Best Upgrades for Your M8 Harley-Davidson

All right, there we go. Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in. I'm Mike Roen doing a little live stream down at Fix My Hog studio today. And my good buddy Dennis was supposed to be here on Zoom introducing me, but of course, all the modern technology, it just didn't work out. So I'm here high and dry all on my own, so bear with me. But really what we got going on today in this video is it's gonna be about the Milwaukee-Eight and it's kind of based around a bunch of phone calls I get at the shop. And it's really just things to consider when you're gonna do your Milwaukee-Eight build. And what I see is a lot of people, they make a lot of bad choices on exhaust systems, and cams, and intakes, and then, you know, they end up having to spend more money to buy a more appropriate exhaust system or something. So really it's kind of the stuff we're gonna go over today is how to plan your build and try to not make so many expensive mistakes and do it one time only. So really it's things to consider. So really starting out, I don't know if you're buying a new motorcycle or you're buying a used bike, see Milwaukee-Eight, it's been out since 2017. In my mind it still seems like it's something relatively new, but it's been around a while now. So there's a lot of upgrades going on with these things. But keep in mind, if you're gonna buy a new motorcycle, you've got a two year warranty. And a lot of people, they don't care about that. They buy the bike, they go out, they put a thousand miles on the thing, they do a shakedown run. They go, okay, this thing's not leaking oil, it doesn't have trouble codes, everything's fine. And then they say, that's it. I'm gonna void my warranty. And they do the exhaust, they do the intake, they do the cam, they do the lifters, cam bearing, and then they're happy. The things got tons of power. And more importantly, they got the exhaust note. 'Cause when you buy a Harley stock, it's pretty mundane thanks to, you know, the catalytic converter and all that, it's got a fast emission, so they're quiet. If you look around, you don't see too many Harley's with stock exhaust. But the reason a lot of people do run stock exhaust is because they're trying to protect that warranty. And Harley's kind of gotten down on that to where if you do anything to your motorcycle, you're gonna void your warranty and then you're out, you know, so something to consider, do you want to make that step? And thing is, a lot of shops, a lot of Harley shops are doing these builds on new motorcycles and they're telling their customer we're gonna warranty your motorcycle. So I don't know if that's true or not, if it's through the motor company or if it's just gonna be through that dealership. 'Cause if you're a thousand miles away and you hurt the thing, now are you putting it on a trailer and bringing it back to that dealer for the warranty? So if you're in that situation, clarify all that before you spend your money. But more than likely, you're gonna be doing all the work on your motorcycle, so it's probably gonna be irrelevant. But if you buy a used bike that has an extended warranty, you know, figure out the logistics before you start wigging the thing out and get way off the baseline. So one thing to consider the warranty. The first, and you know, most thing you're probably gonna do on your M8 is probably exhaust. I mean, nobody likes a quiet bike for the most part. It's pretty mundane, there's nothing there. And so what people do is they typically start with a slip-on. And if you look at the M8 in 2017, you can see that your twin cam and all your old exhaust slip-ons aren't gonna work on the M8 because they changed the diameter of the right side muffler and he's gonna get a shot of that. You can see how large that is compared to, you know, a stocked twin cam or the left hand side of the exhaust. So all the aftermarket exhaust manufacturers were scrambling the first six months to a year. And what they were doing, in fact, I got a shot of that, we're gonna be coming back to this again, but, you know, here's the head pipe, here's the catalytic converter, and of course the outlet, it's pretty big, which yeah, they want that thing to breathe, so they got went big. And just to compare it, here's the twin cam. So you can see, you know, big change in diameter there, the catalytic converter, probably more volume there, more efficient. So that's why none of your old exhaust systems are gonna work on the M8, and get these out of the way for now we'll probably come back to that in a bit, but I just wanted to show that. So here's what people were doing. They're buying a set of aftermarket slip-ons, they're putting 'em on their M8, and they're still not happy with the exhaust note. And what was going on is that catalytic converter's pretty restrictive. And so what the manufacturers were doing, you know, they started out with a baffle diameter that was free flowing. If you were to look at this, you can see all the way through it, you know, it's like an inch and a quarter or something, and that was a little too restrictive with the catalytic converter still on the motorcycle. So people would spend five to $800 on a set of slip-ons and they go, I still can't hear my bike, it still sounds like a Honda. So now the aftermarket exhaust people said, you know what, we're gonna make this baffle huge. So when people buy their slip on, they put it on their motorcycle with the catalytic converter still on it, and they get a little more rumble. That's all fine and dandy, but now you're wanting a little more and you're decided to void your warranty and you want to go to the next step. And that's gonna be removing the catalytic converter or buying a desirable head pipe. So I'll put this back up on here. You know, some people, they have shops that go in and they remove the cat, you know, obviously the second you cross that line, you know, it's technically all for off-road use, but the 49 states, you know, excluding California, everybody does it, you know. And the problem with this is this catalytic converter, it's just a huge heat sink. And if you've been in traffic on your motorcycle, you know what I'm talking about, your right leg is on fire. And the reason is because Harley is trying to pass emissions with, you know, this configuration, air cooled, waterhead, whatever, they have to run the motorcycle fairly lean and high temperatures, catalytic converter gets hot. So that's a big step is going with a desirable head pipe or removing the cat and then you're gonna get your, you know, more performance. But along with that, when you do that obviously, more than likely you're gonna do something with the air box. If you look at the stock backer plate, this one here is off a twin cam, but it's the same theory. You'd have your air filter and your air filter cover here and then this is it. This is your little inlet for your air pump. You know, your motor is breathing through these little slots. And so obviously you're like, well that's gotta go. So you end up putting a high flow air cleaner kit on and I think we got a picture of a high flow air cleaner and it eliminates that backer plate. And then you get a cleanable air filter like that and you know, now your air pump is going, hey, we've uncorked the exhaust, we've dealt with the intake and now of course the next big step is gonna be, you know, remapping your ECU. And that that is a big step because, you know, you're gonna want to do a lot of research on what software you're gonna jump in with. There's a lot of tuning devices out there for the stage one to get you by. You know, we've got some videos on the website, Vance & Hines got a fuel pack and you know where we're at, we use software, we use Power Vision software. It's you know, affordable, tunable. And that's kind of a decision you're gonna want to research because what you want to do is you want to plan ahead. You want to think, okay, I'm gonna do the slip-ons, I'm gonna do the air cleaner kit, and I'm gonna do the head pipe. But I know once my kid's outta hockey, I'm gonna have enough money to do the cam and lifters next year. And then after that I think I wanna make my bike a 114 or a 119. So you want to pick a tuning device, you're not gonna exceed the parameters of that tuning device. So what you do is when you decide on what you want, you know, you, they all have tech lines. You call them and say, hey, you know, in the future this is what I'm thinking of doing. Or more importantly, you start thinking about who's gonna dyno tune my motorcycle and what kind of software do they use, and is this shop reputable? So that's a really big step is because for me, I would get the phone call, hey, I built a 128, I want to get it dynoed. And it's like, okay, well you know, what do you have for a tuning device? And if it wasn't something desirable, you know, we wouldn't use it, we would say no, we have to say our software and this is what we're married to, this is what we're comfortable tuning the bike with. And then you're like, what? I already spent four or $500 on, you know, this tuning device. So upfront before you do anything, you figure out who's gonna be the guy that's gonna dyno tune this motorcycle and get that all figured out. Yeah, you can buy a canned map from some aftermarket companies 'cause if you're just doing a stage one, you might not, you know, have to dyno tune your bike. You could probably buy the software, it comes preloaded with a map that's set up for slip-ons or it's set up for slip-ons with a head pipe and an air cleaner. That's fine, you put it in the bike carburates all right, and everything's good, you've saved yourself the dyno tune money. It's gonna really come down to when, you know, you crack the seal and you do the cam, you do a big boar. Now you need to, you know, like I said, get in with somebody that knows what they're doing and build an appropriate map for that bike. So you know, what you could do is you develop a relationship with this dyno guy. You say, you know, I've been calling you asking about pipes. What pipe do you use? What pipe do you sell? What cam do you use? You know, maybe you support that guy and you buy your parts from him. They might be a little bit more, but what you're doing is you're getting ready to have your bike dynoed and you want to have it done right. So do a lot of research on that because that's gonna be a big deal once you build your motor. So take a look at my notes here. Okay, the other thing, the exhaust, what I like to, just things to consider, 'cause people what they do is they end up buying an exhaust pipe that's loud. And that's cool if it's a bar hopper and you're ripping around town, but now all of a sudden, three months later you've been riding the thing and you're gonna go on this 5,000 or a thousand mile road trip with your buddies and your bike's loud and they're in front of you and every time you crack that throttle, it's a piercing sound and it wears on your ears and your passenger might not like it, and you've spent $3,000 on your stereo and you can't hear it. Think long term, you know it, for me, the most desirable exhaust system is one that's got a really good bark when you whack the throttle. But at 2,800 rpm, you're going 65 or 70 miles an hour. It's not so obnoxious, you know, and that's kind of what you want is something that's gotta rumble when you throttle and not so bad on your ears all day long, you know, making 'em bleed with this piercing exhaust note. So, you know, maybe you do like that, but in fact, yeah, the exhaust pipe's such a critical role on a Harley. And I'm gonna go over some dyno sheets and just kind of show you 'cause really what we look at on a Harley is torque. Everybody thinks horsepower, but torque is king on a Harley and the exhaust pipe combined with the cam dictates that. And it's a big deal. So like I said, what I would do, you know, is if it's bike night and you go up to your local place and there's 50 motorcycles or a hundred and you look around because they're, again, aesthetics is a big deal on a Harley. Some people just can't, you know, they don't want a two into one, they don't like that look, they want the traditional look, they like both pipes coming out the back on a bagger. A lot of these pipes, if they make a two into one, they make a falsie. You know, you're spending $500 on a dummy pipe that doesn't even work, but it's the looks. So whether you want a two into one, a two into one into two true dual setup, ask questions, you know, you see the guy that's got these slip-ons and you like 'em, they look cool. It's like, hey, start your bike, let me hear 'em. And if that appeals to you, then now you've saved yourself, you know, a lot of money instead of buying something you're not happy with. And then now you gotta sell that and buy another exhaust system, you know. The ideal thing is if you're buying a used bike and somebody's already spent 1500 to two grand on the exhaust pipe and you're getting with the bike, that's a bonus. So something to think about if you are looking around at motorcycles used, but I've had people, they buy a silly exhaust system and then they build this big air pump and this pipe won't support it. So they're like, oh, now I gotta sell that and spend more money? Yep. So think about it. Exhaust pipe's a big deal. Okay, the air cleaner for the most part, keep in mind again, you're gonna do the stage one, you're gonna eliminate your backer plate, you're gonna get rid of the small little inlet 'cause air pump wants more air coming in, more exhaust going out. So there again, do your research, people it kind of amazes me. They go online and they buy some cheap air cleaner kits that might not be sufficient 'cause Milwaukee's a 107, they come as a 114, they've got similar kits to make it a 119, 124, 128, all the way up to 131. So you gotta think, how far am I gonna go with this build? How long am I gonna have this motorcycle? Do I wanna spend $500 on a cool guy air cleaner kit that'll support this? You know, maybe you do. And so buy the right one, one time, and think ahead. Okay, and we've kind of talked about the software, it's a big deal, do a lot of research on that. Figure out which one you're gonna marry and then go with that one and hopefully it'll last the life of your motorcycle. Okay, kind of went over that. Another thing, there's some updates. More than likely what's gonna happen is if you've bought a high mileage twin cam or a M8, you know the deal, you're nervous about the lifters, the hard facing. If you're on our website, if you gotta Fix My Hog, we've got a great M8 cam upgrade and it kind of goes over everything you're gonna want to pay attention to. Obviously, I think we got a picture of it, when we went in did the cam on it. We updated the inner cam bearing, we put the SNF lifter cuffs in, we got a picture of them lifter cuffs and we updated that. The cams, we got a picture of the cam lobe. If you show the stock cam versus the S&S 475, you know, look at those lobes. The cam on my left hand there is just got a small little lobe and the duration's very anemic. And then you look at the S&S cam, it's got a high lift, long duration, because the stock cam has to pass emissions. The cool guy drop-in cam, that's going for performance. And when I say drop in, that means it works with stock valve springs and stock push rods. And that's a pretty big deal because the nice thing about that cam is you get a lot of bang for buck. When you start going over a drop-in cam, that's when things get to be a little more, you're gonna spend a lot more money. You gotta update the valve springs, you gotta do adjustable push rods. You might end up doing something with a throttle body. You could have CNC ported heads. The thing with the Harley build is there is no limit. You know, it's time and money. So in that video, if you're watching it, we go over the oil pump. We do end up updating the oil pump and if you're new to the Milwaukee-Eight, watch the video. From 2017 to say early 2019, they revise the oil pump a couple times. And if you look at these two, you can see this is the early pump, it's got no seal on it and they actually ended up changing the number of teeth in the oil pump. So okay, you've bought a used M8, it's got 30,000 miles on it and you know you're gonna do the cam bearing lifters for you know, a small amount of money. You either buy a aftermarket cool guy oil pump or you buy the latest and greatest revised version for your bike, and then you go ahead put that in, align the oil pump, and it's done. You don't gotta go back in 'cause really what you're worried about if you were to retain, this is sumping, you know, if you're gonna make this thing a big air pump and this motor's gonna continue to sump, that's a problem. So one more thing to cover is just buy the cool guy oil pump, be done with it, update that, that back. Cam plate, same thing. Well actually if you're watching, if you're on a website you'll see, the cam plate, typically we don't update 'em unless the motor's been hurt. If it's run a lot, if it's ate a lifter and ran a lot of debris through it, they're so cheap you just buy a new one. There is aftermarket cool guy ones for more support if you're really putting a big cam in and it's not like the twin cam, the bypass valve is no longer in the cam plate. If you go to the website and watch the video, you'll see that it's in the oil pump now and we got a video on that where we take the pressure relief out and clean it up and do inspection and put it back together. And so be aware of that. And that's really gonna come down to when you start getting into higher mileage bikes. But if you're doing your new bike, obviously you're gonna be doing the lifters and all that. I got a M8 piston here and I got a twin cam piston here and you can see they're dramatically different. I mean back in the day, this was an extremely cool guy piston that, you know, all the GP bikes were doing back maybe 15 years ago. They started going to this to where, and it's basically looks like a little ring holder, you know, and you look at the structure of this thing, it looks like it's out of a train or something. So you know what Harley's doing is they're chasing performance and that's what you're getting, you know, you can see here it's got the little pockets cut out for the valve relief 'cause it's a four valve head. You know, the old twin cams two valve head. They're trying to stay competitive with this motor because there's other manufacturers that are making Big V twins. So now Harley stepped up their game and this M8 makes really good power, you know, when you pretty much update the cam, so put that aside. Now when you're doing all this work and you start, you get off the baseline, typically, basically when you put a cam in it and you've got a good exhaust and good intake and you brought it to the dyno shop and he says, hey, guess what? Your clutch is slipping. And I would believe him because now you've got a lot of power. Or if you're riding two up and you're large or you're pulling a trailer or something and you're riding style is to where you abuse it, you're gonna start slipping the clutch. Now what I got here, this is a clutch spring out of the twin cam and they've gone away from that. And if I think we got a shot of a Barnett lockup clutch and he'll pull that up and what the M8 has is a traditional clutch springs like they've had on metric motorcycles for years. And so now depending on your build, you probably can just get by with buying the clutch springs and updating that and it'll support it. But if you're really raging on it or you've made a big motor and you want that clutch to pull in easy, that Barnett lock ups a pretty good choice. There's other variable pressure clutches that exert more force on the clutch. The more you rev it, you know, and that's something you're gonna consider. That's part of your build is you're gonna have to probably do something with the clutch, depending on your riding habits, so keep that in mind. The other thing I was gonna bring to attention is what Harley did on the M8 is they ended up going with a plastic throttle body. And it's all fine and dandy but you know, you get 20,000 miles on it or you know the thing's got 50,000 miles on it or you are taking the heads off 'cause you're putting some cool guy heads on the bike, they make an aluminum intake manifold, Screaming Eagle makes it and it's fairly inexpensive and it works really well. So if you're doing your build, plan ahead maybe you want to get one of these on order, put it on the motorcycle while you got it apart, nice little upgrade. I don't know if you're gonna continue to run the stock throttle body. Like I said, sky's limit on a Harley. Where do you wanna stop spending money and what do you want to get when you're done? Which brings me to my next point, I think we're kind of gonna go over these dyno sheets because like I said, torque for me is everything on a Harley. So if we were to look at this dyno sheet, I think they're gonna pull it up, bring her back right about there. Okay so I don't know if you know how to read a dyno sheet or not, some people don't. So we're gonna kind of go over this. So to explain what you're looking at here. Now if you look here, you figure 2,000 to 6,000 rpm. Now where do you live life on your Harley? For the most part it's gonna be about 2,200 or 2300, about 4,500 rpm. So really what what we look at is torque in that area. And now that's why it comes back to, oh what exhausted you put on your bike? Is it just a big old open baffle? And did it put a big hoo-ha on your torque graph the size of Texas to where it just hurt it really down low? Did you put a super high lift cam in with short duration to where it's just a revver? And you know, that's kind of the things you gotta consider. So let's go back to that torque graph here. And what this is, is if you look at this, this is a baseline of a stock 107. So this is stock horsepower and this is stock torque. And it's okay, I mean it's a little bit better than you know the twin cam obviously. And what we have here is after horsepower and after torque. And this was a 107 and it looks like with a cam probably in it. So it's a pretty nice gain. Yeah, you're looking at horsepower. But there again, keep in mind this is all out here, over 5,000 rpm, do you ride your motorcycle like that? Really, you're gonna be down here and you're gonna love all this extra torque down here. 'Cause when you're cruising along at 65, 70, you're down there at, you know, 3000 rpm and that's when you roll the throttle on and that's what you feel. So always concentrate on torque down low on your Harley unless you always ride your motorcycle like you stole it. But most people don't. When you ride a bike with torque, you appreciate it 'cause you're leaving a stoplight and you're down here in the lower rpm, you're feeling torque. So this bike here looks like it's got a stage one. So there's your before horsepower, you had about 85 horse and here's your after power. And this build was a 107 to a 119, and with a cam. And you can see it's got a ton of torque and it's got pretty good horsepower and he didn't even rev it all the way to 62 here. And most people don't. If you're out teeing it up with your buddies or you're passing a car, most of the time you don't wanna waste your time revving it over 5,500. You can short shift that thing and not bring it all the way to the revver till you hear it hit the chip. You're just wasting your time and wasting gas and it's just not good for your motorcycle. Most people are back in here, you know, you're shifting at 4,500, you're right in the meat of that torque graph and that's why you're doing a build like this. This is why you're riding a Harley 'cause that's what you want is torque and reliability, of course. Let's take a look here. So this guy, this was, we just did the baseline on a stock bike and now here he did, we did the Harley 114 kit, which has the one performance, the high compression piston. You know, if you look at this piston, it's flat top. They sell a 114 kit that's got a dome. They've probably revised it now to make it the 119. But you can see that thing's got a ton of power, and more importantly look at the torque graph. Now this was the perfect combination 'cause he's got 141 pounds of torque, he's got a drop in cam, he had the aluminum manifold and he had a really good exhaust system and air cleaner. Now this bike is pump gas electric start and that's what you want, you know, I mean to have that kind of torque and reliability, that's really the end goal and that's why you're watching this video is 'cause you just wanna make sure you do your build appropriately. So, okay, that aside, kind of go over my notes here. All right, next thing is, let's say you've done your whole build, you've downloaded a can map and you've been riding your motorcycle around, and you're gonna get it to the dyno shop because you want to put it, you know, you wanna have a map built for your configuration. You want it right on the money. Now when you bring it to the dyno shop, you wanna make sure, obviously, it doesn't have any oil leaks, it doesn't have a coolant leak, it doesn't have any trouble codes. The bike has good fuel pressure and you've adjusted your drive belt properly. You know, 'cause the last thing you wanna do is show up there and go, we got your bike on the dyno and the power keeps dropping down, down and down. Did you have the oil pump outta the bike? Yeah, I did. Did you replace the o-ring on the oil pump and did you realign your oil pump properly? Oh geez, you know what, I didn't. And now the bike's sumping and now you've gotta go pick up your motorcycle, you gotta take it all apart again or you're gonna pay him to take it apart and fix your problem. Did you put the cams in right, and is the cam timing right? I know it sounds stupid but believe me, I've had these things happen and it's just a lot of waste, a lot of time, and a lot of waste of your money. So when you're doing the job, watch that video and do it right. It's just gonna save a lot of headaches and then hopefully you're not gonna hurt your engine in any way. So that's things to consider. The other thing is fuel pressure. You know people, the gas tank's got that little check valve on the bottom of it and what people do is they think they can unscrew that and if they're gonna have the gas tank painted or something, they think I'll just take that off and get it outta the way. Well there's a little check hose, a high pressure hose attached to that. And so they start unscrewing it and they go, this thing ain't coming up, oh wait, there's a hose on there, then they screw it back in. Now the motorcycle will still run but you've got a huge kink in the hose. You bring it to the dyno guy, he's revving it, and you know, the motorcycle's cutting out, which you knew because you thought, well it's gotta be dyno tuned. Nope, it's gotta have a new check hose now 'cause you've put this kink in it. So like I said, make sure your motorcycle has good fuel pressure. It's easy to test if you have a gauge, you start the bike, is it at 60? You rev it, okay, now I know my motorcycle's ready for the dyno tune. There again on the website, we've got a way to retrieve trouble codes through the trip meter. You go back in, you pull all the codes out, you clear 'em, they don't come back, my bike's good to go. So like I said, things to consider. Let's see, that's kind of about it. I think we kind of covered just about everything. I think Dennis, if he was here live and didn't leave me stranded, he was gonna have some questions we were gonna kind of go over and how do you wanna do that? Were you gonna call him up or something? What do we got, Dennis, people with Harley's? Hello. I can hear ya. Can you hear me now? Yes. Hey, I'm calling in from some analog equipment called the landline since this new fancy technology didn't play out. And we wanted to ask you some Q&A that's been coming up on the chat box. And the first one is, you know, somebody asked when should I consider adding compression with release valves? Okay, I can see that on here. So yeah, well typically the the nice thing is, lemme shut that down, okay, the bonuses on anything basically 2012 and later you've got automatic compression releases so it's not gonna apply to an M8 for the most part 'cause it's gonna be on the motorcycle. So really it's a bonus, you know, so it's gonna come down to what your threshold is of how much compression you're jacking in this motor. And we kind of go over that in some of the videos. But ideally, you probably don't want to exceed, I'm thinking right around 185 PSI statically and we have that in one of the videos on how to do a compression test on a bike with a throttle body. And that's really what you're looking at is you don't want to have a street motor to where now 91 octane isn't good enough for your street bike. You know, it's ridiculous. You don't want to have some trailer queen to where you can't ride across America and put pump gas in it. So there again, do your research before you put these mambo high compression pistons in and a cam that doesn't bleed off enough compression. So that's what it's gonna come back to is maintaining, you're gonna build a motor that runs on pump gas and the electric start, the compression valves, that's gonna be for an earlier model, you know, twin cam to where yep you might need 'em. You know, if you're exceeding that, you're gonna put in manual decompressors and every time you start your motorcycle, you gotta use 'em. So, okay, next up. Do you want me to go with that next question on there from Canada? Hello Mike? Yeah. Hey Mike, can you show us the clutch spring plate before? Because when we put up the image we showed the Harley Davidson thick plate and Josh is gonna put up the spring from Barnett instead. Oh okay yeah perfect 'cause yeah, I was looking for that. So yeah, this diaphragm spring here is out of the twin cam and they would always just put a thicker spring in there, which made it extremely hard to pull in. And then if you show the Barnett assembly, it'll show the traditional clutch springs if you got that in there, Josh? The Barnett, oh he doesn't, oh okay. Thought he said he had it, but no, it's the aluminum one. It's got the aluminum pressure plate with the clutch springs all in a row, but there you go. Okay, so right there, you know, on the M8 it's only gonna have three clutch springs, but the theory there is that's what an M8's got is just traditional clutch springs, that's the Barnett lockup, which, you know, they offer that for an M8 as well and that's the cool guy set up. Obviously if you're really raging on your bike, works well. they went away from that. So, okay. I have some more questions for you here. Yeah. Hey, in regards to an air cleaner, I bought a new free flowing air intake. Do I need to change my exhaust and remap? Well, yeah, I mean what it comes down to is it's a package deal really. When you start out you do the slip on and you know, I've had customers, they put a high flow head pipe on, they put slip-ons on, and they put a cool guy air cleaner on and they've been riding their motorcycle for about 10,000 miles on the stock ECU. I wouldn't recommend it because it's extremely lean and if you got into a condition where it's a hot day and you're riding two up and you're driving into a headwind and that motorcycle's pinging 'cause it's so lean, yeah, you could hurt the motor. So I think you can get away with putting a slip on on, leaving the air box stock, and riding around with stock download. Probably gonna be all right because the stock slip on, on M8, it's pretty free flowing, but when you alter the air cleaner kit along with the exhaust, I think you're just getting too far off the baseline to where you're gonna wanna put some sort of tuning device on it to compensate 'cause you know, like I said, Harley's making these things run piping hot. So ideally at that point when you do the air cleaner combined with exhaust, I would really recommend getting some sort of download for that to put some protection in there. Hey Mike, what's the deal with a hyper charger? Well there again, it's a aftermarket air cleaner kit and you know, they've got a couple different versions. The early versions were fine on a evo and on maybe a stock ADH twin cam, but you're kind of exceeding the parameters on a 107 or larger to where you're gonna have to get that pro series because you want more air coming in. So it's gonna come down to you and your motorcycle. If you love the look of it, it's your motorcycle. Some people just don't care that it might hurt performance. Not saying that the hyper charger's gonna, but they might have the silliest exhaust pipe in the world. But you know what, they don't care 'cause this is the bike they cruise around in town and they're not chasing horsepower, they're not chasing torque, they're chasing because it looks cool and it sounds cool. So it always comes back to that usually, you know, if you like to look at the hyper charger and maybe it's not the best performance wise because it's, you know, too small, doesn't matter, it's your bike. So, you gotta think of it that way as well. We're not always all chasing power, but I am, I'm always looking at torque, to me that's everything. Hey Mike, somebody has a question, you talked about it quite a bit on slip-ons. I only, you know, I only wanna add slip-ons, do I need more air? Do I need to remap? Well, you know, it comes back to, how many kids do you have and how much money do you wanna spend on your Harley? And so, I've had customers, they've they've spent a lot of money buying the motorcycle and now they're faced with dropping three grand on doing the exhaust and intake and dyno tune, so it's like, that's a tough pill to swallow. They gotta do it in series, and so the slip on, 'cause they want an exhaust note, they don't like it mundane and quiet. So that's your first step. You buy the best exhaust slip on you can for the money and then you leave the air cleaner stock and you ride it for a season and then next year you go, you know what, okay, now I got the money together, I'm gonna do the head pipe, I'm gonna do the air cleaner, and I'm gonna do some sort of download. So, you know, that's my recommendation, go in stages if you can't afford to do it all at once, not everybody's got a big pile of money laying around to throw out their Harley. Another question on exhaust is can I avoid the O2 sensors, I guess can I just block them off? Well yeah, ideally, depending on the software you have, there is a function in there where they are able to not recognize them but they're, again, that's gonna kind of be depending on your capabilities. If you go out and buy some software and you're a techie guy and you're smart and you really research it and understand how everything works and what you're doing, yea you can disregard 'em. But like I said, I don't know your capabilities, but anything's doable. In regards to software, and the question does say, I know you guys are not here to give legal advice, but you know, all the things when we start doing a stage one basically now are for off-road or racing, right? Is that that the stamp legal-wise or what's the deal legally? I would think so. I mean, depending on what state you live in and here's the big draw. If you've got a really loud exhaust system and you're one of these guys that just brings it to the chip every time you're gonna attract a lot of attention. And so now you're gonna get pulled over maybe and you might get a sound ticket. You go through some cities and they have a sound ordinance and that's a reason to maybe to check to see if your bike is EPA legal. I've never had a customer yet that had the clamp put down on 'em saying your bike's not EPA illegal, but I have had 'em get tickets for being too loud. But I think if you were in California and you had a loud exhaust, yeah, you could be in trouble because it's illegal and then they're gonna check into your emissions and you know, I don't know what the ramifications will be, but that's a good way to get attention is having a really loud pipe, especially in California. Well the old saying is, you're a big person and you're an adult and you put on what you put on and you deal with the consequences, right? Well yeah, I mean like I said, it's gonna come back to what state you're in more than likely and what you're doing. And another, here's a question on cams. I really enjoyed your M8 videos for maintenance, performance, and the cam videos. Why a drop-in cam? I know you talked about it already, but why a drop-in cam? Well I'm telling you, just bang for the buck is the way to go. You know, if you looked at some of those dyno sheets we had, before and after, yeah some of those were with a cylinder kit but the one in there was a pretty good gain for doing a drop-in cam. I think we've got it on the website too maybe. But just the reliability factor, you know in the back of your mind that you've gotta replace these lifters, the hard facings deteriorating on 'em. You've heard me blab about it, about the twin cam and the M8 forever and ever and people when they bring their Harley to me and it's hurt, they don't bring it to me when it's running good, but when the motorcycle has eaten a lifter at 22,000 miles and it's wrecked the lower rod, the cam plate, the oil pump, you know, it's just run all this debris through the engine, it gets tattooed on your brain that, oh boy in the future I'm gonna be putting lifters in my bike and so when I do the lifters, I should probably do a cam, you know, 'cause I'm in there. And if it's got the old oil pump, then I'm gonna do that. I wanna put the lifter cuffs in it and I want to do it right, and I plan on keeping this motorcycle for a long, long time and I like it and so I'm gonna spend the money. So you're doing the work, you're saving all this expensive labor, which is a huge part of it, you know, and it's your motorcycle so makes feel better. Hey Mike, a couple more questions. This one's fairly general, we might know your answer already, but I have a Heritage Classic Softail, what's the best pipe upgrade? And I know you talked about a couple different things and it might be too general of a question but, that's the question. Well if the motorcycle's an M8 or a twin cam, there again, you know, it's such a big deal on the exhaust pipe of what it looks like. and on a Softail, you know, you're kind of getting more limited. These aftermarket exhaust companies, they really go after the touring market 'cause that's where the numbers are. If you look at the Harley sold, touring, baggers, street glide, road glide, the Softail, you know, obviously the dyno is gone. So I don't know if your bike's an M8 or a twin cam, but it's gonna come down to what are you trying to achieve? You know, are you chasing, you want the best torque and the best horsepower? Can you live with a two into one on your Softail? So that's the deal. It's gonna come down to the aesthetics of the motorcycle. And when you pick out that exhaust pipe then it comes back to what's the dB on it? Is this thing obnoxiously loud? Is it really corked up? And the looks of it. So talk with the vendors, research it before you buy it. Look at other Softails out there and say, hey, you know, is this something I like? Can I put up with the exhaust note? Do your homework before you spend the big money on the exhaust pipe. And Mike, you mentioned starting a relationship with a shop that has a dyno, which is a good idea. The question is are there good dyno machines and bad dyno machines? Is that by age? What should people be looking for when they're looking for a dyno? Well, you know, when you're talking to the guy and you're at a shop or you're talking to him, you kind of wanna make sure they have an Eddie Current or a Load Cell. 'Cause you know what this does is it simulates a load on the motorcycle. If they're gonna build a map without it, it's gonna be erroneous. You have to simulate the real world conditions. You know, there's probably a lot of manufacturers on dynos. I don't know, we had a Dyno Jet dyno for years and at Mile High Harley we had a Superflow, both top notch brand names, there's other ones out there. So that's why it's gonna come back to when you start researching your dyno guy, you're gonna ask your buddies, okay, where'd you have your bike done? Where'd you have your bike done? Are you happy? Did it work out? Did the guy blow you off? Did he just take your money and run? Or did he go all the way and actually build a dyno map for the front and rear cylinder, you know, the ignition tables, fuel tables? The guy, if he's the owner of the shop, he probably cares. If you're taking it to a place where the kid's been there about a month and doesn't know anything, you know, it could get a little sketchy. So it's such a big deal having somebody competent dyno tune your motorcycle and it's really hard to find somebody that can do it properly. So really do your homework. Well I think that's it for Q&A and thanks a lot for doing this today- Oh and like you said, yeah if you're gonna beat this guy up, ask him on pipe and cams, try and buy your parts from him, then he's gonna be a little more willing, 'cause then he's gonna have some skin in the game too because you told me to buy this cam, you told me to buy this pipe, I bought it from you, you dyno tune my bike and yeah, you know, is it a good torque graph? Is it producing a number? Is everybody happy? You know, so that's another thing, it kind of helps everybody out. If you buy all your parts off the internet and you put 'em on and then you know, you gotta plan ahead and get this all arranged before you're gonna get your dyno tune, figure out who's gonna be your dyno guy. Well if you can still hear me, thank you very much for today. Thanks for walking us through all this and- Great, yeah. People can watch all the M8 videos on Fix My Hog, from maintenance stage one, the M8 video, the M8 cam videos as well. And I'll get back to my landline here and thanks for coming in today, Mike. Okay, wonderful, yeah. Well I hope everybody found this informative and thanks again for tuning in.