A WORD ABOUT MAKING YOUR INDIAN BIKE PERFORM TO IT'S FULLEST
There is a method to improve your Indian bike's performance. This can be done with various brands of products but the concept is the same. You don't need to rebuild your motor and change the pistons, etc. This is a higher level of performance that is employed for racing purposes. If you do the following to your bike the performance and power will increase about 10% to 20%, is very noticeable, and does not cost too much.
1. Increase air flow going into the engine.
2. Increase air flow leaving the engine.
3. Over ride your bike's computer and allow more fuel to enter the engine.
4. On the 111's you can increase low end torque by changing to stage 2 cams.
1. -- You need to install a new air filter and/or intake. There are several brands available now. Most of them are a great improvement over the stock filter. The stock intakes on Indian's are designed to preheat the air going into the engine. This helps meet EPA requirements. However, hot air contains less oxygen compared to cold air. Changing the paper filter to a reuseable cloth filter will allow a higher rate of air flow. If you also change the intake to one that eliminates the preheating, It will allow even more air to enter the engine. "Thunder Works" intakes are designed to do this and offer maximum airflow. Not all brands of intakes do this but all other brands are better than the stock intake.
2. --You need to open up your exhaust to allow the burnt fuel and air to get out of the way quickly so you can do it again. You can simply remove the baffles or part of the baffles in your stock exhaust or buy an aftermarket exhaust. "Gutting" the exhaust works great but is loud. Replacing with a designed aftermarket exhaust will deliver good air flow, increase loudness, but not too loud. You can argue all day which one is best. Any brand or "gutting" the pipes will all increase air flow and inprove performance.
3. --If you make the changes described in #1 and #2, you will have a nice sound but will not increase power by much. Infact you might have detonation in the pipes (backfire) and run too lean. It is neccessary to control the fuel mixture to make #1 and #2 work properly. You need to change the air/fuel mixture commands given buy your bike's computer. There are several ways to do this.
A. Reflash your computer. This helps but is limited and will most likely not meet the potential of your new intake and exhaust.
B. Have your bike tuned on a dyno and install a fuel modual. This works well, but cost the most and can't be changed without going through the same expensive process.
C. Install a Dobeck fuel management computer. These only cost $250 (available on this site), you can install it yourself and you can tune and retune easily anytime you want. The unit stays on your bike and you can change the settings in about one minute. This allows you to experiment with settings until you get the setting that you like and matches your intake and exhaust. There is no perfect setting. This allows you to adjust to your riding style. (Ex. I like good fuel econmy. or I ride like a maniac. or anything in between.) We will help with initial settings.
D. Install a Tier1Tuner. This unit automatically increases fuel upon demand. This is what Marcus runs with and seems to offer the most power.
4. --Installing Stage 2 cams makes the engine have a nice gallopping sound and increases low end torque. I don't have before and after numbers for this.
CONCLUSION
You can mix and match different brands of equipment and follow the promotions of other companies or you can buy our reccomended equipment. If you follow the basics as explained above, you will see big performance improvements. However, we hope you will buy our products as we know they work to the maximum potential and are quality built. We have dyno charts to show what is possible using our products. Our dyno test were all performed on dynos developed by Dobeck. Dobeck makes fuel modules that we sell. The owner's father developed the Dyno machines that are used for tuning. The "other brother" Mike Dobeck owns and sells Tier1Tuners. We are a dealer for them also.