I am looking to do the stage II 103 build pretty soon. I know woods or andrews cams would be best, but my question is about the SE cams. You guys who have the SE 255, are you happy with the results? I am not looking for a complete screamer, just a bit more kick than I get from my stock 96.

Any input is appreciated.

 

my bro had the se 255 cams on his bike. They made good power up to 4000 rpm's. Then they took a nose dive. his biggest complaint was the hard starting. I think the problem with the cams is the timing. the valves close way to early. they close earlier than with the stock cams. I think you'll be happier with some wood's or andrew's cams.

 

Hey Tige -

Who are you going to have do the work?

Heard good things about the Woods cams ... I am personally leaning toward Andrews 37 ....

There was a great article in American Iron by Donny Peterson a couple of months ago or so that focused on cams ... I'll see if I can find it ... it discusses the various pros and cons of different cams and you can compare the specs of the different cams ...

Frequently several companies sell cams that are almost identical in their profiles ...

You thinking of having 'em convert you over to gear driven cams? That seems to be a pretty good idea ....

R/
Priest

 

I went with the Andrews 37H, waiting on an adapter for my compression gauge then it's going in. No need to go with gear drive in the 96ci they fixed that problem.

 

I'm running a 103 stage III. SE251 cams with 10.5 pistons. I'm very pleased with this combination. It suits my riding style. But it does lack grunt off-idle. Also requires domed pistons or cometic gaskets and performance valve springs.

On my previous bike (95") I was running Andrews 37 cams with ported heads and that combination was very strong throughout the rpm range. I know you say you're interested in SE cams but the Andrews 37 is just damn hard to beat.

The SE255 (which I have never used) are for heavy bikes or people who like to chug around at 2000 rpm.

 

I like the way mine runs and I do chug around at 2000 rpm's and it makes 107ft/lbs of tq at 2200 so off the line with the SE Comp it can be antimidating to anyone running off the line against this bike. The one thing also this bike has been tuned by a pro so thats one big advantage to any build.

 

This is a dyno of a Harley SE build 103" w/10.5 pistons, ported/ polished heads
SE 260 cams. The dotted lines are Harley published 96TC published RWHP/TQ.

 

I plan on doing the work myself, then getting it professionally tuned. I don't plan on converting to gear driven cams and will probably bag the SE255 for some woods. Thanks for the heads up on the article in American Iron, I will try to dig t up. Do you remember the month?

 

Tige, be sure and have your heads cleaned up. Remember these motors are just basic air pumps.

 

I have the factory SE103 stage 2 in my 07 FXD. For a lot of reasons I stayed with the 255 cams, and had the dealer do the install. I also had them install the HD automatic compression releases (which are now std on the police bikes).

I ride this bike mostly in the twisties, and my goal was a bike that will go fast thru the corners, not in between them I wanted huge mid range for ridability and coming off the corners. I run a quiet supertrapp, and the engine dynoes at 100 lbs of torque, sorta everywhere, and 80 hp. It starts easily and gets nearly 40 mpg. Way more powerfull than stock.

Also, I wanted all the work done at the same shop, parts, install, compression releases, and dyno, and the local indy shops i knew didn't have all the eqipment. The dealer I used (Laidlaws) has been around for 40 years or so, I felt their "warranty" meant something.

As others have stated, it does not have a bunch of top end power, but i never ride in those rpms anyway, so did not care. Plus, when i tried to research cams I got so much different info, i got a little frustrated.

Good luck