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Adjustable pushrods yes or no

  • Choco
    Choco
    3 years ago
    G'day all. Just toying over the idea of fitting different cams to my bike. Now I heard that the 96 cube motors gain  good hp and torque with a set of good cams. But by the time I buy some cams, pushrods and have the bike returned it's getting expensive. Now to my question adjustable pushrods I have heard good and bad about these items. Some say they give no trouble while others say they are nothing but trouble. So any advice as I said it's not a done deal upgrading the cams on my bike but if I do and I decide not to go with adjustable pushrods are there cams out there that I can use with the standard Harley pushrods cheers. 
  • fatbat
    fatbat
    3 years ago
    Lots and lots of bikes using adjustable pushrods without problems. Who and where are the scare mongerers?  

    They save lots of time and labour in what would otherwise be lots more disassembly and assembly when changing cams. If you’re doing the job yourself and time is not an issue, you save a few bucks re-using your pushrods but otherwise cutting the oem pushrods and replacing with adjustable ones is more economical given time and labour cost increases. And adjustable pushrods can be adjusted to have them run perfectly, can be re-used with diff cams, allow for further changes etc. 
  • tussuck
    tussuck
    3 years ago
    Hell yes.  ONLY if your re-camming though otherwise stick with stock.  Research them though as steel vs. alloy vs aluminium is an interesting discussion though.
  • UltraPete
    UltraPete
    3 years ago
    I never understood the cost saving when you can pop the tank and rocker boxes off in under an hour if you are competent. A good mechanic should be quicker, making the labour cost not too bad compared to the cost of the pushrods and the extra time to set them correctly. I think the theory of being able to set the valve lash correctly would hold water if we ran solid lifters, but these bikes have hydraulic lifters that account for valve lash. 
    If I was building a really hot engine that needed a different length I'd spring for custom pushrods to set length.

  • Hoodeng
    Hoodeng
    3 years ago
    As has been pointed out previously, adjustable pushrods in a performance application are not an option they are a must.
    There are cams that are designed as a bolt in for what essentially remains a stock engine,stock base circle, stock pushrods are fine.
    Stock pushrods are actually very strong, any one piece is.

    Once you pull the top and do  modifications adjustable's could be termed a luxury, but, if you are changing valves, decking cylinders, decking heads, using different gaskets, adjustable's will take any guess work out of the set up, they will also set lifters to the proper set down. Lifters use different pre load setting depending on the lifter used, pushrods use different amounts of turns from zero depending on how many TPI the adjuster is.

    Over years we have found perfect fit fixed length pushrods have caused problems, usually riding. When in doubt use adjustable's.
    Another thing that need consideration is the adjusters themselves, i am not a fan of easy fit as the adjuster is ridiculously long, the best adjuster is the shortest from zero. Unfortunately these need r/box  disassembly.
  • Choco
    Choco
    3 years ago
    Thanks everyone for your replies. As I said I was just thinking about different cams but I really don't ride hard or even enough these days with my bloody bad back. I think l leave my bike as it is at this time cheers. 
  • fatbat
    fatbat
    3 years ago
    Haha, you’ll be back as it sounds like you may have caught the spending money unnecessarily on harleys bug 
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