Savage 223 HP Turbo Harley Claims the Crown As the Most Powerful Road King Special

The motor add-on comes with a life-lasting vaccine against the "no replacement for displacement" syndrome – a turbo. All the above prescriptions for fending off highway mediocrity in the Harley Davidson realm spell a Bikes and Beards YouTube adventure.

The notorious motorcyclists decided to build the most potent Harley-Davidson outside the drag strip, one Hog to rule supreme on the road. They started with a regular, everyday, normal Road King Special. As the YouTubers demonstrated, that doesn't have much horsepower to back the King nameplate. 80 bhp and 100 lb-ft of torque (81 PS and 135 Nm) is not that impressive and definitely not fit for a King. Also, while the 114 CID V-twin (1,868 CCs) sounds good, firepower and decibels are not interchangeable.

But Harley has an ace up its sleeve: a crate motor. Labeled Stage I through IV, the tuned V-Twins deliver more muscle to the King. As we can see from the dyno test in the video, a stock Stage IV Screaming Eagle engine is way more brutal than the base hog powerplant. 140 bhp and 140 lb-ft – 142 PS, 190 Nm – is a force to be reckoned with, given its 131 CID (2,146 CCs). Those are the numbers from the YouTubers' dyno test, so take it with a grain of salt.

However, this is the Bikes and Beards hog-hood we're dealing with here, and they like to mess around with Harleys. Sometimes in less traditional ways - this occasion happens to be one such opportunity.

So, still contended by the quest for the ultimate Road King supremacy, the bearded riders took things one (huge) step further. What could be the next Stage for the top Screaming Eagle? Well, since eagles are accustomed to flying at great heights, where the air is usually poor in oxygen, a blower will help set things straight.

But who can fulfill the tremendous task? Trask Performance, that's who, who sent the power-thirsty bearded band a torque-boosting turbine. After several hours in the workshop, the result was a devastating 350 lb-ft (474 Nm)! That is track performance territory – and I mean car track performance!

Much to the despair of the enthusiastic bearded bunch, the dyno reading was faulty, so the revised figures sank their expectations to the bottom of the rider universe. 160 lb-ft (217 Nm) is a heavy loss (both in engine performance and self-esteem). Still, there was a lot of fine-tuning to be done and ECM calibration as well.

The bike got a tuning-spa treatment, and the numbers are head-bowing: 223 bhp and 217 lb-ft on a single rear wheel sitting under a Harley Davidson Road King Special. That is 226 PS and 294 Nm from two pistons seated at the heart of this nine-PSI-beefed-up Hog (for the metric-hugging society: the turbo boost is 0.6 atmospheres).

The Stage IV 131 CID (2,146 CC) oil-cooled V-Twin is the best Harley has to offer in terms of engine size. In Milwaukee parlance: "Go big or go home. Stage IV Kit is poised to deliver maximum horsepower – all the way to the redline." With cast-in-place high-strength steel cylinder lining, port heads, oversized valves, and machined combustion chambers, the crate motor is no sag. High-lift cams, high compression pistons, 2.5-inch (64mm) throttle body, cast intake manifold, and high-flow injectors add more Harley brawn to the Hog's right-hand handlebar grip.

Although our YouTubers claim higher output figures from the standard Stage IV Screaming Eagle, the official Wisconsin numbers read 121 bhp over 131 lb-ft (122 PS and 177 Nm), coupled with the Street Cannon Mufflers. An authorized dealer engine swap leaves the warranty intact if performed within the first two months after buying the bike.

Since the Bikes with Beards Harley Davidson motorcycle is still at the tweaking stage, it hasn't hit the road yet, but stay tuned – the pun is incidental – to find out what this special Road King Special has to say for itself once it pulls the turbo sword from the stone.