2003 Harley-Davidson Dyna / FXR

My bike is a 2003 Lowrider and my wife has a 2003 Superglide, both are Dyna Glide. They have stump pulling torque. pulling hard at 1000rpm with power dropping off at about 5000rpm. Then I added headers, a good air filter and rejetted all in about 3 hours and the power was even better. I then installed 95 cubic inch pistons and cylinders along with a performance ignition system myself over a weekend and the power increased on the bottom end and instead of dropping off at 5000rpm it keeps on pulling hard to 6500rpm. All of the above upgrade parts cost me less than $800.00 for both bikes. Most parts were purchased on Ebay. With patience very good deals can be had.

I only have 26,000 miles on my Lowrider but I ride the bike very hard. The Superglide has around 20,000 miles. We made several long trips riding at 80 to 100 mph all day long. In town travel is what we usually see's and mine is riden, as my wife puts it "like my ass is on fire" most of the time. She on the other hand rides much easier unless we are on the highway. Highway or city the tachometer needle meets the redline regularly. The point is, by any standard this bike is flogged and abused on a regular basis, but it has never let me down. Not one component failure or broken/worn out parts. I have gone through several sets of tires though and one set of brake pads.

Both have had synthetic oil in them since break-in and they are always garaged. They both had identical upgrades and we have had zero failures with both bikes. This is my 7th motorcycle the last 4 were all Harley big twins (2 Shovel heads and these two Twin-cam 88 Dynas. After all engine modifications, with or without a windshield the gas milage is 30-35mpg in town and 40-50mpg Highway. Neither uses or leaks a drop of oil.

Now the cons.
First I do not like the middle foot pegs, they are too soft.
The transmission should have a taller gear set. I would like to see the first 4 gears a little taller so that 5th gear would be an overdrive. Many people have converted to 6 speed transmissions but with this much torque, why add an extra gear, there is enough shifting to do already.

The heads are a good but a bit restrictive. There are many replacement heads of good design but are expensive. It's too bad the Harley factory doesn't just open up the stock Twin-Cam head when it is cast.

The kick stand is kind of hard to get to.

Ground clearence is too low due to the factory moving the oil reservoir to underneath the transmission. I had to learn to be very careful about driving off of curbs. One can still corner hard with only slight scraping of the passenger peg bracket on the left and the after market turn-out mufflers on the right. I didn't have that problem with the old Shovel head lowrider.

To sum it up we love our motorcycles and would buy them again. I can carry a passenger without slowing the bike down a bit. It has enough power and brakes to have fun in the twisties and has a smooth ride to make long trips comfortable. There are hundreds of seats, handlebars, tanks, fenders and engine performance parts available for customization or speed at lower prices than the metric cruisers. Last of all it looks good, thats why all of Harley's competition are copying the Harley Davidson.

PS: Resale value can't be beat by any Metric. My bike is 3 years old and the blue book is almost what I paid for it new.

My bike is a 2003 Lowrider and my wife has a 2003 Superglide, both are Dyna Glide. They have stump pulling torque. pulling hard at 1000rpm with power dropping off at about 5000rpm. Then I added headers, a good air filter and rejetted all in about 3 hours and the power was even better. I then installed 95 cubic inch pistons and cylinders along with a performance ignition system myself over a weekend and the power increased on the bottom end and instead of dropping off at 5000rpm it keeps on pulling hard to 6500rpm. All of the above upgrade parts cost me less than $800.00 for both bikes. Most parts were purchased on Ebay. With patience very good deals can be had.

I only have 26,000 miles on my Lowrider but I ride the bike very hard. The Superglide has around 20,000 miles. We made several long trips riding at 80 to 100 mph all day long. In town travel is what we usually see's and mine is riden, as my wife puts it "like my ass is on fire" most of the time. She on the other hand rides much easier unless we are on the highway. Highway or city the tachometer needle meets the redline regularly. The point is, by any standard this bike is flogged and abused on a regular basis, but it has never let me down. Not one component failure or broken/worn out parts. I have gone through several sets of tires though and one set of brake pads.

Both have had synthetic oil in them since break-in and they are always garaged. They both had identical upgrades and we have had zero failures with both bikes. This is my 7th motorcycle the last 4 were all Harley big twins (2 Shovel heads and these two Twin-cam 88 Dynas. After all engine modifications, with or without a windshield the gas milage is 30-35mpg in town and 40-50mpg Highway. Neither uses or leaks a drop of oil.

Now the cons.
First I do not like the middle foot pegs, they are too soft.
The transmission should have a taller gear set. I would like to see the first 4 gears a little taller so that 5th gear would be an overdrive. Many people have converted to 6 speed transmissions but with this much torque, why add an extra gear, there is enough shifting to do already.

The heads are a good but a bit restrictive. There are many replacement heads of good design but are expensive. It's too bad the Harley factory doesn't just open up the stock Twin-Cam head when it is cast.

The kick stand is kind of hard to get to.

Ground clearence is too low due to the factory moving the oil reservoir to underneath the transmission. I had to learn to be very careful about driving off of curbs. One can still corner hard with only slight scraping of the passenger peg bracket on the left and the after market turn-out mufflers on the right. I didn't have that problem with the old Shovel head lowrider.

To sum it up we love our motorcycles and would buy them again. I can carry a passenger without slowing the bike down a bit. It has enough power and brakes to have fun in the twisties and has a smooth ride to make long trips comfortable. There are hundreds of seats, handlebars, tanks, fenders and engine performance parts available for customization or speed at lower prices than the metric cruisers. Last of all it looks good, thats why all of Harley's competition are copying the Harley Davidson.

PS: Resale value can't be beat by any Metric. My bike is 3 years old and the blue book is almost what I paid for it new.