Reddit reviews Harley-Davidson Softail: How To Hop-Up & Customize

AAAaaand you asked about a book to read.

Today, start a paid subscription to American Iron magazine. They have a lot of bolt-on/bolt-up mod articles and reviews of aftermarket and factory mods and parts. I find LOTS of useful info in the pages of this rag for simple "how to" stuff on my twin-cam Road King.

http://www.aimag.com/

Don't just surf the website, you want a new issue showing up at your front door, once a month or 6 weeks or however often they publish nowadays.

Start finding the good video channels on Youtube for things like this. There's a ton of vintage and newer model builders with instructional videos on Youtube. Take advantage of them.

There is NO substitute for the right tools for the right job. This is critical- when your service manual or Donny's book says "use Harley Davidson tool number....... so and so", that means you need to spend the $$ on the correct tool for the application. Hold on, yes, there are a LOT of Harley-Davidson tools that can be constructed from loose odds and ends in a well-used garage, but that's the kind of stuff that will require an old hand standing around saying "Hey, you can also use a piece of 1" angle iron, a quarter inch drill bit, and a couple 1/4-20 bolts". No problem. We'll be here to help with this, and Youtube will offer all kinds of "how to" stuff like that. A proper bike lift (Handy air lifts are the best, but you can get a Harbor Freight hydraulic lift for about $300, if you use the coupons in American Iron each month.

Once you have chosen (and purchased) the bike you're gonna own, you're gonna want the full, 500-1000 page factory service manual the mechanics use at the dealership. It's a good read, as Harley puts together a proper service manual, with which you can pretty much do any service/repair you could possibly need to do.

After you have the bike and the service manual for the correct year range (I can probably find you a .pdf copy online), then you're gonna need to figure out what your plan of action is. If it's "I never met a performance mod I didn't like", there are specific books to get. If it's "I want my bike to go 100,000 miles before I have to do any motor work other than tune ups", it's gonna mean another set of books entirely. If it's "I want my bike to pull 5th gear wheelies at 90mph, and still get 100,000 miles out of my bike", you're gonna wait til you've already done this once or twice, before on to this stuff.

All this having been said, I'm gonna recommend looking at any of Donny Petersen's books on V-Twin performance.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=donny%20petersen&sprefix=donny+pe%2Cstripbooks&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Adonny%20petersen

He has written specialized volumes on Harleys going back to 1936, and any shop is incomplete without his Shovelhead, Evolution, and Twin Cam books, and you can apply much of the model-specific stuff to any, merely because it's good info/method/etc.

I've never handled the book, but it looks like it might be right up your alley

http://www.amazon.com/Harley-Davidson-Softail-How-Hop-Up-Customize/dp/1929133227/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395330118&sr=1-9&keywords=build+a+harley+davidson

There's a bunch more stuff to do, but this'll get you started.

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