If I were you, will invest a set of adjustable pushrods, make your life lot easier.

 

They like about 10.1 compression. I wound up with a new set of SE204's off ebay for $115 and put them in a 103" Road Glide. Changed nothing else, except the pistons with the 103" kit were 10.1. That thing runs wonderful, will pull the front wheel off the ground and gets 44MPG average.

 

If I were me, I'd be rich. Then I could afford $100-150 for what is essentially a stick of metal with a screw on it and round ends. But I'm not -- partially because I own a Harley and the other part is because politicians keep finding ways to tax me instead of fix their own shop. I digress...

 

SE-204 cam is going to be "THE" cam to have if you are a street rider. Unless you plan on drag racing every bike you run into, the SE-204 cams puts the power right where you will be riding the most and give you great starting, healthy idle and fuel mileage. My bike is averaging 49 mpg with mixed driving. You can see as high as 55 mpg long distance cruising and down to about 45mpg around town. It's a winner.

 

I put the 204's in over the winter. No change in compression needed. I used the stock pushrods and put in a set of new stock lifters for insurance. If your bike has less than 50000 miles on it just do the cams and gaskets if your on a tight budget. I would highly recomend a good tune. This cam is prone to detonation if not tuned correctly. You will like this cam alot, has good street manners, pulls real good up to 5500. I don't need to downshift to pass, just twist the wick.

 

Don't get it wrong, I am not trying to tell you what to do or sell you anything, I have done that in the past and my experience tells me it is worth it. Why? You save a lot of time from pulling the tank and rocker covers, rocker covers are bitch to remove since they are so close to the frame, what if the rocker cover gaskets leak? Then you spend another $40 for the gasket later. Let's say you are not happy with the performance of the new camshafts, you can't do a quick swap, everything has to come out again. Do whatever you feel comfortable, saving is always good though. Good luck on the job!

 

I have 204's and I like them they work real good. I went to a 103 over the winter with some head work and it does run good. Never dynoed it with the 96 but the 103 has 100lbs torque at 2500 and up from there. in stock form they come alive real strong at 2500. They also pull all the way to 6000. When I just put the cams in I used the stock pushrods but now have adjustables as the heads were shaved a little and the headgaskets are thinner. No problems with them at all

 

Well I cancelled the backorder on the SE204. I'll try and grab one from a dealer that HAS ONE or go with the Fueling 574 or Cyclerama 575... this came choice thing is a PITA!

 

Cams are a science in and of themselves...........Knowing how you are going to ride the bike is as important as valve lift, duration and overlap.

Sometimes just looking at pictures and graphs of what a cam is supposed to do is not enough. After all, it is about volumetric efficiency of what the bore and stroke produce, to reach a total positive outcome that suits the situation of the build.

Side-Note / example:
If I dump more fuel into a cylinder, through lift and duration, sometimes I might need more compression to pack all the combustion-able mixture in order to achieve the utmost usefulness power out of the mixture, then I need for the exhaust port to handle the scavenging of that mixture out of the combustion chamber as quickly as possible for performance.

So I them might want to decide on porting the cylinder heads, along with shaving them to give me the smallest (tightest) combustion area for optimum use of the fuel mixture.

This is were the adjustable push rods come in to play, or you then have to do all the mathematics that would be needed to keep your valve train proper.

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Again this is a proven science, not just a bunch of bolt on stuff to make the motor go faster. Although some people get lucky with that mentality.

 

You know, I thought I was a smart guy... until I decided to put a cam into my bike!

I think I'm going to go with the Fueling 574 unless I can get me a Cycle-Rama 575 for a price.

So there are these "adjustable" rods and then "easy adjustable" rods. I don't get it - do I need to take the top end off to put the regular adjustables in or what? This is frustrating - haha!