on that kit. Can buy a WHOLE bunch of brake pads for that, and throw in a couple rotors to boot.
 
Some one on here was talking about the rear brake kit. I was at the HD shop today & the parts guy found out the kit is from Performance Machine. Cost is $2000.00 for everything.To rich for my blood! The front brake works just find in conjunction with the front. Not worht it. Just my opinion. By the way MSOCKO3,my pistons are 10:5/1. The heads are SE Ported & Polished.

You can do better on price of the PM stage 1 kit from other sources,

If you have a list of what all parts they installed you might see PN 16925-08, it would be interesting to see which ones they used if it isn't the CNC ported MVA heads. They advertise pistons at an average compression ratio, to achieve the advertised compression ratio you need to have the correct deck height, the correct combustion chamber volume and head gasket thickness. For instance the 120 I'm building right now has pistons advertised at 10.5:1.

My combustion chamber cc is 83, piston dome volume is -12 cc, the front piston is +.016 above the deck and the rear is +.014 above the deck. I'm using a .040 gasket, the cam I'm using has a 47 deg intake close. This calculates out to 10.22:1 static compression with a corrected compression of 9.11:1 and a ccp of 188.3 at seal level.
 
You are into calcalations more than me. I'm lucky to know how to turn on this computer. Don't know all that other crap. Can do carptenter calcalations if I'm lucky. Used to rebuild my own truck & car engines way back in the day. Rebuilt my 1988EVO on my softail. But with all the electronics now, I don't mess with too much. Can't teach an old dog new tricks.:Shrug: All I know is it will haul ass. No problem lifting the front-end up. They told me when I picked up the bike I should install wheelly bars.

When I was at the shop yesterday,the salesman were standing in front of the new blue trike. I love blue. Said if I won the lottery,I would buy the blue one. They said they would put in the 120" for me. That would be awsume. Are you building the 120" to put in a trike? Didn't mean to write a book.
 
You are into calcalations more than me. I'm lucky to know how to turn on this computer. Don't know all that other crap. Can do carptenter calcalations if I'm lucky. Used to rebuild my own truck & car engines way back in the day. Rebuilt my 1988EVO on my softail. But with all the electronics now, I don't mess with too much. Can't teach an old dog new tricks.:Shrug: All I know is it will haul ass. No problem lifting the front-end up. They told me when I picked up the bike I should install wheelly bars.

When I was at the shop yesterday,the salesman were standing in front of the new blue trike. I love blue. Said if I won the lottery,I would buy the blue one. They said they would put in the 120" for me. That would be awsume. Are you building the 120" to put in a trike? Didn't mean to write a book.

I've been building car engines and race car engines for years so calculations are a part of my life when building an engine, you'd love to see some of the calculations for figuring fuel flow and injector sizes vs blower boost when we would tune my brothers blown dragster. I'm building the 120 for my 2006 Ultra which is still 2 wheels, I could do the exact same build for the Triglide and have a sweet running trike if I wanted. The Triglide just has some cams, air cleaner and a Jackpot head pipe then tuned with the TTS. I decided I wouldn't crack into the top end of the trike until something broke.

I've been watching the crank shaft run out on the trike which was .005 at 10,000 miles, somewhere around the .008 - .010 area vibration will increase and the oil pump will die. When that happens I'm going to bolt in the SE 120R with a slight cam change. The 120R is a great bang for the bucks, I'd have bought that for the 06 if they would have released it before I had spent $1,000 on pistons and cylinders.
 
Here is a 120 film from my HD dealer...
Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson 120 c.i. Motor Install! - YouTube
The bike owner had them put it in '11 just like mine..

I'll bet they have some clutch slipping going on, looks like they left the stock clutch setup in there. The 120R or any stout 120 requires a clutch upgrade, I'm going to run a Energy One extra plate kit along with a Aim billet pressure plate, an Aim 480# spring and the VP92. Some folks are running the Barnett Scorpion with the lockup head on the 120R, others are running the Screamin Eagle racing clutch. Does your dealer have a trike Dyno?
 
They upgraded the clutch later I believe to the S.E. ,, and no they do not have a trike dyno.. when they get one,,, this year hopefully,, I will be the first one on it!. It took a long time to get that 120 running right without a dyno, but it runs right now. The guy that owns it is a hoot..going on a 3 month trip around the U.S. starting next month, pulling a trailer with his wife following on her Trike too.
 
years ago a builder said that replaceing the lifters every 20k miles was a good ides.
because if the lifters go you will shortly have damage to the cam; i hope they have
improved the lifters since then. i think that good aftermarket lifters are a better quality than OEM ones . just my opinion.
 
I have the 255 in my 103. Last year while riding to Denver it pinged like hell and got very Hot. When I got home I had it tuned again with the TTS tuner. It runs much better and the MPG came up but it still pings occasionally. Well see what happens on the way to Sturgis this year?? With the weight of my Trike, with me, and especially adding my wife, I don't think the 255 cams are the way to go. I spoke to Bobbi Woods the other day and asked him what CAMS he would recommend for my Trike. He said his best Torque CAMS are the TW 5-6. He also recommended that I stay with a chain drive version. I know M3 is happy with the TW555s.

Wish I knew what was best?? but for sure the 255s have to go.
 

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