Shovelution build

[IronLightning]

After about a year of finishing this build I've finally decided to make a build thread for my bike.
I took some pictures of the build process, although not as many as Id like. I figured I'd still share it with all you guys.
I dont have much as far as tooling, machines, and shop space. Matter of fact this entire build was done in my 10x12' shed. With the exception of a few things brought into work to weld and machine. Everything else was done in that shed with basic hand tools and a grinder.

It took me about 2 years of collecting parts, the parts Ive always wanted to build my dream bike with. First selling my buell chop to fund the engine. pushing about 95 horse, this thing was a friggin blast to ride. sold her for a cool 4k. You'll see that I've got a certain "style" of bike I like by how similar all my bikes are haha.


The first and most important part was the engine; a 108" shovelution fueled by hate and violence.

108" shovelution.
STD evo heads. 1.95" intake valves. 1.75" exhaust. ported and polished.
S&S roller rockers
jims valve springs
Mikuni HSR 45
Axtell shovelution cylinders, ductile billet iron. 3-13/16 bore
JE pistons
carrilo H beam rods
S&S flywheels 4-3/4 stroke
Delkron shovel cases
S&S oil pump, evo oiling path
Leineweber E7S cam
S&S limited travel hydro lifters
Smith bros pushrods 0.145" wall chromoly

[IronLightning]

After the engine sat in my office for a month or two I wanted to open it up and see if what parts they said where supposed to be in there.
Turns out that was a good idea.
Now dont get me wrong, the dude I bought the engine from has got to be one of the top three guys on the east coast for building hot harley engines. But this one in particular, they had lied about a few parts being in there that simply wernt.
I popped the rocker cover off to see if it had the baisley roller rockers they had claimed.....nope. It has those shitty crane roller rockers...the ones with the needle bearings instead of bushings. And the kicker is one of them had a big hold in the arm.

Obviously not baisley roller rockers.
So out those came, and into the garbage. Soon to be replaced with a set of s&s roller rockers. Along with the whimpy valve springs that came in it. And the aluminum valve spring retainers on top of them are a solid no go for a leniewber cam.

It had also had an E4 cam, that had to go too. The leineweber E4 cam is a straight drag racing cam with a ton of power....up top screaming at over 5k rpm. But is kind of a dud down low. Not how I intended on riding this bike.
The E4 cam came out when i pulled the crane rockers

As you can see, leineweber cams dont mess around. A good majority of their cams have near vertical lobe ramps.
The E7S this was replacing was no exception.
When I mocked up the E7S cam, the lobes contacted the case big time, the bearing race would have to be machined for clearance.

Bought the zippers cam chest clearance tool, that did the trick easily!
While I was in there I clearance the lifter blocks just in case. Wasnt about to risk being lazy and having the lifter wheels take the lifter blocks out. Kind of stoked this engine came with the older style cast iron lifter blocks. I prefer those over the aluminum ones.

With that I took the cheap solid lifters out and replaced them with s&s limited travel hydro lifters. Paired them with a set of smith bros push rods.
By the way, these push rods are sold to fueling, which doubles the prices of them. If you ever want to buy a set, just go directly through smith bros. Theyre only $100.

[IronLightning]

I gotta figure out why some of these pictures are coming out upside down.

[Hoghead]

Love the Buell chop. Excuse me asking- what's the appeal of a Shovelution over say, an S&S Evo? It's sure different, and yours should still have some rocking components.

[IronLightning]

Love the Buell chop. Excuse me asking- what's the appeal of a Shovelution over say, an S&S Evo? It's sure different, and yours should still have some rocking components.

I'd day there is no real advantage to a shovelution. Heck im sure you know, the early evo cases were practically shovel cases anyway. 1985 evo cases being exactly that, having shovel base cylinder bolt patterns and everything.
The bases for this one is just squeezing as much reliability out of a 4-3/4 stroke build.
I think these kind of builds are dead and over. They were offered by axtell and hyper performance as a way for people who had a shovel to jump up to the performance of an evo without having to cash out on a complete evo engine.

[IronLightning]

STD heads. No freaking joke. The keen eyed of you will notice the slight lip on head chamber surface.
I'm running no head gaskets, just and o-ring.

The next step was to locate a trans for this build. And one just so happened to pop up on long island. The guy was offering $1200 for a cpc cased 4 speed with andrews gears. (the exact amount of the first stimulus check haha)

When I got the trans home I noticed the main shaft as a little tweaked, thats ok, it was a short shaft for a genny motor anyway.
I had plans on getting a whole new gear set as it is, the andrews set that came in this trans was the drag race ratio. with a 2.24 first gear. No fun on the streets.

FX pattern shift drum. thank god!

[IronLightning]

I was exctied to get this trans apart. Building transmission is probably one of the favorite things to build to be honest.
And the 4 speed is easy and straight forward.

Tore it down on my crappy apartment counter top. It was early February and cold as fuck outside.
Inspected all of the bearing surfaces, and good thing I did. this things main bearing race was ready to be replaced. It had some decent "speed bumps" on the race surface.
I ordered an Andrews gear set, jims races and an andrews main shaft. Along with all the I ordered the baker kicker gear set.
While I was waiting for those parts to come in I decided to give the case a good polishing.



Noticed that the kicker stop in the case was cast wrong.




Before I went and further I filled that in with weld. Didnt want the kicker gear bending the stop too badly.

[IronLightning]

While I was waiting on transmission parts, one of the best kicker arms popped up on ebay. I got it for a freaking steal; $50!


Milmeyer USA kicker arm. The original stroker kicker arm!

[JBinNC]

I'd day there is no real advantage to a shovelution. Heck im sure you know, the early evo cases were practically shovel cases anyway. 1985 evo cases being exactly that, having shovel base cylinder bolt patterns and everything.
The bases for this one is just squeezing as much reliability out of a 4-3/4 stroke build.
I think these kind of builds are dead and over. They were offered by axtell and hyper performance as a way for people who had a shovel to jump up to the performance of an evo without having to cash out on a complete evo engine.

Good project. I like these hot rods.

Just posted to say, evo motors have evo base bolt (stud) patterns from '84 on. No shovel base bolt pattern on any evo, ever. However, there were a few actual shovelheads produced in '85, to fill existing contracts, like for police bikes. And, the factory offered replacement shovel cases for many years. I have one in my shop now that I think has a 1987 casting date in the case, but machined for shovel application.

Pardon the interruption, carry on.
Jim

[JBinNC]

I was exctied to get this trans apart. Building transmission is probably one of the favorite things to build to be honest.
And the 4 speed is easy and straight forward.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]107795[/ATTACH]
Tore it down on my crappy apartment counter top. It was early February and cold as fuck outside.
Inspected all of the bearing surfaces, and good thing I did. this things main bearing race was ready to be replaced. It had some decent "speed bumps" on the race surface.
I ordered an Andrews gear set, jims races and an andrews main shaft. Along with all the I ordered the baker kicker gear set.
While I was waiting for those parts to come in I decided to give the case a good polishing.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]107796[/ATTACH]

Noticed that the kicker stop in the case was cast wrong.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]107797[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]107798[/ATTACH]

Before I went and further I filled that in with weld. Didnt want the kicker gear bending the stop too badly.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]107799[/ATTACH]

There are two different length kick stops, depending on the year of the transmission case. Good of you to pay attention to the details, but using the correct kick stop might have solved that little problem.

Jim

[IronLightning]

There are two different length kick stops, depending on the year of the transmission case. Good of you to pay attention to the details, but using the correct kick stop might have solved that little problem.

Jim

Absolutly jim! This one in particular had an incomplete casting. I had both length kick stops on hand thankfully so I mounted them both and neither mated up with the case. Went with the shorter of the two and filled in the void with weld.

[IronLightning]

Good project. I like these hot rods.

Just posted to say, evo motors have evo base bolt (stud) patterns from '84 on. No shovel base bolt pattern on any evo, ever. However, there were a few actual shovelheads produced in '85, to fill existing contracts, like for police bikes. And, the factory offered replacement shovel cases for many years. I have one in my shop now that I think has a 1987 casting date in the case, but machined for shovel application.

Pardon the interruption, carry on.
Jim

Appreciate the clarification. I was under the impression that the first year evo had a completely different bolt pattern of the cylinder/heads due to them using existing shovel cases. My mistake haha

[JBinNC]

Absolutly jim! This one in particular had an incomplete casting. I had both length kick stops on hand thankfully so I mounted them both and neither mated up with the case. Went with the shorter of the two and filled in the void with weld.

And that is an important detail. An unsupported kick stop will have a short life, and after it breaks you have a loose piece of steel wandering around in the kick cover area.

Jim

[IronLightning]

Bare with me as I figure out why some of my pictures are showing up upside down.

Sent the trans case out to hillside cycles here in upstate NY to get the main bearing race align lapped.
. In my humble opinion, its the best shop in the state of ny if youre looking for old school know-how. The owner does twin cam and m8 builds too, but hes been around for a loonnnggg time and does hot rod engines right.
Time to assemble to transmission!
In addition to the o-ring on the new andrews final gear, I went with the o-ring spacer by ray. Well worth the price tag hes charging. Gave me 2 extra o-rings too.



Laid everything out on the bench for assembly.

[Hoghead]

Love that trans case!