From the Boutique:

The story of my Sportsters development from stage 1 through 3. based on research gathered from the list and its archives.

A list success story. regards Kerry Lockhart BC Canada

Well its done, dyno'd and finally road tested.

And I hope its done for good. Very happy with everything (cept for the brakes and handling....rrrrr....sounds like more money!)

Its my 02 883/1200 with dealer conversion hogged heads and flat tops

screaming eagle a/c with K&n

cycle shacks slip ons with un modified baffles.

This was doing about 65 hp and 70 lbs. I wanted more! That was a stage 1. It was fun....but...

I bought some 883 heads and sent them to Headquarters for a mild kit job. That meant about 10.6-1 compression and 1200 size vlaves and a polish/porting job. Slipped those on and thought "bigger valves means they will be able to make power above the stock rpm limit" so I went for dyna 2000 ign. All this meant 78hp and 76 lbs of torque. it added 13 hp and 6 lbs.

At this point I remember to thank my indy. He is a find! first place in his class with 2 mod class drag bikes means he likes and knows performance. A great machine shop and dyno machine on site! In total we have over 40 dynos! So every improvement has been verified. Too awesome. ( And to boot...HE'S REASONABLE!!!) Ha, no you cant have him. Only problem he is 5-6 hours away....

We had two sets of slipons. the se 2 which we tried a half dozen mods on and the cycle shacks ,which are un modified and seem to work better.

So I take my machine to the drags, and have a blast!

It was 1/8th mile and my results were 8.383 at 84.68 mp/h with a .164 reaction and a 2.00 60 ft. Did I mention it was FUN!

But I wanted more. A little more throttle response and power for the streets and some butt kickin for the drags.

My solution was to add cams. I figured my heads were capable of higher hp ,but the stock cams were my problem. So I chose some andrews N8 cams,

because they had a wide power range and leaned towards high rpms. They resulted in about 83 hp and 80 lbs of torque.. Some strange results...I expected no gains down low but at 2500 rpm the bikes at 70 lbs where it used to be at 60lbs. But by 3000 rpm the torque mirrored the curve with the stock cams. The bike does not feel torquier, and in fact I find I am rarely below 2200 rpm, because it feels poor down that low when it used to feel tourqie there. The bike doesn't stay down low long . Throttle response is improved and it freely moves up through to 6000 rpm now. It will pull past 6k but slowly. Top speed went from 180 km/h to 190 km/h, but gettin to 170-180 is much quicker and then it slowly pulls up to 190.

Great street performance. So now its a stage 2 but with the pro ported heads its really a 2.5 stage.

883/1200 with flat tops and 10.6-1 compression

upgraded dyna2000 ign

air cleaner and pipes upgraded

polished and ported heads with 1200 size valves(1.715 intake & 1.475 exhaust)

Andrews n8 cams. results are 83 hp and 80 lbs torque.

But this will still leave me wanting at the track. (and on the occasions where a few friends line up their bikes (vmax, sport 600's and a magna)

So I chose to add the Edelbrock nitrous kit they make for the Dyna (no sporty kit yet)

My indy fires up the machine shop and modifies the motor mount and choke mount

and bottle mount

.

Adds a high flow petcock and changes all the fuel lines. 2 solid 8 hour days of work while I wait and drool over his drag bikes and help where I can. We did the cams and the NOS kit. And then it was back to the dyno. The Edelbrock kit hooks to the horn and has an rpm monitor that only kicks in at 4500 or higher rpm. The dyna 2000 ignition has a nitrous retard that retards timing 10 degrees to prevent engine damage by detonation. The kits rpm safety switching in at 4500 and the ignition retard should keep things reliable. The dyno showed its results as both the torque and hp went way north at 4500 rpm. From the 83 hp to 113 and torque to 108 lbs!

So now the thing is stage 3! And ready for a road test.

My fear was wheel spin as the hp hit the road . 1st hit of the horn was in 5th....the engine roared and you could feel the pull. But (and I wished someone had shared this with me!!) It was totally smooth and safe. Then a 4th gear run on the bottle and a shift to 5th and back on the bottle. Still no problems! But with the 2-3 runs on the road and the 4-5 pulls on the dyno ,I was empty , too bad cause I wanted a 3rd gear attempt. It should hit hard then, but if its still smooth then I will try 2nd gear and that will prepare me for the drag races in a couple weeks. Top speed now was uncertain as I ran out of road , nerve and speedometer. (220km/h max)

So that's it ....for now. the bike is great for the street and will be huge fun for the drags. But its a little scary on the street, due to its poor handling and brakes. So we will see what we can do to fix that.

Regards Kerry.