Hi,folks!

I just bought my first Harley – '97 FLHRI Road King in nice shape, it's EFI and i'm going to make some upgrades to it. First of all, i'm going to convert it to carb, upgrade ignition and cam. I read a lot about all this things and it seems to make my choice even more difficult. The perfect result would be to combine both good performance and mileage without killing reliability and changing fuel type - i bought this bike for touring and would like to visit locations where good petrol was only seen on TV. But i will also use it for night cruising through the city from time to time.

As i learned from different sources, Mikuni HSR42/Ultima 2000i/Andrews EV27 is a good direction to think about, but there are so many guys saying EV46 is better for heavy touring bike, or 42mm carb is too big for standart 80 inch Evo and I'll be more happy with Super E, etc. So i decided to ask for your experienced opinions on my case! Guys from Touring section told me to consider V-Thunder 3000/3010 with Ultima and CV carb rejetted 175/45 - sounds good too!

What would you recommend, guys?

The season is on the way to my city, so any help is appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

 

I think you are our third Russian to visit in the last couple of weeks, so welcome from the UK.

Each of the carbs you mention has its good points. The stock c/v carb is capable of delivering 100HP, so is very suitable, can be bought cheaply and is a great carb. The Mikuni involves getting several jets to work together and I personally was put off by that. It works great when set up right. The S&S carb is simple and straight-forward.

As for cams, you will find the EV27 is probably the most popular in here, I used one for several years. An alternative, if you ride a lot with a passenger and fully loaded, is the EV13. I'm not sure about the EV46, that sounds more like a top end cam.

We have experts in here who will call by soon with more suggestions!

 

Congrats on a good year for the RK. Several good combo's but the EV46 isn't one of those for the large barge, EV13 is comparable to a 3010, EV27 is a 3020. The V-thunders are good cams as the Andrews, the EV27 runs more of a wider lobe for a advantage but can't go wrong with either.

Ultima is a good choice because it has all that is needed in one box for the swap, installed the 2000I in the White Bike when converting to a carb.

CV carb is a good one with the Mikuni having just a slight edge in lower performance probaly because the CV comes in slower with it's design to adapt to conditions, Can't go wrong with either but the Mikuni seems to use more fuel out of the box than a CV but very tunable to work with.

OK, if you plan of running heavy and 2 up then the EV13 or 3010 is good but both will fall off early in the rpm's, CV carb will work well with heavy and cruizing. If you have just a little bit of yee-haw in ya, EV27 has grunt and can go deeper into the R's with the wider lobe design and proven, CV will work but once again if you have that yee-haw factor then put the Mikuni on it with the

 

This man speaks the truth.......CV gives better gas mileage than Mikuni but Mikuni is bolt-on horsepower.

 

I have a 97 FLRHI that is converted to carb.Tried the CV didn't like it. It now has an S&S carb, V&H pipes, Screaming eagle coil, Crane dual spark ignition, chrommoly adj pushrods, new HD lifters. This week I am putting in a crane 310 cam and new torrington cam bearing. I talked to my local shop and they suggested the crane over the andrews. I love my ride and it runs great.
Mittsy

 

By the way, I can run regular gas, no problem, but usually run high test. I get around 200 miles per tank.
Check out this link about cams
http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/HP2.html

 

Alot of effort put into that article and covers every inch of a Harley but some wrong info in the engine area, 9.5-1 is a good target compresion but not a disaster over that as the article is mentioning. It also mentions that if going over 9.5-1 the combustion chambers needs reshaped or dual plugged, stock Harley head combustion chambers easily handle over 100 hp with 10.5 to 10.8-1 compression with the right cams and streetable as in Hillsides Woods W8 setups and dual plug setups are pretty much old school and not used today as flexability in ignition systems have helped with efficiency.

He mentioned Jerry Branch who is a pioneer with the Evo bathtub design alteration to stock heads that was brilliant and used in some aftermarket heads today for big horsepower and the Twinkies have that design so credit is due but not mandatory with today's headporters and Evo stock heads.

Like I mentioned it is a very good article and well rounded but looks like it is a older article and some areas that craftmanship and flowbenches have moved past this article, thanks for posting it as every piece of literature has value

 

My guess is that article is around twenty years old - the last 1340 Harleys were made in 2000, the last ST1100 in 2002 and the last R1100RS in 2001. But that article is writing about them all as if they are the bees knees, not out of production. Frankly it is best ignored, as there is much better info available now, as 1997bagger indicates. It's time has past!

 

Although that article is some interesting reading but definately has many tell tale signs that it was written a very long time ago.

 

Welcome Artyom to the forum!, and congrats on the purchase of your 97 RK! It wouldn't happen to be Mystique Green would it? I picked up a Green 97 FLHRI RK last summer. I am also going to ditch the EFI, and go with a carb. I will be running a CV, along with an EV27, and Ultima 2000i ignition. Good luck with the conversion, and enjoy the bike : ) Got any Ural's in your stable as well?