Well I've been e-mailing Tom, and I talked to Steve at AMS in Texas.
I think I'm going to go with their recommendations.
I told them that my 2001 Ultra has always pinged since I got it. It has the 95" Flat Top Pistons, Stage II, .203 Cams, SE intake, True Duals and FullSac Mufflers. Up until recently, the best suggestion most tuners could do is throw fuel at it to keep it from pinging. I got an SERT and had it dyno tuned and it ran great. Then came hot weather and the pinging came back. I had to retard a lot of timing out of it to stop the ping. Now the bike lost it's low end.
Steve said this is a common problem with early HD builds of my kind. The combination of the .030 gasket that they used, the .203 cams, and heat retention from the low flow OEM heads probably gives the motor a compression ratio of at least 10:1. Additionally the OEM heads create and retain too much heat and that is why it pings on hot days and when the engine gets heat soaked.
He suggested I keep my pistons, use AMS heads, an .043 gasket, and Andrews TW26-Gear drive cams. The heads will flow better, and the heat coated exhaust ports will keep the heat down. The .043 gasket will lower the compression to about 9:1, and the cams will let the engine breathe better and give back the low end.
Steve, said my current exhaust would be costing me about 10HP. Like a lot of you, AMS suggests a good 2-1 like the Thunderheader or the D&D FatCat. I told him I was willing to sacrafice a few HP to keep my current Hooker Stepped Tuned True Dual headers and FullSac mufflers. I like the look and quiet sound. At 46+ years, I have had enough if noise, a 10HP loss is worth it to me to keep my sanity and hearing. I told Steve that all I was interested in was a dependable build that would keep the ping away and give me some low end torque. I like to tour cross country and want torque for climbing hills and passing trucks. He assured me that it would. I asked him if I needed to change pistons, cut reliefs in the piston tops, change the cylinders, lifters, go with a larger throttlebody, and what not. He said not to, and that there was no need to. You gotta admire a man who passes up the opportunity to sell you extras.
Quite a few folks on the Delphi EG forums are running this package and are very pleased.
I guess the 6 speed tranny will have to wait till next year.