Scott Peterson’s Satin Black Deluxe
Photos by Jack “Twice as nice” Cofano
Not every custom Harley-Davidson needs to be a big-buck project to satisfy an owner and oftentimes too many of us take a project a little too far and end up losing what we inherently liked about the bike in the first place. Reliability, comfort, and handling don’t have to be thrown out with the bath water to produce a good looking, fun to ride custom. Scott Peterson of Wilmington, North Carolina, falls into that category with his personal rendition of what he feels a usable Harley Softail Deluxe should and could be. When you take a look, it’s not over the top, but he’s kept the DNA of a factory model with a few twists to the Milwaukee chromosomes to make it uniquely his.
The 2007 FLSTNI was not Scott’s first bike, but it was his first Harley. “This is my fourth bike and my first Harley. An Ultra Ground Pounder was my first bike when I was 24 and I sold that and bought a sportbike and sold it and had a Redneck chopper built after that. I still have that one along with the Deluxe,” said Scott. “Motorcycles, I love ’em man. The first show Jesse James did, he got me hooked.”
Obviously you noticed that Scott still has the Redneck and when I asked if he ever rode it since getting the Harley, he quickly shot back and said, “I ride my chopper every weekend. I love riding it, but it’s one of them love/hate relationships. That Redneck chopper, I love it to death, but it’s a big headache sometimes and I can’t strap anything on it. I needed something reliable, dude. I love riding a lot.” That something reliable turned out to be deal he couldn’t pass up. Seems a friend of his had traded a Deluxe in with only 78 miles on it and Scott said, “I ran across a crazy deal on it and it was something I couldn’t pass up.”
Like many a Harley tale, stock wouldn’t do, especially on a Deluxe which is geared for inseam-challenged people and Scott stands 6’3″, so he immediately drove it from the dealership to his friend Richard Smith’s shop where he stripped it down and spent the next three weeks trying to get it to look cool and fit better. “I don’t like riding cramped up. Just throwing ape hangers, a different seat, and lowering ’em does a whole lot for them,” said Scott.
Changing the stock “push you forward” Deluxe seat to a LePara Bare Bones seat immediately changed the seating opposition. “That seat changed it a lot. I had 16″ ape hangers on it at first and it looked like I was reaching to the moon. The seat dropped me back two- or three-inches and down two-inches. That seat made a world of difference,” he said. “The 13″ Todd’s Cycle apes I’ve got on there now are a lot narrower than the first ones that were like 41″ wide and I didn’t like riding down the highway with ’em. I felt like a damn kite the whole time. The 16″ height didn’t bother me, but the width was killing me.”
With the riding ergonomics worked out, Scott turned to the stance he had in mind and installed a Burly Brand lowering fork spring kit and lowering blocks aft to bring it about an inch lower than the already factory-lowered Deluxe. The rest of the running gear is basically stock as this was also going to be a low-dollar build and stuff like brakes and rolling stock was just peachy as is in Scott’s opinion.
Basically the 96″ Twin Cam motor was left alone except for swapping out the air cleaner for a deal that couldn’t be beat. “A friend of mine said, ‘Hey man, I got an air cleaner that will bolt right up to it off my Road King. That’s what it was, a hand me down,” said Scott laughing. “If someone’s going to give you one and it looks good, I’m like, ‘Hell ya, I’ll take it.'” As on 99% of stock Harleys, the pipes were good to go, to the trash bin that is, and Scott explained how he picked out the new set, “They’re cheap Santee pipes ’cause I knew I wanted to wrap the pipes so I didn’t want to spend $800 on a set and throw wrap over them.” In the interest of lighter weight (?), Scott left out the baffles. Making all this work in combustible harmony with reduced backpressure and a high-flow air cleaner was pretty easy as Scott explained, “I put a Power Commander on it and my buddy went to the Power Commander website and downloaded the program for it. They didn’t have my exact pipes on there, but we found one that was real close. It runs really nice.”
Scott has no plans to hop up the engine anymore than what it is now as he’s entirely satisfied with performance as is. “Man, I had a damn street bike that would run 170mph. If I want to go fast, I’ll go buy another one of them,” he said. “Yup, from one extreme to the other, but this extreme is better.” When I asked him if he planned any future mods, he said, “The only other thing I want to do now is powdercoat the lower legs flat black. Then everything will be either flat black or chrome.”
The end result Scott achieved makes for a satisfied owner who uses the bike a lot. “I ride year round pretty much ’cause the weather here is pretty good most of the time. It gets cold, but then we’ll have nice days and I’ll get on it and ride. I’ve got close to 5,000 on it now and remember, this isn’t my only bike,” said Scott. “A lot of people ask me what it is and I’d guess 90% of the people who see it like it.”