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[LMR]

My bike is a 16 flhtkse with a 110 motor. Is there a rule of thumb as to when the crankshaft should be welded or beefed up in some way ? The reason I ask is I see quite a few people putting cams , big bores and ported heads to their bike. I personally would like to have the heads massaged and up the compression . The ultimate goal is to add a sidecar, so there is extra weight. What say the masses?

[Unbalanced]

When you get into performance work the crank becomes a bigger concern if its not already one.   In the old days .003 was the tolerance it was moved to .013 in the 07 bikes.   Most bikes are seeing around the .007 now from the factory.   So if your doing any real mods to the engine I would suggest it.   In some cases its cheaper to just buy better than try and correct and weld whats there.   I have done all 3 of the choices (weld/balanced stock crank with better rods, buy S&S, buy S&S and weld it, buy Jim's and have them weld it, buy jims have them weld it then have Darkhorse fix it and reweld it, and buy 3pr crank) in the last go around(s) opted to go to P3R a rebuild able crank in 2 bikes.  If it chits the bed I ship it off and just pay to rebuild it vs. buy again and then also get it re-welded etc the costs add up although you hope never to have to worry about after you pay for it.   Is it cheap nope, but I felt you get what you pay for.   I just had a rod stretch in an S&S motor (S&S crank) don't believe it was the crank that was at fault to start it, just the end result do to a Timken spinning.  No matter the cause I still needed another crank.  With the 3PR I put in the Carrillo Rods and balance setup I wanted, as well as the ability for the Cryogenics which I opted for on the last motor.  Next time I do a crank it will be 3PR but will probably opt for the Ultima Rod for the street and save a few hundred bucks to boot. 

Good luck with this.

   

[LMR]

Seeing how nobody else had input, I am wondering if it has more to do with riding style than horsepower.

[CVODON]

Talk to whoever is going to do the motor work for you.

[grc]

Seeing how nobody else had input, I am wondering if it has more to do with riding style than horsepower.

In many cases it has more to do with "the luck of the draw".  We hear of fewer scissored cranks these days than we did in 2007 - 2010, but they still happen.  As long as Harley uses a multi-piece press fit design, some will fail.  The trick is in predicting which ones will be the ones to fail.

Even if you decide to leave the crank alone, I'd still recommend checking the pinion shaft runout when you have the cam chest opened up.  The average late model Twin Cam comes from the factory with more runout than what used to be the wear limit on the older Twin Cams.  That isn't good for oil pump life/reliability.

JMHO - Jerry

[prodrag1320]

Get a s&s flywheel,,no need toweld it,it wont move.