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Yes it was good year,last of the forged lower ends with the Timken bearing.
Put a set of gear drive cams in with upgraded cam bearings and it will run 'til the cows come home.
It was certainly a good model year to buy a Twin Cam bike...
The Good:
The MM EFI was gone, and replaced by the Delphi....
They still had good compensators, prior to the HD compensator "upgrade" fiasco in 2006/07.... that they didn't adequately fix until 2014...
It was the last of the "bullet proof" lower ends...... with the hot forged cranks and lefty timken bearings
The '03s had cold forged cranks, but lost the lefty Timken bearings.... around '05ish, the crank run out numbers became embarrassing, and the MoCo just kept raising the "maximum allowable" crank run out numbers... I think they went as high as 0.012", which is a joke..... You need to be under 0.003" for gear drive cams, and quality lower ends (like those done by Dark Horse Crankworks) are at or below 0.001"
The Bad:
The '02 still had the problematic spring cam tensioners, but with the stout bottom end, it was very rare that they wouldn't qualify for gear drive cams...
The less desirable B-148 INA brand cage-style inner cam bearings... easily replaced with Koyo (formerly Torrington) captive needle bearings
At 20 years old, it could be hard to find a good, lower mileage 2002, that hasn't been totally molested by prior owners...
I'm sure good deals/bikes are still out there... Four years ago, I bought a 2002 FXSTS Springer that was all OEM except for the seat, and only had 9.8K miles...
Last edited by hattitude; May 12, 2022 at 07:29 PM.
I had to drive 480 miles (to Atlanta,) last September to find it, but the '02 Low Rider below had just 22,000 miles with nothing more than Stage 1 mods. Lots of cosmetic / ergonomic upgrades and absolutely flawless black factory paint. Lady owner.
(I specifically searched for an '00 to '02 carbed motorcycle for the reasons stated above for a couple of months before I stumbled across this one.)
Yes, a 2001 or 2002 TC would be the only bike that could tempt me to stop riding my EVO.
Gear drive is a good thing as others already mentioned.
The OEM retrofit kit with new model cam chain tension shoes and the later high capacity oil pump is good too, at least according to folks on this forum.
However, there are high milage TC bikes out there that never had an issue with them.
My mate had a Road king and original with a well sorted carbed TC 88 with 54 000 miles on the clock. (Still had the original cam chain shoes).
I had a '09 FLSTC stage 1, AC, SE2 and beeing SERT adjusted and with only 23000 miles.
Compensator was just starting to give up when I sold it.
I was just ever so slightly faster 0-70 miles/hour but his bike would in comparision have a topspeed approx.
6-8 miles/h higher. Used a bit more fuel though.
So my firmly belief is that one could do a lot worse than buying an '01-'02 TC
Disclaimer: Others experince or point of view may vary.
Last edited by K. Lindberg; May 12, 2022 at 08:24 PM.
2002 was a sweet spot, but time moves on. I loved my 2002 RK, but I must admit that my 2021 EGR out performs it in every way. If I had hung onto my 2002 I am sure I would still be happy as a clam though.
Last edited by dswansbiker; May 13, 2022 at 07:23 AM.
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