In praise of the Evo
HARD to believe, but it will soon be some 20 years since Harley-Davidson started to replace the Evo engine with the Twin Cam. Indeed it is already 31 years since the 1984 debut of the powertrain that is widely regarded as turning Harley around after the 1981 management buy-out from AMF and subsequent near-death experience.
Though not a revolution in technology terms as such, the Evo did feature much new thinking relative to its predecessors. Initiatives such as the improved cooling and elimination of temperature differentials by using all aluminum rather than aluminum mated to cast iron construction; then there were the revolutionary customer-friendly initiatives such as being oil-tight, reliable and durable.
My, how the purists howled - for as long as it took to get an order placed at their nearest dealership!
Initially the company was only making some 30,000 or so of the Big Twin Evo configuration; indeed the company's entire output was only around 36,000 bikes in 1986, but by the time Harley closed down production of the Evo, estimates suggest that some 1.4m 1,340cc/82 cu in Evos had been made, plus the 883/1200cc unit construction Sportster variants.
Indeed, in addition to saving Harley-Davidson, the Evo is also credited with taking customizing in an altogether new direction, fuelling the ground-up build boom of the 1990’s, with the wait-list inspired closure of the factory crate motor program in the mid-1990’s handing the momentum that Harley had built to the aftermarket on a plate.
Not surprisingly it was right around that time that S&S Cycle themselves went in the opposite direction, bringing together packaged component offers into a single part number complete engine order opportunity for the first time. The rest, as they say, is history.
The abiding characteristic of the Evo, the one big factor that was truly revolutionary in Harley engine terms, was its durability. Evo engines could do tens of thousands of miles, hundreds of thousands of miles even, in a way that prior Harley power plants simply couldn't.
In the wake of all those miles there emerged a stock replacement and performance upgrade component aftermarket the like of which had also never been seen before - with S&S Cycle leading that market. Fast forward to 2015, and there are still thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of Evo engines still doing the miles, no doubt repeatedly 'breathed on' since they came out of the factory gates, and no doubt many of them 'breathed on' by S&S dealers and their customers.
Having paid homage to what the Evo did for us, time perhaps to remind ourselves what we can do for the Evo. Here we present a round-up of some of the components and performance upgrade packages that S&S Cycle still has as active SKUs, 31 years after that fateful launch.
S&S CYCLE INC.
www.sscycle.com