I will be doing cams on my 07 FLHTPI 103 that currently has a Fuel Moto stage 1 (PCV, dyno tuned Jackpot slip-ons).
I have it narrowed down to three cams. Andrews 54h, woods 555 or 6-6. I will add an Auto Tune regardless of cam choice, heads will remain stock for now. My head is spinning with the amount of reading I have done and am ready to pull the trigger, my question is this. Are the woods cams really worth the extra money? Are the woods lifters worth the extra cash? Woods with install kit, adj pushrods, lifters+ shipping will be 800$+ Andrews under 600$. I have considered using crane(#10530) or melling(#JB2079) lifters to safe some cash and help off set the cost.
Please keep your responces to the above mentioned cams only.

 

No comment on the cams as they are all good. As for the lifters the stock HD lifters ( not the SE's) are hard to beat for the price. I know some builders who only run them in all their builds regardless of the cam used.

 

subscribe...need to know about the crane cams as well...if I can save over 150.00 in cheddar...hot damn.

 

Is there a problem with the SE lifters?

 

Why are you changing lifters?

 

I would go with Fuelmoto's TW555 kit. $200 over the long haul of ownership is not much and FM really supports their products. Jamie really helped me get my PCV/Autotune/TW6-6 dialed in. The 555 was not out when I got my cams or I would have used 555 over the 6-6. My bike now gets 42 MPG cruising and still pulls hard all the way up to 5500, after that I am just moving air & making noise up to 6200. It is hard to put into words the "smile factor" I get each time I ride the bike. The bike has a super fat mid range power band now. Hope this helps.

 

I have talked to two builders that I trust and both warned me to not use SE lifters as they have seen them fail. Also there have been postings on this forum about problems with them. I have never had an issue with the stock ones. On my RK I decided to replace the stock lifters at 100,000 miles thinking it was time. I took one apart to see how it looked and the pin bearings as well as the rest of it looked new.

 

Bike has over 30k on it and was in service for the first 15k. Figure that if I'm in there might as well change lifters. Just have a hard time paying 30-50 bucks a piece for lifters if I can buy for 15$ using crane or melling.
I'm not chasing dyno #'s but like to look at the graph to see when and where the tq comes in. I haven't found a dyno sheet showing the 54 in a 103 without head work. In a perfect world I would like to see 100/100 but I'm on a budget and will use the AT to fine tune. My accountant told me there is no money for dyno time.

 

You could save some money by re-using your stock pushrods and original lifters. The former will entail a couple of hours more time with the cam install, but if you're DIY once it's done it's done. I believe that the need to change lifters while in the cam chest is overestimated, as it is rare to hear of lifter problems even on high-mileage bikes. If they are working well I see no reason to replace them, and if you do you don't know for sure if you'll get a bad one in the new set. These are the same lifters used by GM in many of their vehicles and I can't say I've ever heard of anyone having a problem with them, although I'm sure it happens. I reused my original lifters when I did my cam job at 25k and I'm now at 42k with no problems, and a friend who's a very knowledgeable tech reused his at 60k miles. He said he wouldn't change lifters regardless of mileage unless they were abnormally noisy or otherwise giving problems.

The Wood 555 looks like a good option if you have compression of 9.5-10.25, and your 103 should be in that range if you have flat-top pistons. I believe Fuel Moto's 107 kit includes 10.25 pistons and I know the 555 works very well with that combo.

 

I have considered reusing my stock rods but once I pull the tank then I might as well pull the heads and so the slippery slop starts.