Jason Broski and his Ward Performance modified Harley-Davidson M8 Road King outruns a customized Suzuki Hayabusa in a 1/4 mile drag race. The Harley-Davidson is equipped with a 137 Cubic Inch M8 naturally-aspirated engine delivering 198 hp and 177 ft-lbs (240 Nm) of torque. It may not seem an outstanding power figure, but the Milwaukee Eight engine makes 160hp reaching 4,000 rpm which is enough to be faster than the Hayabusa.
Ward Performance is a workshop based in Zimmerman, Minnesota, and for over 31 years they have been developing, modifying and manufacturing components for racing and street motorcycles. So, they know a thing or two about drag racing. The video is a little bit old as it was posted back in October 2019 by Drag V Twin, but we have to say that the Ward Performance built Harley-Davidson Road King power figures are still impressive.
The company uses Cylinder Head Porting (CNC) to modify the engines. In other words, the method implies hand porting using grinding tools. Also, with the help of flow testing and dyno testing, Ward Performance can find the best possible port and then copy the essential optimal port design. Using their SurfCAM CAD/CAM software, they can reproduce the port in the same way for each cylinder head enhancing engine power, consistency and reliability. There are no turbochargers or superchargers on this M8 engine, it’s just naturally-aspirated and makes 197.75 hp and 177.16 ft-lbs (240 Nm) of torque.
The Milwaukee Eight (M8) engine on this Harley-Davidson Road King was customized using CNC porting for the cylinder heads which included porting for stock valves. The method used AV&V manganese bronze alloy valve guides and Ward Performance high lift beehive spring set. As a result, the valve guides were replaced, the competition valves were tweaked as well as the engine and its compression ratio to deliver the best performance in a drag race. It’s an awesome engine upgrade which shows that cruiser bikes can be fast too in a drag race against bikes like a Suzuki Hayabusa.
