1340 Rebuild

My buddy has been having some noises in his motor. Well, after hemming and hawing for a while and hoping it was something stupid, we finally ripped it down and our worse suspicions were confirmed. It appears to be a conncecting rod bearing. There is a score in the front cyl wall too.

Now he's decided to go all out. I think it's going to the machine shop this weekend. He wants to bore it, put in a new cam, yada yada. Plus he's gonna send the sheet metal out to get new paint.

He hasn't even priced anything yet. The way we figure it, it's gotta be done so why bother asking how much? It's gonna get spent anyway. I was just wondering, I've always heard that the EVO lower ends are pretty bullet proof. His only has about 21K on it. Is this a common occurance with that kind of milieage? His is a 97 Softail. Mine is a 99 Fatboy with the same motor and I have almost 30K on mine so now I'm wondering If I should start setting some cash aside for a rainy day? Also, is it usually cheaper or more expensive to rebuild it, doing the work yourself, than replacing the engine? I called the local dealer and they said a brand new EVO would be around $2800 or so.

I'll let you know how it goes and if we get stuck. This will be the first total rebuilds either of us has done on one of these. Wish us luck.

Elbruto is $3K?? Man.. I missed that one

HRK, I just had my 98 EVO rebuilt. I found this shop that has a lot of history with these motors. They charged $2,200.00 and through in a S$S oil pump, gaskets, lifters, pistons, bearings, reed ventilation valve. I bought a new andrews 27 cam and PC3r.

They claimed that the FI throttle body will not flow anymore so it was useless for me to go any bigger or I would have to buy a new throttle body. I did not have any money for anything else. We went 10 over pistons and shaved the heads for a compression around 9.5to1. They made some oil improvements in the lower end. It runs great and sounds great too. I think the added compression makes it vibrate a little more than stock though. I need a good dyno tune soon.

I had 53K miles when I developed the same rod knock (middle rod bearing). Apperently there are a few of these becouse of the manufacturing process slams it all together, some are bad some are good. That is why I stayed away from the HD rebuild.

Good luck

To do a rebuild right it would be cheaper to just buy a new one from Harley .You can get them as cheap as $2.200 .But it all depends on what your looking for .Do you want stock or do you want to hoop it up a little . What kind of oil is your buddy running in his bike I really would like to know Please get back to me on the type of oil he was running

Another thing if your buddy is going all out tell him to get a set of 97 1200 sportster heads and have them done up to fit his 1340 .They have to recut the pushrod holes because a 1340 push rods go up on a angle and the fins need to be cut so the push rods will clear. And then have them onpened up a little you know port them DO NOT POLISH them take a little of to get more comp about 10 half is good . the cam shaft must be matched to the heads a short Duration is what you want like a 227 Intake and a 243 Exhaust and you don't want a lot of lift.With a few other goodies he will have a BAD A#s Bagger . I know this cause I got a 95 FLHT 1340 and I can tell you this its crazy fast the torque out of this world and its all harley parts . Your rocker arms and lifters should be stock Harley STAY away from roller rockers . I can give you the specs on my cam if you like just let me know

after market motors are fine but with out pointing fingers there are a few after market motors out there that I would not give a cent for . Harley builds a good motor they have been doing it for years .But like any thing else your going to find a bad one. Me personally I would not buy nothing but Harley I have seen big cub inch motors pushing a lot of horses and a lot of RPMs and they are all harley parts. But each to there own

I agree that HD has great engines and upgrade packages. But, I know that during the manufacturing process (automated) you will get a few bad eggs (this is what I think happend to mine).

I reasonably assumed the HD rebuilds will have more of a personal touch and therfore more attention to detail. But, I priced the EVO HD rebuild at $2,495.00 and then I would have had to change the cam and pushrods since I like the Andrews 27 (or SE-3, everyone says is the same thing). I felt that I got the same attention to detail from the local indy at $2,200.00 with higher compression, new reed vent valve, and SS oil pump. Don't worry, I bought a new cam anyway, but I wasn't voiding any warrenty.

I know some one that bought a S&S and they found matel shavings in there oil pump. Motor was brand new right out of the box. and if truth be told a stock oil pump is fine. I have never sean the need to up grade a Harley oil pump. There are so manny after markit parts out there and they all tell you they can do the job better then Harley oem parts don't beleave much of what you read or hear. The problem in this day in age is every buddy thinks biger is better and on the street its just not true . I guse I am just old school the Ev27 is a real good cam I had one in my bagger

I have a example for you I have a 1340 FLHT bagger the choice of heads for me where a set of 95 sportster head that been ported not polished a little taken of for more comp the values are stock and the springs are stock and for a heavy bike I would put them up against any of the big name heads

RH,

I don’t have as much experience working on various HD’s as you do. And I don’t know anything about Sportsters. So I gotta ask, why did you go through all that trouble to put a sportster head on a big twin EVO?

Does the sporty have bigger valves?

Does it flow more air than a EVO. If so, why would it flow more air when it was designed for a lesser cube motor.

Does the sporty engine redline higher than EVO? If so then it may need have been designed to flow more.

Thanks for all the input guys. I appreciate it. There's a lot of good info here. Sorry for the delayed response. I was having computer issues.

Ridehard95, he always used Harley oil, non synthetic, and Harley filters.

I think he's leaning toward rebuilding rather than the HD replacement. Right now he's talking to a couple of the local indy guys to to get some more opinions of what to do and not to do. He will be doing the work himself except the machining. I will be helping but more as a learning experience than anything else. He is a class A deisel mechanic but doesn't have a lot of Harley experience so he wants to make sure he doesn't make some rooky mistake.

I'll let you know how it goes as we progress and if we have any problems as we go along.

Thanks guys.

Do you have any dyno charts that show the curve? I am curious as to why the RPM limit is increased? The push rod angle has not been changed as the XL, EVO and TC88 all use the same rocker and that is the limiting factor in RPM on a Big Twin. The reasons an XL engine can rev tighter are four cams which allows a much straighter valve train geometry, smaller bore, shorter stroke, lighter wheels, etc. If you were to place the valve train at the same angles as a Big Twin, the RPM limit would drop substantially.

The XL heads do not flow more air, they flow less air at any given valve lift. The reason that an XL head will increase low end torque is due to a higher velocity at a lower RPM. However, that velocity is shortly overcome by the demand for volume at higher RPM's.

The intake and exhaust valves are both smaller than an EVO BT which does account for low end velocity. However, those same small valves quickly become a liability at higher valve lifts because the valve area is far less than the BT.

There is only one way I know of to use XL heads and get a significant performance gain is to increase valve size, bath tub and quench area, unshroud the valves and bowls and increase both the intake and exhaust ports and "D" shape the exhaust. By the time you do all this, you have more in your XL heads than it would cost for a good port and polish.

There are always exceptions to any rule so, I really would like to see the dyno numbers on your combination and what you've done to the heads to get the power.

You also have said:
"Your rocker arms and lifters should be stock Harley STAY away from roller rockers . "

While I personally do not like roller rockers on the shaft instead of bushings, roller tipped rockers are far superior to standard tipped rockers for a very simple reason. A roller tipped rocker will not put the same side load on the valve stem as a standard tip does. Less side load equals less wear and less friction. Roller tipped rockers have been in use in small block Chevy's since the early sixties. Roller shaft bearings do not offer the same surface area as a stock bushing and I have seen far too many ruined rocker shafts due to bearings wearing through the case hardening. Any even bigger improvement is to use the larger rocker bushings from S&S as they spread the load to a larger area and reduce friction further.

I'm not picking on you, I am picking your brain. I've been kicking around the performance industry for awhile and I am always interested in new ideas and learning.

Update

I just fugured I'd give you guys an update on the teardown. We have the motor in the stand at this point with the top end removed. There is quite a but of play in the front connecting rod bearing so that seems to be the culprit. There are some very faint scratches in the cylinder but it may hone out. We'll see soon enough. That's as far as we got so far. He's taking the sheet metal off so we can send it to our buddy's auto body shop to get painted while we work on the motor. It looks like he found his winter project a little early.

He swapped the plate onto his hold 85 Sportster 1000 for the rest of the season. What a freekin load that thing is in comparison! It has heavy duty shocks so it rides like a brick. Oh well. It's better than watching everone else drive off.

Thanks again guys.

Maxpower,

Thanks for the update. Sounds like an identical problem that I just went thru, from the front rod bearing to the rubbed piston skirts. I got lucky getting 50K miles I guess. Sorry to see your buddy only got 21K.

The best thing I did on the rebuild was to shave the head to get about 9.5 to 1 compression from the stock 8.5 to 1. This really made a difference. I had a indy shop do the rebuild so I don't know all the details. I was too impatient to do it myself.

Good luck on the rebuild and save your money for the softail.