Hello all, first post after lurking and reading. How practical is turbo charging a bike for "normal" riding? I ride a 2002 Softail Standard and I am considering a turbo to increase power throughout the RPM range. My mechanical experience comes from the diesel side of the fence and not air cooled so keep that in mind. With that being said, heat comes to mind as the main problem. Is it possible to turbo charge my 88 inch engine, and ride it for extended periods on hot days without problems?

If these questions have been answered somewhere, sorry for the repetition. I tried searching for this information but most of what I was finding were posts on highly modified engines cranking out obscene HP. Damn cool, just not exactly what I'm after.

 

Turbo charging is about the most practical mod you can make to a bike. If you stroke or turn you engine into s high comp camed tacer it's going to spend 100% of its life running in high performance mode when you may only want a fire breather once a day or so. A turbo leaves the bike pretty much stock (even the cam is very mild) and only pushes things once you hit high boost (there are calculators out there that can show compression by boost psi.

Im in Aussy and run my unit in winter and summer where the temps get up to 45C without too much trouble. The bike goes well even then, although an oil cooler is not a silly addition at that stage (even for a stock bike)

 

This post is a few months old but I toss my 2 cents in. Simple answer is yes. IV got a 117 on 8lbs and I ride it every day. When it's 100+ out it gets hot but I think I can calm that down with better heads and different cams.

 

Yea what the boys said it's 2017 (I think) and yea Turbo's and any forced induction have come a long long way man.
Just do it.