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The Woods 555's will indeed work well in a 103 with compression set at 10.5 and a set of ported heads. Had a RK with this exact setup and it made 102hp/114tq on a dealer tune. Always felt there was more left on the table with the dealer tune but it ran good and I was happy and never saw the need to get another tune.
thanks for clarifying. Thats what I've been told. Given the future changes I plan to make, moving to a 255 would be pointless. What about gear drive cams?
You don't need gear drives unless your building an all out hard runner with welded crank, the chain drive cams will suffice just fine. If your wanting a strictly bolt in then I'm not sure I'd change them, I'd get the bike tuned and see where it lands but if you still want cams the Woods 222's will work.
Gear driven cams can only be done if your crankshaft has runout below the spec. Most are over the min, meaning crank has to come out and be turned. Way too expensive at that point. Unless you can wrench that bad boy out, chains are the way to go.
I went with Andrews 57H cams in my stock 103". Couldn't be happier......100HP and 120TQ......not too shabby for a stage 2 with stock heads, and only A/C and headers/exhaust.
Last edited by petejoe43; May 15, 2017 at 11:32 PM.
I must follow up with a mild warning. This adventure will lead you to the dyno room, and once you go down the rabbit hole.....well, you'll find yourself in search of the ultimate tune for your setup. Although the Dyno sheet above looks impressive, it took many weeks of effort and help to get the full range of throttle in each gear matched up right for my riding style. If you like to tune/tinker, you'll do fine. If you want plug n play, stick to a stage 1 and a good base map. Just my .02
I like my Andrews 48 with no other mods but header, slipons and AC. And a dyno tune. If you can leave it alone there, this cam sounds like what you are looking for from your description. I believe if you want cams that you can grow into with more mods later, you are asking to be disappointed with the selection and caught in the trap of upgrades immediately. Get the cams you need for now and when you want more, get the cams to match the mods.
If you're not doing anything other than a cam (no head work, no compression increase), I think a Woods 222, Andrews 48, TT-100 (low-mid cams) are all in the ballpark of what you're looking for. Torque comes on about 300-500rpm earlier than the Woods 555 / Andrews 57 (mid cams) and gets to about 95%+ of the overall HP capability of the mid cams. Also, the you'll see the gains of the mid cams only after 5k+ rpm.
I went with the Andrews 57 cam for my Switchback, with the idea of getting heads done at a later time. While it is better than stock, I think I would have preferred the Woods 222 or other low-mid cam if not considering headwork later on. It's rare I'm running the bike beyond 5k rpm and that's where the gains from this cam really shine.
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