thanks guys...So what I am hearing is there is nothing wrong with the original type bearings and people are just switching to the torringtons because they are cheap and it is good practice to change bearings at cam change...the original bearings are fine, i.e. no failure issues....

 

For the money of the new bearings, definitively cheap insurance.

 

When I put in the 255 cams in at 3600 miles on the bike I ask the dealer if I should change the inner cam bearings with that few of miles on it and he recamended that I do that and to use the torringtons, Their shop will not use the stock INA's with any motor work they do.
That being said I also have no expereance with faliure to the stock bearings.

 

It does happen, I had to rebuild a friends 06 streetglide with 20,000 miles when the cam bearing went and debris trashed the entire engine and takes the case out too. No mods all stock. Mike

 

Thats 06 not 07+. Its an older issue.

 

I did mine the other way around.

I had a buddy with an '03 Heritage grenade his inner cam bearings. On my '03 FLHRCI, I was sitting on some Chrome Cash and wanted to put in the hydraulic cam chain tensioner plate with that, and take care of the inner bearings at the same time. So..... "while we were in there". That led to SE211 cams too, just for kicks.

I decided that since I was spending "funny money" I might as well fix all that stuff on my schedule, rather than not.

Just my .02

 

If you are already in there and as easy as they are to change why not cheap insurance

 

I have not heard of any cam bearing failures on 07 and up TC motors.

 

Change the bearings upon a cam change, yes. What ever you want to put in is fine, full comp or caged.

 

I'll disagree with that. Depending your mileage and a few other factors your risk goes up. A lot. Those bearings are not expected to last forever by design.

Resources close to the Source tell me years back when MoCo switched to the cheaper style bearings they saved $8 per motorcycle. There was an argument on the inside that those bearings were destined to fail at 40k miles and not worth the $8 savings.

Guess what, 40k miles is well outside what most people will drive while under their warranty and repairs after warranty are even better for the bottom line. So cheap bearings for us it is.

Assuming those bearings are reliable is a gamble where the odds get worse with time.

Considering that a catastrophic engine failure is imminent from a a bad cam bearing, it's really just another cost effective PM that needs to be on the to do list, especially when you are in that area wrenching.