TIME TO STEP UP?

It’s a question that’s only come up a handful of times in the 100-plusyear history of Harley-Davidson. Every time The Motor Company has debuted a fresh engine design, riders want to know if it’s time to move up to that new model. Was the Knuckle that much better than a Flattie? How about the Evo and Shovelhead? And now it’s the Milwaukee-Eight pushing the Twin Cam aside. Is this new multivalver all it’s cracked up to be?

“Over the past year we’ve been asked that a lot,” Jamie Hanson, of SPP, says. Today’s riders are asking Jamie and the crew at SPP what they think of this engine and, just as important, about its possibilities. What’s available performance-wise, and what can they expect?

Now, some of those questioners are guys with bikes long overdue for retirement, Harleys ready for a rest. A new bike is in their future no matter what. “But plenty of others are coming up on strong-running, tricked-out Twin Cams,” Jamie says, late models set up with big-bore kits, cams, pipes, the works.

For them, jumping to an M-8 can be a little more complicated. What’s that engine got to offer that they don’t already have? “Actually, quite a bit,” Jamie says. “But remember, it means starting all over again. Everything they’ve bought and added to their bike is going to have to be done again. But the end result can be pretty amazing.”

Now, it must be said that anyone used to twisting the throttle and having something important happen might be a little let down with a showroomstock 107-inch M-8. It’s got torque, no question about that. In stock form there’s generally 90-plus pound-feet on tap. Horsepower, however, hovers in the mid70s. “Hardly what you’d expect from that displacement,” Jamie says. But the good news is that without too much effort or expense, that can change fast.

With past as prologue, it hasn’t taken the aftermarket long to step up with what it takes to make a Harley engine stronger, and the list of companies already offering Milwaukee-Eight upgrades is a regular who’s who of all the usual suspects. S&S is in the game, T-Man’s here, Zipper’s is a player, and so is Bassani, Rush, MagnaFlow, RC Components, Ness, Feuling—the list goes on.

“And a first step,” Jamie says, “is to go through that list and pick out a new free-flowing air-filter assembly, a good set of pipes, and a new cam. The usual Stage 1 tune.”

Applied to a Milwaukee-Eight, the change in performance will be immediate and pretty dramatic. The new Harley-Davidson engine, it seems, is proving to be exceptionally receptive to performance adds. That simple air-filter/ exhaust/cam swap has routinely put the torque for the 107-inch version at well over 100 pound-feet on the SPP dyno while boosting horsepower by 20 or more ponies. At a minimum.

“We’ve done a number of MilwaukeeEights with this setup,” Jamie says. “They’ve all been eye-poppers.”

The picture gets even rosier when it’s the CVO 114-inch version of the Milwaukee-Eight. In stock form with nothing more than a new set of pipes (the OE has a free-flowing air filter here) these engines regularly pull 85 hp, pegging torque at 117 pound-feet or better. Slip in a new cam, maybe a .475-lift version, reset the computer map accordingly, and

SPP’s seen just shy of 110 hp and 123 pound-feet of torque.

“It’s right in the neighborhood of what Harley’s claiming for the Screamin’ Eagle Stage III kit,” Jamie points out. And that package includes special heads and high-compression pistons.

And this is all just the beginning. More upgrades for the Milwaukee-Eight are being announced on an almost weekly basis. New cams, pipes, and filters are all available now, and Feuling even has full cam chest/oil pump kits. But heads, pistons, and even big-bore kits are all in the works, and reliable sources are talking about a 138-inch bolt-on setup due for release.

“And the potential for all this is nothing short of amazing,” Jamie says. “An easy, everyday usable 150-plushorsepower shouldn’t be out of the question.”

And that, exactly, is what riders want to hear. Just like the Knuckle replaced the Flathead and the Evo moved ahead of the Shovel, the Milwaukee-Eight is poised to make its own big news. Talk to the guys at Speed’s Performance Plus. They’ve already seen it. HB

SOURCE: SPEED’S PERFORMANCE PLUS speedsperformanceplus.com 605-695-1401 — Minnesota 605-695-2272 — South Dakota

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