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Se 255 cams in a bagger

  • Daz666
    Daz666
    4 months
    So I just came back from the first ride with the screamin eagle 255 cams in my 16 road king,thought I would share my thoughts on them.
    Let me start by saying they werent my first choice, I actually wanted the 254e cams,only they have discontinued making them and I only went with hd coz you get a 20% discount with a veterans card on  genuine hd parts with harley heaven,  which works out to be a good deal in my opinion....also I didnt want a midrange cam so the only choice I had was the 255's.
    Anyway I would have to say is there a great noticeable difference ?  No there is not as the specs are almost identical to the stock h.o cams, only there is more lift,  .511 compared to .556 on the 255's. The duration is almost identical on both so what you get is a bit more air and fuel which translates to a quicker take off which is exactly what I was looking for, it just makes the big bagger less sluggish.... These are the cams they should have as stock.
    Would I have paid a dealer 2500 to do it ? No, I would have felt ripped off. They reckon you need adjusable pushrods, new lifters. Add about a grand for that. My theory is the lifters are only pushing the valves a tiny bit extra so the stress isnt great, if I had gone with a big cam I think I would change them.
    My last dyna went 128000 km with the stock lifters and it got caned on a regular basis so surely the slow bagger will be fine.
    But I did it myself, used the stock pushrods and went through the rocker boxes, a fair bit longer in time, used the stock lifters as well, saved a lot of dough.
    But definitely changed the cam bearings for full compliment needle rollers. The biggest problem was getting the poxy stock exhaust back on..
    Had some dramas when trying to remove the cam bearings, the slide hammer tool I had kept pulling through the bearing, lets just say there was a lot of swear words coming out of my mouth, anyway I walked away for a while and had a think, in the end I used my dremel tool to grind away the tool to give it a bit more lip to grab the bearing and bingo out they came in three taps. To install the new ones I cut down a deep socket which I bought after checking the bearing fit just over it, marked it just past the end of the bearing and cut it off with the trusty dremel. It worked a treat, I recommend it if you are thinking of doing it yourself.
    The actual cams change was probably the easiest part, just line up the dots on the cams and make sure the chain is going the same direction as before, I marked it with black texta. Made sure the cam and crank sprockets had less than 10 thou difference using a straight edge.
    Just make sure the cylinder you are working on when tightening down the rocker support is on top dead center combustion cycle not exhaust.
    So if you want to do your own cam swap I recommend watching a youtube video by j and p cycles, it runs for 57 minutes and very well made.
    The only difference is they use adjustable pushrods.





  • Baloffski
    Baloffski
    4 months
    Excellent synopsis of Cam change D. I paid to have mine replace stock to 204 . Nice, but 10 years ago 2 grand with Dyno. Now sadly sold Bagger last week. And still here. Get another down the track. And love doing own shit and love the swearing as well. Good on ya for break down of work. 
  • Retroman
    Retroman
    4 months
    SE 255 are the stock OE cams in the CVO 110 cube motors all the way thru'.
    I have them in my 2008 CVO Springer which is a big lump of a thing (not as much of a "lump" as any bagger tho !)
    It has original SERT/TTS tuner and V&H Bigshot staggered with the "power chamber" (ie NOT true duals)

    The 255 cams have excellent grunt or stonk "out of the hole" as the YANKS say, which was the design brief with the 110 motor.
    I like 'em very much. 40 to 110 Km/H is a real rush.

    Twice I have had second hand 255's put into 96 cube twin cams for mates and they go well, both Heritage models

    For 4 years I also had a 2013 CVO Breakout with the factory 1800 Pro Upgrade kit. Cost the first owner many grands on top of the new CVO price when he bought it. (I bought it from him at less than a year old).
    10.5:1 pistons, 259e cams and Freedom performance Declaration turnout true dual exhaust system. SE Pro tuner.
    When I first got that bike it was a SLUG compared to the CVO Springer ! Needed retuning big time. Got there eventually.

    So in short the SE255 are a good choice for a bagger and often available quite well priced "lightly used".
    There are starter calibrations in Supertuner Pro for SE255 in most model platforms.

    Link to earlier thread here            https://hdforums.com.au/Thread/581421/1

    Link to Yank CVO forum thread     https://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?topic=92482.0

  • Daz666
    Daz666
    4 months
    Quoting Retroman on 30 Dec 2023 08:51 AMedited: 30 Dec 2023 09:37 AM

    SE 255 are the stock OE cams in the CVO 110 cube motors all the way thru'.

    I have them in my 2008 CVO Springer which is a big lump of a thing (not as much of a "lump" as any bagger tho !)
    It has original SERT/TTS tuner and V&H Bigshot staggered with the "power chamber" (ie NOT true duals)

    The 255 cams have excellent grunt or stonk "out of the hole" as the YANKS say, which was the design brief with the 110 motor.
    I like 'em very much. 40 to 110 Km/H is a real rush.

    Twice I have had second hand 255's put into 96 cube twin cams for mates and they go well, both Heritage models

    For 4 years I also had a 2013 CVO Breakout with the factory 1800 Pro Upgrade kit. Cost the first owner many grands on top of the new CVO price when he bought it. (I bought it from him at less than a year old).
    10.5:1 pistons, 259e cams and Freedom performance Declaration turnout true dual exhaust system. SE Pro tuner.
    When I first got that bike it was a SLUG compared to the CVO Springer ! Needed retuning big time. Got there eventually.

    So in short the SE255 are a good choice for a bagger and often available quite well priced "lightly used".
    There are starter calibrations in Supertuner Pro for SE255 in most model platforms.

    Link to earlier thread here            https://hdforums.com.au/Thread/581421/1

    Link to Yank CVO forum thread     https://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?topic=92482.0

    Yeah the cams actually have cvo 255 etched into them.
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    4 months
    Nice one Dazz, 255's go ok as long as that's your brief, not everyone's cuppa tea though, I put a set of 37's in a mates otherwise stock engine 103 streetglide with a V&H Big Radius 2 into 1(not a great pipe)and tuned it with TTS, he was all smiles.
    I've got other mates with 255's that I've road tuned for them and they are also happy so it really is a personal preference sort of thing.
    I've actually tuned 2 stock cammed bikes for a couple of other mates, one a softail 103" and the other a 96" Dyna, they both got the dongle first before buying any other bits for their intended cam swaps and after riding the bikes post tune just left them be, easy pleased perhaps!
    The HO cams tune up ok as well, just depends what you are after in the end.
    When I say tune it's not a professional dyno tune, I gather data riding the bikes, run it through various software packages to create a new calibration, rinse and repeat until I'm happy with it, that way at least it's dialled in with all of your bits and pieces in place, not perfect but way better than a flash from a cal bank can possibly be. 
  • Daz666
    Daz666
    4 months
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 31 Dec 2023 12:50 AMedited: 31 Dec 2023 12:52 AM

    Nice one Dazz, 255's go ok as long as that's your brief, not everyone's cuppa tea though, I put a set of 37's in a mates otherwise stock engine 103 streetglide with a V&H Big Radius 2 into 1(not a great pipe)and tuned it with TTS, he was all smiles.

    I've got other mates with 255's that I've road tuned for them and they are also happy so it really is a personal preference sort of thing.
    I've actually tuned 2 stock cammed bikes for a couple of other mates, one a softail 103" and the other a 96" Dyna, they both got the dongle first before buying any other bits for their intended cam swaps and after riding the bikes post tune just left them be, easy pleased perhaps!
    The HO cams tune up ok as well, just depends what you are after in the end.
    When I say tune it's not a professional dyno tune, I gather data riding the bikes, run it through various software packages to create a new calibration, rinse and repeat until I'm happy with it, that way at least it's dialled in with all of your bits and pieces in place, not perfect but way better than a flash from a cal bank can possibly be. 

    Yep to be honest i wanted woods 222 cams , read an absolute bucket load of stuff on cams for the last year, they seem like a great choice. maybe I read too much...20 people have 20 different opinions on what is best etc. I was a bit hesitant about the 255 's I must admit...internet warriors bag them out a bit, most havent ridden with them. Money was a factor in my choice also, and I didnt know they stopped making the 254e cams ( my first choice) till I was at the counter. bummer....
    However, I just returned from a 2 up ride with the missus in the hills outside of melbourne, and I have to say that I am happy with the response of the bike, it doesnt bother the engine to be 2 up anymore, its actually more fun to ride now. Overtaking is effortless but it is still happy to putt along in 5th gear at 60kmh.
    Your method of tuning sounds good, I would like to dyno mine but cant come at exorbitant prices they want, your mates are lucky to have a mate like you.
    That being said, I am curious to see if a tuner could get much more out of the fuelpak 3.....maybe one day but for now its happy effen days !!
  • fatbat
    fatbat
    4 months
    255 cams are a good upgrade for the 96ci and 103ci twin cams BEFORE the high output version came out later in the 103ci engine’s life. I don’t think the 255 is sufficiently different or better than the 103 HO engine cams to justify  time/expense in changing them over 

    I’ve got a brand new set of 255 cams if anybody wants to buy a set. They make for a nice improvement for a 96ci or regular 103ci engine 

    I don’t know of any dyno tuners that would tune with a fuel pak. V&H may be able to give you a map to suit your setup. If you want a proper tune, you need a full tuning device in the hands of a competent dyno tuner . The next best thing is sampling data as you ride like what Hilly, Magnum and others do using TTS which then makes your tune based on the data you’ve sampled.  Not hard to learn but takes a bit of time and patience. Dunno if they’ve introduced a lay man’s process for tuning ignition timing yet or not 
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    3 months
    TTS have a written procedure for doing timing and the program can be used to adjust the timing tables based on data collection, I'm not  convinced max timing without knock is also peak power so I don't normally add any in to see where it starts to ping, you need a dyno to do it properly so you can measure the power gains or loses, you can use the dyno feature in TTS to see if an adjustment makes it better or worse but it would take forever to do it like that, with the old SE program you can run your data through MyTune(a seperate 3rd party program) to check for pinging and removing timing as needed, it's actually a very good program, the commercial program is used by a lot of tuners overseas and costs a bit, the individual one is pretty cheap for what it can do.
  • softfat
    softfat
    3 months
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 05 Jan 2024 10:08 PM

    TTS have a written procedure for doing timing and the program can be used to adjust the timing tables based on data collection, I'm not  convinced max timing without knock is also peak power so I don't normally add any in to see where it starts to ping, you need a dyno to do it properly so you can measure the power gains or loses, you can use the dyno feature in TTS to see if an adjustment makes it better or worse but it would take forever to do it like that, with the old SE program you can run your data through MyTune(a seperate 3rd party program) to check for pinging and removing timing as needed, it's actually a very good program, the commercial program is used by a lot of tuners overseas and costs a bit, the individual one is pretty cheap for what it can do.

    Yeah GM, I used MyTune about 4 years ago to do some tuning on my Fatboy. Good little program. On another note, just had to replace the O ring in the quick connect fitting on the fuel tank when it started leaking, what a prick of a job. All good now.

    Soft...
  • Daz666
    Daz666
    3 months
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 05 Jan 2024 10:08 PM

    TTS have a written procedure for doing timing and the program can be used to adjust the timing tables based on data collection, I'm not  convinced max timing without knock is also peak power so I don't normally add any in to see where it starts to ping, you need a dyno to do it properly so you can measure the power gains or loses, you can use the dyno feature in TTS to see if an adjustment makes it better or worse but it would take forever to do it like that, with the old SE program you can run your data through MyTune(a seperate 3rd party program) to check for pinging and removing timing as needed, it's actually a very good program, the commercial program is used by a lot of tuners overseas and costs a bit, the individual one is pretty cheap for what it can do.

    So I'm curious, just how much difference would a se pro tuner make OVER the fp3 ?
    Are we talking massive difference as in extra hp or torque ? Because my roady is running pretty good after the cam swap, so would spending the 400 bucks on those reco tuners be actually of any benefit ?
  • 408
    408
    3 months
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 05 Jan 2024 10:08 PM

    TTS have a written procedure for doing timing and the program can be used to adjust the timing tables based on data collection, I'm not  convinced max timing without knock is also peak power so I don't normally add any in to see where it starts to ping, you need a dyno to do it properly so you can measure the power gains or loses, you can use the dyno feature in TTS to see if an adjustment makes it better or worse but it would take forever to do it like that, with the old SE program you can run your data through MyTune(a seperate 3rd party program) to check for pinging and removing timing as needed, it's actually a very good program, the commercial program is used by a lot of tuners overseas and costs a bit, the individual one is pretty cheap for what it can do.

    Quoting Daz666 on 06 Jan 2024 11:09 PM

    So I'm curious, just how much difference would a se pro tuner make OVER the fp3 ?

    Are we talking massive difference as in extra hp or torque ? Because my roady is running pretty good after the cam swap, so would spending the 400 bucks on those reco tuners be actually of any benefit ?


    You didn't look at the 3rd link I put up in your other thread ?
    Plenty of similar results about on the net.
    Harleys are pretty forgiving and there are a lot of them on the road with a shit tune in them and no adverse consequences .
    If your bike is a 'keeper', $400 for a decent tuner is a good investment.

    fuelpak tune.jpg
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    3 months
    If I couldn't do a better job than an FP3 I would never touch another bike, it's not just about peak numbers, it's the big bit of the tune between idle and redline, but if you are happy with it then that's all that matters in the end.
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