What kind of performance increase might I expect? My dealer has recommended this cam for a little better performance, My dyno numbers on the 103 ci engine are currently 88 hp and 94 torque.

 

I have heard good of them, but why not go to a gear drive cam and save the tensioner failureworry?

 

I wish I knew what tensioner failure worry was. Sounds like you've given me something new to worry about! Some background: As you can tell from the sentences you just read, I am not a mechanic at all, just an oil changer. Since I am not a mechanic, I posted a question about increasing HP here for the least coin, and was told to start with cams. Some said I should try gear drive cams, so when I took the bike in to the dealer to have him do some warranty work, I asked him. He steered me away from gear cams and I had an impression that they were somewhat aggressive and might shorten the engine life. He suggested the se-211 cams, and said that I should definitely get into the 100 torque range and close in hp. So I told him to go ahead, and now I'm wondering if I did the right thing. I don't want to be hard on the engine, I just wanted some more quickness and passing ability. I'm sure he hasn't started the work yet, as he's waiting for other parts to come in so I could still change the order.

 

The 211 is not a bad cam, it's just for the cost their are a lot of better choices. The cam chain tensioners are all over the board for rates of failure, anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 miles. The cost of labor is the same generally when replacing cam, so most people that are into performance go with gear drive cams when changing. A peace of mind thing and usually a little better performance.
It depends how you ride and load carried on which cam to go with, from experience it is best to not rush into cam change untill you decide on final plan for what you want. I changed cams three times, wish I would of chose better in first place.

 

Perhaps I should just call the cam change off and ride it for a year first. I only rode it for about 6 weeks before the snow flew (though I did put 1000 miles on it) and I just wanted a bit more power and performance. The dealer told me that the 211 would really wake up the 103 and that it wouldn't shorten the engine life. Do the stock cams have chain tensioners, which means that this change wouldn't put me in a worse position from a reliability standpoint, just give me a bit more hp?

 

Good plan...put it off for a while. The stock cams do use tensioners. My dealer swore by the Andrews 37 cam for my bike....huge mistake for a bagger. The bike made decent power but the engine pinged on any fuel used and the only way to get rid of ping was retarding timing to point of loseing power.
Hold off on cam change and wait for awhile, do your homework on good combo's that work with your riding style.
If your bike is 103 motor, the heads seem to be one of the biggest restrictions to making decent power thanks to EPA.