I figured with as much time and money that I am dumping into this thing right after bringing it home. I mine as well document the progress. If not to help anyone that might be looking at the same parts or changes, but at very least for my own satisfaction of going back and looking at the progress. Maybe its just my OCD, love for getting wordy, and overly documenting things. I also love reading others build threads that are extremely detailed. So word of caution, this will be some reading for sure. Who knows, but here we go.
I am going to explain why I picked up this bike specifically with some background. And then go into detail on the things that I have done and changed so far, plans for the future, and then continue updating the thread as I go.

Why a 2021 Iron 883
At the beginning of this year I picked up a 1987 883H with 40k+ miles, for dirt cheap. I live in Northern Colorado and work from home. On top of having a 1 year old son and being busier then hell, it was cold and I couldn't do much outside. I was itching to wrench on something and get out in the garage for a few hours a night, to escape a bit. As expected from a 34 year old sporty that was never loved and beat hard. One thing after another kept popping up with the bike. Winter became spring, and it started warming up. I was spending more time under the bike, then on top of it riding. After too many busted knuckles and my frustration growing for not being able to hit the canyon. I finally said screw it and went and picked up a new 883 from the dealership. Originally I planned to keep both. Have one to reliably ride daily and the other could be under surgery for longer periods. But of course as things go, the 87 got axed to afford parts for the new 883. I could have opted in for the iron 1200, or even moved up to one of the soft tail variations. But hey I got a soft spot for 883 sportsters, and so does my wallet. HA!


The day I picked it up

I am a big fan of the Denim paints that Harley has been using. I was happy that the dealer happened to have the color I wanted on the floor already. Was pretty stoked to bring her home and actually be able to ride. That initial break-in period with keeping RPMs below 3k and then 3500 is rough. Between the dealer and my house is mainly highways. Getting past 1k miles couldn't come fast enough. 5th at 3500 RPMs is 60-65mph. And thats pretty brutal for getting around out here.

It didn't take me very long to start touching things. I happened to have a set of Burly Brand MX pegs left over from a previous bike. Clearly not a fan of the OEM Harley foot pegs with the rubber grips. I have always liked MX style pegs. Even if they truly aren't providing any real riding benefit. It makes me feel more glued to the bike. The Burly Brand pegs have been great. Only downside aside from costing an arm and a leg. Is that even though they can be adjusted by rotating them. Having long legs and the wide, flat platform. Forces you to have your feet either on the edge of the peg, or flat where you set them to. Can be a little weird if you have them set up pretty neutral, but then wanna lean your feet inwards and get aggressive. I will probably be switching to further forward mid controls in the future, especially after I swap for a lower, further back seat.



Starting to put miles on the bike. I was eager to get past that initial 1k mileage.


Also laying around at the house, I had some unused Biltwell Torker Grips and a Biltwell Whiskey Throttle Tube. Figured anything is better than the stock grips. Not a fan of chunky gross rubber that Harley uses. But hey what can you expect for the cheapest bike they currently sell. These only lasted on the bike for a few weeks, before I swapped them out for some Roland Sands Chrono grips. Biltwells are great, I just like the premium feel of one piece grips and the contrast metal cuts. Fits in with the rest of the theme I'm going with.




Couple of things that I noticed pretty quick within the first few days/weeks of riding. The bars were beyond low and forward for my height (6'1"). Causing me to have my back arched when riding. Ultimately causing back pain when being on the bike for more than 20 minutes.
I initially toyed with the idea of getting just a set of risers with my stock bars, or buying a set of T-Bars. Personally I don't like the way either of those solutions look, but was attracted to the functionality. Ultimately being turned off by the Dyna Bro movement, I started looking elsewhere. I have always liked the look of Z-Bars, but personally wasn't keen on most options that were out there. Regardless of being 1" bars, they all felt skinny looking and cheap. I am a huge fan of Roland Sands and a lot of the stuff they have put out. I ended up running across the Roland Sands Short Stack Bars. There was not a lot of insight on the forums or photos out there of people running them on a sporty. But I felt confident in the look, and the height of them. Their listed dimensions are 30" Wide x 7-1/2" Rise x 6-1/2" Center Width x 3-3/4" pullback. When measuring and comparing this to stock. I was pleased.

Another thing that had been getting to me, was the crappy lighting. Frequently being dark when I was coming home, I was not satisfied with the OEM lights. After various reviews and going down the Rabbit Hole of youtube. I found that these days, the majority of LED light solutions for Sportsters, are pretty much the same. I ended up going with the Blazemaker V1 LED Headlight from RRI, and the Sigz LED Turn Signals.

Parts Ordered!!While waiting for a bunch of parts to get delivered, I started getting annoyed of shoving stuff in my jacket pockets and needed to get some sort of bag. (And no one likes riding with a back pack) I am not a fan of 99% of bag solutions, and wanted to find something that was small and hard to notice. Bags look great on big bikes! But on a small sportsters, I feel like they tend to be too much and over-consume the entire look of the bike. I ended up picking up the Biltwell EXFIL-7 Bag. It seemed to have the right amount of space I was looking for, was completely black, not leather, and had a bunch of versatility for mounting and expanding options with the molle.



I have been extremely pleased with the bag so far. It's just large enough that I can toss my wallet, hat, tools and a bottle of water in it. But not so large that it sticks out and gets in the way, or is a complete eye sore. I ended up mounting it to the swing arm. This was definitely tedious, due to the way Harley has jammed so much electronics and stuff into these new Irons. I had to remove the seat and battery cover, and it still took me some fidgeting to get it secured.
(Looks a bit wonky in the pic above. I ended up moving the right side of the bag higher up against the shock and tightened everything down. Just don't have a specific recent picture of it)

Also while waiting for parts to get delivered, I felt that the bike needed a little bit of spice to stand out and stop looking like every other Iron rolling around. So I channeled my inner suburban house wife, and broke out the Cricut for some vinyl cutting. I have always been super consumed with drawing and art in general. So I figured whats the harm in a little temporary vinyl.




Who knows how long these will actually stay on the bike. I am not sick of them yet. But I am sure in a few months I will change my mind and think they are tacky and get rid of them.

Parts finally showed up!
I was out of town on vacation when all of my parts showed up! So when I got home I was greeted with the option on what to do first. Went ahead and started with my lights since they were the easiest.




Overall, I am super pleased with how these lights turned out. The install is extremely easy for the headlight and turn signals. It does get a bit tedious shoving wires back into housings. But really only took maybe 2-3 minutes per light. For the turn signals, I ended up switching out the orange and red covers for smoked clear ones. I was concerned it would end up looking like someones POS civic that has rattle canned signal housings. But that is not the case what so ever. I really appreciate the smoked look and didn't realize how much the other ones were standing out. The LED turn signals are extremely bright, and you can not tell that the lenses are smoked when the brakes are engaged or turn signal is on. The new headlight makes a WORLD of a difference. I can actually see more then 2 feet in front of me at night now. Additionally, the front turn signals are dual purpose. When the turn signal is not engaged, they stay lit up and white. When it is engaged, they flash red. This also adds to the overall field of vision at night, but allows me to be more seen. From anyone that has ridden or driven in front of me, they have all said that it almost looks like a car behind them. Safety wasn't the goal, but I won't complain about it either.

Next, I ended up ordering a Tank Lift from DK Customs. From looking at a ton of peoples bikes on Instagram and browsing the internet. I decided that a small tank lift would compliment the taller bars. I was, and still am, undecided on whether or not I want to do a Coil/ignition relocation with a Wire Tuck. I go back and forth on whether or not I think it looks cheap. Some times I think it looks really clean. Some times I think it just looks janky. So for now, I just went with a 1" lift. This allowed me to keep the OEM harness plastic in place and not look completely ridiculous. If I end up wanting to do a relocation/wire tuck, I will probably move up to a 2" lift, and relocate my speedo to a fork mount on the left side of the tank.
Installation is pretty straight forward. It can be a pain getting a wrench between the tank flanges and the frame, to tighten up the lift bolts. But all said and done. It went pretty fast and I am happy with the look for now.


Shoved a piece of cardboard between the tank and the frame. This allowed me to keep the tank up, while getting the lift and bolts aligned correctly.

Not a huge difference, but definitely gets rid of the frumpy front end. (Please excuse how trashed my garage was at this time )

The 1" lift brought the top of the tank just above the top clamp. I like the way it sits currently, and eventually will look great with a speedo relocation

Next up! Installing my new bars. Unfortunately, I didn't get hardly any pictures of the install process. Just before and after. When opening the box up and holding the bars over my bike next to my current ones. I really fell in love with the way the bars look. One thing that I wish I would have had more insight into, and possibly someones review prior to purchasing. Was that I was a bit mislead by the measurements Roland Sands publishes for these bars. They claim that they have an 8" rise. Which they do, from the clamping point to the highest part of the bars. But they don't actually list how much down sweep there is from the highpoint of the bars, to where your grips lay. Even though they do have an 8" rise, these bars put your hands only about an inch or two higher than the stock bars. My fault for not thinking about it and researching it further. While I would appreciate probably another inch or so of height, I am really really happy with where these bars have put me.

I knew that I was going to have to replace my brake line, but wasn't sure on length and wanted to wait to measure until after bars were on the bike and where I wanted them. Fortunately I was able to find the exact length brake line I needed,(40in) in stock on Revzilla, and didn't have to custom order it. As always, bleeding brakes is a pain in the ***. Especially when you're as impatient as I am. So I picked up a mityvac to just get it jammed out as quick as possible.





Currently the bars are a positioned straight up and down. Took me a little bit to decide what was most comfortable and whether or not it looked goofy not being in line with the forks. Here soon, I am going to be swapping out my seat for one that is about an inch lower and back. When doing so, I should be able to get my bars pulled back a bit and at the perfect height. I really like that these bars have your hands angled outwards a bit. Opposed to be perpendicular to the bike. I have a long history of wrist problems, and this position lets me ride for longer without wrist fatigue.
The bars are slotted for internal wiring. I did not move forward with doing so for now. I didn't want to have even more down time from being on the bike to get them wired up. Right now its perfect riding weather, so once it starts to cool down again I plan to get them wired up for that clean look. I ordered a set of Roland Sands turn Signal relocaters, to move them down to the forks. But with the way they look hanging from my new bars, I actually really liked. So keeping them there for now. (If anyones interested in them, they are un-opened and I will get rid of them on the cheap).

Aside from standard maintenance, not much else has been added or changed yet since the new bars. I did end up removing the fork boots though. I will put a picture below. I like the vintage look of them on some bikes. But it just doesn't really mesh well with the look I am going for.



Where she's sitting currently

Future Parts & Changes on the way!!

Short Term
Currently ordering a new seat to get a better positioning on my hand and foot controls. Just small tweaks. Also, the seat that comes on the 883 is just not my cup of tea. I think it is similar to the fork boots and just doesn't fit. But I personally really really like the seat that comes on the 1200 iron. The local dealer has them in stock. I just need to go pick one up.

I also am looking into options for moving to "Further Forward" mid controls. I don't particularly like full forward controls. But with being 6'1" my knees are a little more cramped than I would like. Also the higher my knees are, the more of an angle that gets put on my left foot on the foot peg. Which makes shifting not the most comfortable. Hopefully a mix of a newer seat and controls will fix this.

Also on the short term and in the near horizon. I am going to finally be doing an exhaust, AC, and a tune.
I am going forward with the Bassani Radial Sweepers. Going to do the chrome pipes, but the blacked out heat shields with the circle cut outs. I absolutely love the sound of this exhaust on every bike I've heard it on. Also, it fits really well with the black/chrome accents on my bike. I think its gonna really tie it all together.
Still undecided on what AC I am going to go with. Regardless, I am going to do an open faced AC that gets a hell of a lot more air then the OEM one. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.
Still deciding on whether or not I should just pick up the FP3 and run the flash myself. Or if I should hand over my wallet to the dealer and have them dyno it with a tune. I have heard mixed things and that a lot of dealers will only tune you within EPA standards.

Long Term
In addition to everything mentioned above. There are absolutely some long term upgrades that this thing will be seeing this fall/winter. The biggest of all, is going to be the 1200 upgrade. While I know that yes I could just go buy a 1200 instead. I love this bike, and why not juice it for all its got. Likely just going to run with the Screaming Eagle solution, and have the dealership do the conversion. Haven't put too much though into cams or other bits yet. But it will all come along.

Another issue I plan to address this fall, is suspension. While it hasn't been the largest pain point of the bike thus far. It definitely needs to be addressed. I currently ride in a lot of different environments and scenarios. I often will be on crappy back road highways. Doing 70 and hitting poorly maintained cracks and potholes, bottoming out the OEM shocks. I also live about 25 minutes from the absolute funnest canyon I could ask for. Unfortunately, both my front and back suspension just feel sloppy and not as tight as I would like when leaning hard in the twists. Done a lot of research and am currently looking into the Fox Factory RC1 Shocks for the back. Still trying to figure out what route I am going to go for the front end. Any suggestions appreciated.


If anyone has actually read this far through my nonsense. Thank you! I appreciate it. Mainly documenting all of this just for my own **** tendencies. I will continue to update the thread with any future modifications or updates that I make.

 

Looks great. If it was mine id either go with progressive front springs or racetech and use a 10wt fork oil. They heavy duty front springs by progressive and 10wt works really well on my friends dyna. Front end feels 100x better. Are you gojng with braided steel brake lines? Good luck with it and keep us posted.

 

Thank you !! Thats an awesome recommendation. I will absolutely have to look into both of those options. Regardless, I need that 100x better feel too! Too much wash in the turns. I didn't want to be down and unable to ride for too long, and the only 40" line I could get here really fast was standard black vinyl line. But absolutely want to upgrade them all to braided steel lines eventually. Definitely a good call out. Have absolutely not been happy with the stock brakes on the bike. If it was up to me, we would have some straight Moto GP level brakes on this sucker. But eventually braided lines, high end pads, maybe a big brake kit, will help improve the overall braking performance.

 

Look on ebay for a 6 pot caliper of a gsxr and a mounting bracket to put in on a harley front end. I mean find the bracket first and see what caliper it uses. Don't forget a rebuild kit too. Cheap way to have pretty good brakes. Honestly if i could only do one thing to a new harley it would be the front suspension. A good front suspension will help prevent brake dive and in my opinion a good suspension and brakes go hand in hand.

 

Thats actually a really good idea!! I hadn't thought at all about going that route. And likely is cheaper/better than all the other options I mentioned!!
I couldn't agree more!! Originally coming from a sport bike background, when I first started getting into Harleys, I was shocked at the level of dive that comes out of the front end with even low level braking.

 

Looking good.

 

Thank you!! Love what you’ve done with your Iron as well!

 

I can vouch for the 1200 Iron seat, the factory seat on my SuperLow was too wide for the bike, ruined the look IMO. I found a 1200 Iron seat on ebay that was brand new, the guy rode his bike home from the dealer and took it off and went with something else. Paid $150 for it, much cheaper than buying from the dealer. I know everyone's butt is different but I can ride that seat all day.

As far as suspension, the Iron is IMO sprung WAY too stiff and that's one reason I looked at the SuperLow. Last winter I went with a set of Progressive Monotubes, and while the initial shock from a bump is softened, you will still know you are on a bike with limited suspension travel. They won't produce miracles as far as comfort.

One thing I added that made a considerable difference is a fork brace. I went with a SuperBrace, the first time riding the bike with it it felt twitchy, finally dawned on me the front end was more precise with steering input. I tend to ride it more like a sport bike than a cruiser so that was a big plus for me.

 

Beautiful bike, great work and creativity. Look into a Hammer 1250 upgrade, or the newer 1275, but that's more money for just a few more cc's. I love my 1250 conversion, bike is soooo much better to ride, especially when traffic seems to be 70mph minimum around my area. It's nice to have some extra "oomph" when needed.

I did a Wilwood 4 pot front caliper on mine, huge improvement in braking performance. Only $225, no brackets or mods required to install.

What is OIGY? I can't figure out what that fender graphic is.

John

 

Great looking bike and I second the love for the 883!

As John Harper said- look into the Hammer 1275 upgrade, while I don’t have one myself (yet) that’s the route I’m going also. From my understanding, that kit combined with the 883 gearing makes for one hell of a ride.

I too like the look of the DK (slight) tank raise, I also kept the plastic harness thing for now and agree, the oem seat does the bike no justice at all, I went with the Lepera bare bones and love the look/feel.

I like your future plans as well. Keep posting- we all love pics!