I'm in the process of having my 2011 103ci FLHTP rebuilt. My setup is Arlen Ness St2 Big Sucker intake, Power Commander V with auto tune, S&S Power Tune Headers, V&H Oversized 450 duals. The guy doing my build suggested TW-408-44 Woods cam, S&S adjustable pushrods, porting my stock heads, and installing compression release.

They ordered the wrong cams for a build (TW-408-6), but while I was in the shop today he said it would be badass to do do these other high lift cams with a set of Screamin Eagle 110 heads, instead of our origional plan of just bolt in cams and head work.

I'm trying to keep cost in mind, but he said after subtracting the hours for head work and compression release, it would only be another 600 bucks for those heads, pistons, and to fix the flywheel. Thoughts??

 

Those heads have huge intake valves anda a large combustion chamber that will drop your comp ratio way down. Go with the original heads and cam choice. if you want get some mild head work,deck them with a .020 cut and go with a cometic 036 or 040 head gasket.

 

The pragmatic approach is to disconnect the rockers and measure the volume inside the head at TDC then measure the volume of the head plus stroke at the bottom position. You can do this with a large graduated syringe using light engine oil to calculate the compression ratio. Next thing to do is to check piston clearance with "unknown" valves. I used moulding paste in the past and accepted a 1mm parallel gap with the piston

 

So the fella doing my build said with the 110 heads he would get different pistons for me, and would run a higher rise cam. Even with that I still would be short on compression?

 

A lot would depend on which generation of the 110" heads your fella wants to use. The older 110" heads from the first runs of the SE motors are almost worthless as far as their reliability in a 103" motor goes. As mentioned above, wrong size valves, combustion chamber volume too large, and valve guide slippage are the first three things to consider.

 

Stick to the plan. The Feller ordered wrong cams not you. 😁

 

So with the correct head work and cam the next step would be high comp pistons, sticking with the 103 heads?

 

I'd say the next step would be 110" cylinders. If you're gonna do all that, heads, crank, cams, etc, why not add a set of 110 cylinders and go all the way? That way you could, I think, take advantage of the head combustion chamber size

I see you mentioned pistons. He planning to bore your 103 cylinders?

 

His solution to ordering the wrong cams is to spend another $600 to make them work???

Run, don't walk...

 

I'm just trying to maximize power to cost at this point, we had to do work because I had a head gasket blow, so now is the time to do any upgrades if I so choose. Already have all the stage 1 bolt ons.