I'm interested in knowing if any of you out there have put 100,000 mile or more on any Harley engine without doing any major upgrades to it, and if so, whats your secret?

Hey Coley,

My last Road King, a 2002, had about 130,000 on it when I got my new one in 2007.  I never had any major work done right up until the end.  I was on my way back from the Redwood Run in June knowing this was the last run on the old boy cause I had already decided to get an '07 as soon as they were available.  I had some type of problem with the transmission causing me to have to hit the shifter two or three times to get it into each gear.  That cost me around $900.00 to get fixed.

Other than that I never did anything to the bike other than scheduled maintenance for well over 100,000 miles. There's no real secret, I am typically pretty easy on my bike, I go fast but I take my time getting up to that speed.  Change my fluids regularly using synthetic in all three.  Pretty much make sure I actually go through each and every thing stated in the manual for scheduled maintenance, and that's it he just keeps on running!!!

Maybe I'm just Lucky

A well cared for Harley should run 100k plus with no major problems. Like stated above, do ALL of the scheduled maintenance and ride it like it's yours

Now that being said, remember it is a mechanical device with LOTS of moving parts. No matter how much went into the design, and how well you take care of it...there is always the chance someting may fail. Normally I have seen that when something big does fail early, after that one major repair you are back and running for a long time again.

Harley Davidson's Evolution style motor was to be their first 100,000 mile motor when the owner keeps up regular scheduled maintenance and riding like an adult and not a whacked out adrenaline junkie (those types need sport bikes). Porche mapped the Evolution motors for 100,000 hours and the new Twin Cam was mapped by Porce at twice the hours... so in theory if the bike was ridden regularly and all the maints intervals were followed your motor should be pretty much worry free (in a perfect world). Not really much of a secret, just try to follow the Harley's advice.

Man the group I run with we all have 100,000 plus on our bikes. Pretty much waht everyone else said... take care of it and it will take care of you.

Thanks guys for your input. I still think Harley had a better engine in the EVO due to the fact it had gear drive cams instead of the cam tensioners on the Twinn Cam. To which I had to replace at 29000 miles. My type of riding, is mostly touring, no hotdogging... Gear drive would make the engine more bullet proof. Don't ya think?

I too suffered from a stator fry! But mine was caused by something far more sinsiter than a short! My clutch hub had been deteriorating for sometime that I was at the time unaware of... when I fried out my stator I thought "Man how tyical, middle of Sturgis and it's 99 degrees!" Well upon further diagnosis I discovered that a piece of the clutch hub had made its way through the oil bath and around the rotar right into my stator! That's when I discovered that my 2007 models have a one year only stator, so I have to upgrade that soon!:(
Also, the new twin cams no longer have chain tensioners, they are all hydraulic now! 4 ft/lbs of tq to the chains vs. 45 ft/lbs of tq! YIPPEE!:-)

Am I mistaken or did I read somewhere (AIM I think) that the hydraulic system can be retrofitted to the older twin cams?