Mikuni Pass-A-Truck Kit

Mikuni Pass-A-Truck Kit

CW EVALUATION

More swagger for your bagger

YOU COULD CALL HARLEY-DAVIDSON’S FLH touring bikes many things, but none of them is likely to involve the word fast. By the time you burden a stock FLH with you, your passenger and everything the two of you can cram into its luggage, you can expect all the acceleration of an out-of-tune Yugo. This can make the passing of slow-moving vehicles on two-lane roads a daunting proposition, even with the aid of a downshift or two.

Mikuni American Corp. has come to the rescue. Though best known for its extensive line of OEM and aftermarket carburetors, Mikuni has developed a package of performance-boosting components designed to give Evo-engined Harley touring models the lowand middle-rpm boost they need to execute quicker, safer passes. The package is called, appropriately enough, the Pass-A-Truck Kit, or PAT.

Included in the kit is one of Mikuni’s popular 42mm HSR42 smoothbore carbs, mated with a less restrictive air-cleaner cover. The kit also contains a Mikuni/Andrews cam and a Mikuni/Compu-Fire ignition-both of which were developed just for this application-plus a new cam bearing, adjustable pushrods, replacement throttle cables and all necessary gaskets and seals. The kit includes no exhaust-system components, but the instructions offer a few suggestions based on performance tests conducted by Mikuni.

We bolted a PAT kit onto a ’97 FLHR Road King and found the installation to be straightforward and absent of surprises. But even though the instructions are reasonably detailed and everything fits properly, this modification-the cam swap in particular-should be performed by a competent mechanic, preferably one who knows Harleys. We also slipped on a set of the Kerker/Mikuni mufflers recommended in the instructions. These $498 silencers are very similar to the Kerker units sold through H-D’s parts-and-accessories division, but with baffles slightly retuned by Kerker and Mikuni for this touring application.

Rather than using a dynamometer to appraise the stock-vs.-modified results, we instead compared top-gear roll-on acceleration before and after the hop-up. Dyno numbers are valuable, but the litmus test for this modification is in how much more quickly the bike actually accelerates, especially in the middle rpm ranges.

And the improvements there were significant. In 40-to-60-mph acceleration, our test FLHR was 1.5 seconds quicker with the PAT kit, making the move in 4.3 seconds com-

pared to 5.8 stock. From 60 to 80 mph, the time dropped 1.6 seconds, from 6.9 to 5.3. Perhaps more telling, the 40-to-60 acceleration required about 110 fewer feet with the PAT kit, while the 60-to-80 distance was about 164 feet shorter. Altogether, then, the distance consumed during a 40-to-80-

mph roll-on was almost a football field shorter with the PAT kit.

That’s a huge amount of added room for passing on a two-lane road-and it doesn’t even take downshifting into account. Not only is that added room enough to determine whether or not you attempt a pass, but whether or not you complete it. On that basis alone, the $1300 cost of the PAT kit, including mufflers, is money well spent. □

PASS-A-TRUCK KIT

Mikuni American Corp. 8910 Mikuni Ave. Northridge, CA 91324 818/885-1242 Price $795 ($1293 with mufflers)

*,PS Components tailored to work together Perks up motor in all the right places for touring

ww. . Mufflers pricey and not included Installation may require an experienced mechanic