| Author | Message | ||
     Snotrocket |
 Hey Everyone, You guys are a load of information. This site is great!!! Yesterday, my brother(who owns a 99' Sportster Custom), made the mistake of riding my 97' Buell S3. He loves the power and the tourque, but is not ready to get rid of his Sportster yet. He wants to know what the differences are in our engines and what he needs to do to get his running like mine. Is this possible? | ||
| Mikej |
A co-worker here has an XL. It was configured as a baby-bagger when he got it. Over the winter he had it worked on, took off the excess garbage, and added Buell engine components. One thing your brother won't be able to overcome is the engine mounting, rigid is rigid. I like Buzz Buzzelli's book on XL performance mods. But for better advice you'll have to wait for the XL man to answer, or check at the XL-list site. MikeJ (If I had an XL I'd modify the bejeezers out of it.) | ||
| Blake |
Sure is. Heads and pistons and cams and a good race intake, a good performance exhaust system and a Buell ignition module will have his sporty running up to 85 RWHP. The Thunderstorm heads and pistons can, with proper exhaust and tuning actually give his engine better performance than your non-Thunderstorm '97 Thunderbolt. Tell him to call one of our sponsors. They'll set him up with everything he needs. Sporty Eric (where are you?) can shed more light on the performance XL1200 scene. Still, your bro could sell his sporty, buy a low mileage Buell and have enough money left over to have the Buell engine Nallinized to make 100RWHP. That'd be the ticket. Then he'd have a great performing engine in a chassis that handles and won't vibrate his fillings loose. | ||
| Lake_Bueller |
Most engine parts are interchangable. But I found out first-hand, that not all Sportster parts will work on a Buell. I needed emergency "surgery" on my Buell. The nearest H-D dealer that I limped into was not a Buell dealer. I needed a new voltage regulator for my 98 S3T. The 97 & earlier used the Sportster regulator. All 98 & later use a Buell specific regulator. | ||
| Sportyeric |
Sportyeric is driving the family around on vacation while his beloved bike sits in the shed.  I don't know what heads the 99 Custom would use. They might be the same as the S1 heads that I am using, and that you have in your S3, in which case all that is needed is to unplug the intake and exhaust and re-jet. Getting a larger volume exhaust "ruins" the traditional look of the Sporty but there are several that work well. Look at Sportster.org and get him on the mailing list and asking there. Give him my address and I'lll answer directly, if I can. Thinking about a rebuild next year, I wonder whether the larger valves of a Thunderstorm head would be a detriment on the Sporty since, as Blake says, vibration is more of an issue. I don't really like to go over 5500 too often because it feels so abusive but a rubber mounted Buell at the same revs just feels like it's doing its job. I might get domed pistons and my current heads fit to match. Look to Buellers hot-rodding their bikes for cast-off stock stuff. That's where all mine came from (heads, cams, ignition.) I just this year inherited a Branch manifold from my Buell riding buddy that is 1/2" longer than stock and doesn't fit into the Buell frame.  It seems to add a nice ummph. Without wanting to start anything, I can match an S1 (with pipe) on roll-ons through any rpm range up to 6000, with well assembled S1 components. |
