Milwaukee 8 Timken upgrades

[John D]

Hey all,

Since one of my dear employee's posted it Twitbook & Facefriend I figured I better put out this announcement on HTT, what I believe to be one of the best Forums for true Technical knowledge on the internet today in direct regards to Harley-Davidson performance! 

We here at Darkhorse Crankworks have engineered our Timken bearing upgrade system for all models of M8s to present.  This is a case mod that we must do in house, we will not be selling simple conversion inserts or components as the process must be done on a CNC with some very tight specs & proprietary processes. We also install button head retainers on the right side pinion bearing/crankcase to insure that bearing does not walk on you.

Our system will allow you to retain OEM counter balancer system and will also allow you to retain OEM crankshaft if you wish.  The case/bearing conversion retails for $495.00 plus tax and shipping where applicable.  That price includes Timken bearings(pre-set for proper endplay), proper corresponding sprocketshaft spacer and seal & the install of retainers on right side crankcase.

That does NOT include crankcase dis-assemble or assembly FYI.  That being said, we have NOT verified primary sprocket alignment on all models (something I wanted to do before we announced on social media) so if we are asking for everyone to verify chain alignment on ALL models during assembly.  *The sprocketshaft spacer is only variable and can easily be modified to align sprockets.

All of our current dealers/distributors can provide this service - please see our dealer locator on our website www.darkhorsecrankworks.com.

Thank you all again for your continued support!
John E Dahmer - Darkhorse Crankworks

[BVHOG]

Good news and sounds reasonably priced but what is this "one of the best" forums stuff. This is the best.

[hdrider]

At what point in the performance ladder would this be considered a necessary upgrade?

Seems like I wouldn't need to consider doing this unless I was going to split the cases for some other reason such as crank replacement or case boring.

[VDeuce]

Any comments or experience with removal of the counter balancer(s)?

[John D]

Many of our dealers have been removing counterbalancers with our blueprinted and balanced crankshafts with great results in rubber mounted touring bikes.  All reports have been a slight addition of vibration at idle as a negative, countered by with a noticeable improvement at cruising speeds as far as smoothness.  There have been a few that believe that HP has increased but no testing has been verified in a controlled test by purely removing balancers with back to back dyno runs.

To my knowledge, only 1 has removed in a B model and that is a race bike with little input as far as vibrational analysis

Hope that helps, John

[VDeuce]

Great info John, thanks.