ORCA Engines: 113/132 and 139 EVO and 126/139 Twin Cam

Commonly referred to as "killer whales" they are actually quite sociable, intelligent air breathers that don't belong cooped up in some damn oversized fish tank. Like their sea going counterpart our 113/132/139 c.i. ORCA motors don't like being cooped up in your garage and are in fact quite sociable in their habits, devouring anything that suits their fancy all the while getting 40 to 55 mpg. Even held captive they will start, stop, and cruise without baring their teeth.

Bad to the Bone

350 Hp TURBO ORCAS redefine "Bad". In fact they are so bad their DNA has to be kept locked up in a secure facility. Seven second quarter miles and a trail of broken hearts is their promise. Perfectly happy on the street, turn up the power based on the current threat condition. Take no prisoners. Pictured above is a 113" Turbo ORCA that will fit in most stock and aftermarket frames.

Pictured above is a 132" Super TURBO ORCA full race motor. Available in finless billet race cylinders with iron liners for drag racing. This motor was headed for Bonneville butwas diverted to a drag racing project.  The Bonneville version features special waterjackets to prevent piston failure on an endless number of six mile long full boost passes on the long course at Bonneville. Street versions of the 132/139"Super ORCA with come with cast finned aluminum barrels. These motors are about one inch taller than stock so they are to be installed in racing or aftermarket frames. 132/139" TURBO ORCAS use full race double ceramic ball bearing turbochargers rated in excess of 500hp.

S&S Special Application Cases. S&S Special Application Heads. Custom Forged Pistons. Forged rods. Titanium retainers. High strength competition proven components, the same stuff we use on our Bonneville bikes. If you think carving your cylinder head and barrels out of chunks of aluminum makes any economic or rational sense then the line forms to the right where you can fork over an extra $4,000.00 for some inferior shit. Get out your aluminum polish and park your scooter because an ORCA will eat your lunch for less money. Dual Mikuni carburetors hung out in space on a turkey neck manifold versus RSR PC programmable closed loop Fuel Injection is like sending a Sopwith Camel up to do battle with F16 fighter jet. Port Fuel Injection and complete computer control beats the shit out of fuel meandering down some aluminum drainage ditch that runs into your leg. Some people will dream up anything to sell chunks of aluminum.

Turbo "SA" ORCA Heads

If you think your billet wonders flow more than these raised port special castings then you still think Henry Ford should have stopped with the Model T. It simply does not make sense to take 40 lbs of aluminum and try to carve all the nuances that thousands of manhours of development can put into a dedicated special purpose casting. Ferrari V10 Formula 1, Illmore (Mercedes) V8 and V10, Porsche 6 Cyl, Factory Chevrolet Corvette V8 Racers, Dodge Viper V10 (world champion), Jaguar(Ford) V10 Formula 1, Honda V10 Formula 1 all use dedicated castings for their cylinder heads. You figure out who's stupid. Turbo ORCAS feature special metallic seal rings that prevent the four bolt castings from spitting out the head gasket. It can't spit out the head gasket because there isn't one. The chambers are deburred and hand smoothed to prevent any detonation flash points from occuring. Since Turbo motors are around 8.5:1 starting is not a problem and no compression releases are necessary. You can order the electronic compression releases pictured below for even easier starting if you so desire. Check out our RSR Inlet Valve Mach Index Calculator to see how ORCAS are set up. To see fully port matched heads you can go to our SA Head Tech page.

132/139" Super ORCA 8 Bolt Heads

When you go for big, big, numbers, double down on the head bolts and shit-can the long elastic studs. 135" Super ORCAS return to hardcore racing technology to keep their heads on...Eight ARP fasteners hold the heads to the barrel...Four up and four down.

Whether in finless drag racing barrels or in finned aluminum street versions, four short, stiff studs hold the barrels to the case. No gaskets are used either above or below, just sophisticated rubber and metal o-rings. When things get taller and taller with cases at +1" and 8" rods, there's a lot of expansion going on. It's best to use proven racing technology just to be sure.

High Compression "SA" ORCA Heads

Same big valves as our Turbo ORCAS but these Special Application Heads feature S&S electronic compression releases that integrate into your starter motor circuit for completely automatic operation. When you "hit" the starter they pop open and the motor spins freely as the solenoid opens a circuit from the combustion chamber directly to the exhaust port. When the motors fires and you release the starter button the circuit closes. As you can see in the two photos above, the solenoids are installed in the center of the rocker covers neatly out of sight. Like our Turbo ORCAS these high compression heads feature special metallic seal rings that completely eliminate the troublesome head gasket.

Unlike crude "chainsaw" aftermarket compression releases that intrude into your combustion chamber these S&S designed releases only require a tiny orifice into the combustion chamber (see photo to left above). This prevents carbon fouling of the poppet and insures that the intense heat in the combustion chamber will not be in direct contact with the mechanism itself. This also eliminates any hot spots and weaknesses that the installation of the "chainsaw" style releases bring with them. As an added touch of sophistication these new releases vent directly into the exhaust port which is cross-drilled to intersect with the compression releases poppet valve (see photo above right). With compression ratios from 11.54 to 14.0:1 these are mandatory for easy trouble free starting. We won't bore you with the sorrid technical details of starter motors and big inch motors when paired with RB Racing's RSR Electronic Fuel Injection...suffice to say these new S&S electronic compression releases will become your best friend.

The heads pictured above are for the standard 4 bolt pattern. 132/139" Turbo ORCAS use an eight 3/8" ARP bolts to secure the head to the cylinder and large diameter studs to secure the cylinder to the case.

High Compression S&S B2 Heads

The exhaust ports are essentailly the same as the SA heads except, of course, the valve size ups from 1.750" to 1.800". The exhaust pocket in the B2 heads is a bit smaller than the SA casting. We have special turbo venturis machined up for both. Four bolt flanges for both although the bolt centers are different. Generally one spark plug and electric compression releases for the high compression motors. Twin plugs for turbo motors.

Pin hole is for the electric compression release. Chamber has basically been designed to unshrould the large valves and still yield a high compression with a flat top piston. 2.220" Inlet. 1.800" Exhaust.

Holy oval inlets Batman! This sure doesn't look like billet crap! Take a close look at the fin structure and ask how the billet guys are going to machine that sort of fin. That's why the billet heads are good for polishing but not good for getting rid of heat.

Port Design: Black Magic and Brown Bullshit

When we are talking about airflow it's a subject that's unique because we are dealing with something that is surrounded by flowery descriptions and hyperbole but, which is, in fact, quite invisible and hard to verify. You've heard all the pros and cons of mirror finishes, rough finishes, directional vanes, 5 angle valve jobs, blended radiuses, D-shaped radiuses, raised decks, slim valve stems, tapered and cut off valve guides, hand ported, cnc ported, swirl technology, wet flow and dry flow testing, and about a dozen other wazoo anti reversion pulse modulated laser controlled death ray technologies.

ORCAS take this airflow business seriously because these are nothing but two lunged air compressors with two big inlet valves that have about as much chance of being efficient as a modern Formula 1 engine as does that snowball cruising through hell. ORCAS hate polished ports which grab the air like peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. ORCAS employ roughened ports that emulate their sea dwelling cousins to keep the port speeds high. ORCAS don't use flattened or excessively radiused valves because they either kill the peak flow or compromise the low speed flow. ORCAS employ sophisticated short turn radius trench cut techniques developed in Porsches and NASCAR to increase the flow on the short or inner surface of the port radius. ORCA SA motors staighten out the ports like any modern race engine tries to do...granted the valves aren't set at 10 degrees to the bore, but what the hell, we gotta get them in the frames. Valve seats and angles are decidedly non tricky because they have to survive in the real world where razor thin seats disappear faster than you know who at closing time.

Bigger ports aren't better ports...but small valves and smaller ports will limit horsepower in these big bore motors. Velocity is king. Piston speeds are a variable in the four stroke cycle and you must flow the ports to reflect this. Testing the ports at 10 to 12" of water is a waste of time as was proven by Smokey Yunick over 40 years ago. A little bit of sandpaper can do something a canned cnc program can't...and all the ball end mills in the world can't machine a real ORCA's skin. Nature rules. Art can't always be shrink wrapped.

No fooling around with cases that can't take the heat nor the large bore that a 113/126/132/139 c.i. motor requires. Heavy duty Special Application crankcases are proven items that serve both street and competition in thousands of installations. Unlike some builders who take S&S and other manufacturers crankcases and put their "billet" cylinders on them, we insist on using genuine S&S cylinders because they are superior. S&S casts a special splined sleeve into the 113" cylinder just like the Harley factory does. In addition, all S&S cylinders are stress relieved to maintain bore concentricity and good ring seal and oil control. This provides a stable, superior heat transfer and more dimensional stability than a pressed in sleeve that is subject to distortion and heat transfer problems. If you think polished billet cylinders with pressed in sleeve are better you would only be right if you were parking your bike and polishing those fins that keep corroding all the time. Remember, crows like shiny objects so don't park that billet wonder under a tree.

ORCA Transient Engine Dynamometers

ORCA Motors are developed on sophisticated ORCA Transient Engine Dynamometers that measure the rate of transient acceleration which is the key to successful engine development. Peak Power may be impressive but it's torque that gets the job done. How fast an engine will accelerate from one rpm to the next as in when you shift and grab the next gear is the real secret to "killer engines". RB Racing has special ORCA Transient Engine Dynos to develop 113/132 ORCA motors.

We use pistons and cams of our own design. If you have a particular camshaft that you desire, you can supply it or we will get it for you. Don't even think about cams if you are looking for lifts under .600". All ORCA pistons are set up for .630" lift cams and inlet valves with a diameter of 2.100" that our S&S SA motors use. As for pistons we have designed some lightweight forged pistons (see text below for a detailed description of these pistons) that compliment our fuel injection's ability to more accurately control the fuel delivery without detonating. We have pistons and cams for both our ORCA and Turbo ORCA motors, all Bonneville proven stuff that has come out of nearly a decade of testing. To see what the effect of camshaft selection is on the dynamics of engine operation check out our Advanced Dynamic Compression Calculator.

Advanced Dynamic Compression Calculator

When you are planning an engine you need to understand the relationships that exist between cam timing, static compression, rod length, bore, stroke, altitude and in the case of RB Racing Turbos, boost pressure. We have created a calculator that lets you play around with design parameters and have a good idea of how the engine combination will wok out for your intended usage. By focusing on the dymanics we avoid the trap of looking at fixed or static values which can often be misleading. Plug and play before you buy and try!

You just can't outrun a turbo, its that simple. Even at 8 psi one of our Turbo (9.9:1 c.r.) ORCAS will put out 175hp and monstrous torque. Up the boost to 12 psi on our 350 hp unit and you'll be way, way past 200hp. The turbos will go past 30 psi and are available in 350hp and 500hp varieties. Do not confuse boost with airflow...we do not use stupid ass variable vane low cfm rated turbos that were meant for low speed diesels or snowmobiles! We move a lot of air at low boost without excessive backpressure which is why our turbos produce so much horsepower at low "boost" levels. Confuse boost with cfm of airflow and you will lose everytime. In case you're wondering how fast is fast...try these numbers 179mph @ 7.9 seconds in the quarter mile and 144mph @ 4.8 seconds in the 1/8th mile! We also make them for specialized drag racing motors that will go to 500hp but that has nothing to do with your street bike.

Newly Redesigned Turbo Kits for 2006

We have turbos for small motors and turbos for big motors. We have turbos for stock frames and we have turbos for custom frames. We have center mount turbos and we have left side mount turbos. We have turbos for street and we have turbos for racing. We have turbos for gasoline and we have turbos for methanol. We can run dual fuel strategies with gas and methanol at the same time. We can set the bikes up with two or three or four injectors with injectors rated up to and beyond 1600cc/minute. We have fuels pumps for 250 horsepower. We have fuel pumps for 500 horsepower and we have special pumps for alcohol. We have water injection systems for high output horsepower increases.

We have turbos with different primary tube sizes for different displacement motors. We have turbos to fit standard port cylinder heads as well as S&S SA and S&S B2 raised port, four bolt heads.

Changes for 2006 are intercoolers either twice or four times as big depending on the application. All turbos for 2006 are double ceramic bearing. All turbos are capable of way, way, past 200 horsepower. Racing turbos are rated at 600 hp.

All systems use RB Racing's proven RSR Closed Loop Fuel Injection system. Systems are programmed for 2 Bar or 3 Bar operation. All systems use our billet Boost Master Wastegates with pneumatic controls.

Turbo ORCAS are the most proven and most powerful V-Twin in the world. Thousands of hours of development to give you 100% reliability in any extreme and to deliver the day to day useability that only a low compression turbo motor can give. They say there is no substitute for cubic inches and they are right. We think the inherent reliability of the S&S 113/126/132/139 c.i. motors is the best balance between displacement and potential power output, especially when you have to put it in a stock or aftermarket frame. Issues of heat, piston speeds, rod ratios etc. are all a good compromise at this engine size. Nothing you can concoct by going to 5" strokes or bigger bores will be as reliable given the basic architecture of the engine. Remember, this is an air cooled engine and there is no free lunch.

Both "SA" and "SS" 113/126/132/139 c.i. ORCA Motors are available in full turbo build. Carl Pelletier of Competition Motorcyclesand RB Racing have taken our RSR Fuel Injected Turbos into the record books at Bonneville and Wayne Pollack and Ken Browne have taken them to nearly 180 mph in the quarter mile. These engines feature all that we have learned in over 20 years of turbocharging the Harley V-Twin. The is no one else who has pushed the limits like we have, nor is there anyone who has made the investment we have to make this possible. Bonneville is a seven mile long dyno that leaves engines in smoking, twisted chunks of jagged metal. We have never lost an engine there. Oh, we stretched valves, we broke transmissions, and we made some dumb ass stupid mistakes but we never lost a motor. 275hp @ 6000 rpm on a 104" motor for run after run. New 139" ORCA motors are over 400 horsepower.

Turbo ORCAS use forged 9.9 compression Turbo Pistons, special high temperature Titanium and Inconel Valves, special head and base gasket seals, forged specially designed connecting rods, turbo camshafts, oversize bearings and shafts and hand fitted and clearanced parts to handle the elevated power outputs.

ORCA Pistons: Light and Strong

Weight is your enemy. Strength is your friend. ORCA pistons are both lightweight by design and forged for strength. Hp equals torque x RPM / 5225. As the RPM increases things get really interesting inside your motor. At 6400 RPM your piston is pulling 9000g's of acceleration...and at 7200 RPM this rises to 10125g's! A typical Harley Evo 80 inch piston and pin combination weighs an astounding 12,251 lbs at 6400 RPM! Your typical 113" four inch bore normally aspirated high compression piston and pin combination often weighs as much as 856 grams which, at 6400 RPM and 9000g's of force, will weigh a whopping 16949 pounds! And people wonder why their rods and lower ends go away!

Shown above are our new 113" 9.9:1 turbo pistons...don't ask what the dots are. Heat is power, but you want to mimimize the surface area on the piston crown so that the heat gets put to use driving the crank and not just trying to melt your pistons. All ORCA pistons are set up for .640 up to 675" lift cams because if you don't get the valves open this much, the Special Application "SA" heads are going to waste. SA Heads are designed to prevent shrouding the 2.220" inlet and 1.800" exhaust valves and to direct the burn to the exhaust valve. Getting things to burn quickly in bore 4 inches or greater is an interesting subject. Don't try 9.9:1 on a non-ORCA motor because it will detonate if you look at it.

ORCA pistons are made in the latest forging dies which minimize the extra weight by eliminating unnecessary dome thicknesses and stupid ass features like ribs and other gizmos that cause uneven piston growth and actually promote failure. If you think about the acceleration and weights involved you can see why we are so fanatical about weight and strength. When you get up to these 4 inch or larger bore motors the stock wrist pins simply won't cut it anymore. All ORCA motors use genuine S&S tapered .892" or .927" piston pins in lieu of the stock .791 / .792" pins. Strength goes up with the square of the diameter so you figure out how much strength we gain by doing this. Some stroker kits have even gone to smaller pins to put fatter and heavier rings on their pistons. . ORCAS don't go around with "FOOL" stenciled on their piston skirts so we opted for the latest lightweight ring package on the market.

Above are a set of fully machined 113" ORCA "Active Pistons" used in an 11.54:1 (Static) compression motor. A description of these can be found on our ORCA Piston Tech Page.

We make the piston/ring/pin package stronger than stock and keep the weight equal to stock...If this doesn't make sense to you then you're probably not paying attention to all these 9000 "g" forces and 16,000 pound pistons we've been talking about. It's funny, but most people just put in the pistons and don't think about the consequences. This is reciprocating weight and if we can build a lighter, stonger part we have an obligation to do so. The lighter we can make these parts the faster the transient acceleration we can achieve and the less strain we will transfer to our main bearings and piston pins. Pictured above are our high compression normally aspirated ORCA pistons. There are no weak points in these pistons! The additional compression can lead to starting and starter motor problems, especially if the battery is a bit weak. For this reason we use S&S electronic automatic compression releases on all compression ORCA motors. The pistons pictured above have more dome that the S&S "SA" chamber allows...we machine them to the desired compression ratio. They end up lighter than stock pistons.

All ORCA pistons are machined from a heat-treated, low expansion, alloy and can be run with clearances as tight as .0025". For pure race applications these tolerances can be opened up but we always recommend that you break in these piston / ring packages in with regular 20/50 weight mineral based oil for at least 1000 miles before you switch to a synthetic based lubricant like Mobil 1. If you rush the process you may not seat the rings. Compression ratios are available from 11.54 to 14.0:1. All high compression pistons receive special hand contouring to remove any sharp edges that lead to detonation and special secondary machining operations to promote fast burn in these four inch bores.

For those of you out there with some larger bore motors, say maybe 131"...we've seen dome thicknesses on these engines down to .125". Bye bye piston crown! Dome thickness on our ORCA Turbo pistons is .300" and less on the normally aspirated ones.

Usually motors are assembled by hourly wage earners who spin wrenches but don't race or have not actually seen any real competition. The reason for this is simple: employers find out sooner or later that eager enthusiasts make lousy employees because they love to talk, want to get deals for their friends, and tend to get disgrunteled when they find out that hard work is just that, hard work. 113/126/132/139" Orcas are assembled only by professionals who have proven they have the work ethic and a record of accomplishment that insures only the best work will be done based on both discipline and knowledge, not to mention a substantial investment in specialized tools and metrology (measuring equipment).

A minimum 20 years of professional experience in Harley engines, including multiple world records in competition. Twenty years of professional aircraft A&P experience plus entensive Harley engine building experience not mention more road miles than you would believe. Eighteen years of professional Harley-Davidson experience to include National Number One drag racing plates as well as experience in sophisticated IBM mainframe and medical imaging mechanical issues. 113/126/132/139" Orcas are assembled to specific SA, SS, or Turbo specs by the most experienced and capable professional who has the actual knowledge of the intended useage.

The big twin is not a complicated motor but on the other hand its lack of "modern features" such as unit construction, horizontally split cases, integrated cylinders and cases, and minimal sealing faces all are recipes for potential problems if the "builder" does not have enough knowledge of common mistakes and errors. Nobody and we mean nobody assembles and dynos an ORCA unless he is a thorough professional.

Bonneville Metal Seal Rings

Run 22 pounds of boost for seven miles, pumping out 275 hp and that old head gasket will surrender to the blowtorch of combustion. The hot gases will find the weakspot and cut the head and cylinder quicker than an ironworker can cut a structural beam.

Our Bonneville experience is your gain because all 113/126/132/139" ORCAS do not use any normal composition or copper head and base gaskets that can fail. Upstairs we use ultra-expensive silver plated hollow metal o-rings that provide a self-energized, dynamic seal between the cylinder and the head. This is the only method short of electron beam welding the head to the cylinder to prevent leaks. Downstairs we use a high temperature O-Ring between the cylinder and the S&S Special Application Crankcases. Once again, this is something we have proven in actual competition at Bonneville and you get the benefit of our experience.

You'll never see silicone, hylomar, or gaskets getting pushed out to ruin your day! There are extra benefits from this madness in the area of heat transfer, but that's another subject. Splined liners, sophisticated castings, metal o-rings and gasketless assembly beat polished pieces of billet crap in every time. The great white dyno (Bonneville) is merciless. Tech on Sunday...break on Monday...go home Tuesday, is the general rule. We run the full week.

Our 132/139" eight bolt head ORCAS use a mechanical fire ring seal and O-Rings.

Stock Frames, Aftermarket Frames Etc.

Pictured above is a 113" ORCA Turbo going in a 1988 FXR frame. The proximity of the oil tank and the raised ports require a special turbo exhaust manifold. Upper motor mount must ne cut and modifed. A 113" ORCA is essentially stock height so the rocker boxes can be removed with the engine in the frame. Protruding leads from the front cylinder head are for the S&S Electric Compression Release. A 132/139" ORCA definitely won't fit as it is almost 1" taller. If you are going turbo we have to know what the frame will be as we have different plumbing for oem, aftermarket, raked and non raked frames and often different designs depending on peg location. It gets complicated in Harley-land, the land that never heard of concurrent engineering.

113/126/132/139" ORCAS are part of a complete system. Check out our Custom ORCA Order Page to see how the parts work together. Send us an email of your intended useage or give us a call for a technical consultation. We can provide you a detailed email response showing exact costs and comparison with billet based competitors. You will be surprised at the costs when you make an intelligent review of the facts.

ORCA EVO Engine Calculator

We created this calculator so you could enter basic data on any Evo motor from a dead stock 80 Incher to a full tilt Turbo Orca. If you really want to get weird please feel free to do so because computers never get tired of you entering numbers and pushing keys. You will find the calculator helpful to calculate deck heights for custom piston, rod and cylinder assemblies. It is also very eye opening to see the effects of intercooling on turbo motors and the horsepower they make. We have also included calculations of the G Forces on the piston and piston pin as they hum away at the engine's redline...this might scare the shit out of you! Rod ratios, piston speeds, horsepower, airflow, temperatures...it's all there. For a dynamic simulation of your bore / stroke / rod length / camshaft / static compression / altitude / and boost variables check out our RSR Advanced Dynamic Compression Calculator.