Britbike forum Forums British motorcycles in general British motorcycles in general Modern Triumph mods

I have a 2008 Triumph America 865 (US version, so carbed not injected). I’ve dressed her up with old Bates hard bags from the 70s and I ride a ton, almost 10k miles this year, lots of that 2 up and highway. I’ve got some things in mind to up her horsepower and give her longer highway legs, namely doing an air box delete, straight pipes, carb re-jet, and changing my final drive sprockets to a 19 tooth front and 40 tooth rear.

I’ve been looking for options to continue that sort of thing, the older bikes here were big bore kits with new jugs and pistons and connecting rods And such, pretty affordable too, but I haven’t been finding anything like that for the newer bikes. Does anyone know if that sort of thing exists that would push me up over 1000cc?

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

I believe with new bikes the cheapest way is to buy 1000 ccm bike in this case a Sprint model.
With old Triumph aftermarket parts were available because they were relatively easy to make, not so much with a new products from last 30 years.

Check the TriumphRat forum. They have several sections for newer bikes.

Yes.. Please go to TRIUMPH RAT and leave us who rebuild the old bikes alone.

that was completely unnecessary.

That's your opinion, Kevin and you're entitled to it. I don't share it.

The TRIUMPH RAT site was created to promote the dealers and owners of the "New" Triumphs by the manufacturer of those bikes.
That is the same manufacturer who, when he took over the TRIUMPH brand name, originally turned his back on the old bikes... until he
discovered he could make a buck by exploiting the "nostalgia" crowd imitating them ("Bonneville 100", "Thruxton," etc.)

I have been a "Triumph guy" since 1967. I've seen later Triumph history first-hand.
We have enough to do sorting problems with the original Triumphs on this site.

They have a site of their own for their bikes. He needs to be over there.
If he ever wants to own and work on the older Triumphs, then THIS is the place.

I think there’s two ways of saying that there is limited information available for new Triumphs on this site.

There’s a polite way, and the rude way which I’m sure if it was a face to face conversation the rude way wouldn’t happen.

We advertise ourselves as the britbike forum, last I checked modern Triumphs were Brit bikes (not like Royal Enfield which is Indian owned or BSA which is now owned by Mahindra). I’m not a fan of modern triumphs, but I’d never be impolite to someone that was, just for owning a modern Triumph.

If someone can answer their question, let them answer it... if they can’t.... don’t reply.

We don’t make the rules.

And there isn’t a rule against Hinckley bikes.

@ Hawk6351 This is a good opportunity to buy another Triumph, but with a bigger engine.

There are some magnificently grumpy contributors to this forum, long may it continue.

Hawk6351, there's certainly is less knowledge about modern bikes here than over at triumphrat, to make one example.

most people here are quite friendly. you are welcome here as long as you find the conversation of interest to you.

+1 with Kevin
Life is too short to be a MB.

I bought a Triumph cruiser that I could afford, because I wanted something nice without the weekend warrior nonsense that usually comes with owning a Harley, or the condescending attitude that a lot of people have towards metric bikes... I’ve owned enough Jap numbers that I wanted something better and most people look fondly at the brand in general. You wanna help, help, you wanna be a turd because you have issues with how the company is run today, all I can say to you is that none of your complaints with triumph are my problem, so get off my post.

I also wanna say, to the helpful commenters, thank you...one of the reasons I decided to ask is that I know doing stuff like I want to do is kinda old school thinking, traveling on what you have and making what you have be unique and yours. I really love this bike, she looks good, handles well, is comfortable for the most part... while I wouldn’t mind a Thunderbird maybe, there’s a big difference between the expense of buying a whole new bigger bike, and making mods and customizations one at a time...the sprocket conversion is easy, the stage one stuff exists.

I mainly asked about the big bore kits here because I’d been finding them listed all over for the older bikes and wasn’t sure if maybe the blocks were similar enough that they’d bolt up to the 865... and the twofold question about increasing bore size is wondering if the bottom end would be able to handle extra torc. I’ve never done anything like that and wanted to talk to some more seasoned riders who have maybe done bore kits on triumph engines before.

I would be very wary of removing the air box and fitting pod filters.
CV carbs are fussy buggers and designed to work with an air box. Most modern air boxes are pretty good, I would possibly look at how the air gets into the airbox, are there any silencing parts that can be removed, ribs that can be smoothed out, and a high flow air filter.

Usually fitting pod filters results in lots of dyno work and carb jets/needles/springs/modifications to end up with the same or less power than stock

+1 to above, CV carbs are design to work with right volume of air, installing pod filters + straight pipes will make a mixture too lean everywhere but on idle and max revs. You will need some dyno sessions to find out how to re-jet your carbs to male a bike operational. It was never a way to make a bike more powerful but noisier, you need mufflers to have proper low revs and a way to get to higher revs.
To make this engine developing more power you need bigger cylinder block, different cams and reworked cylinder head, and I never heard or read about those parts made for a Hinckley Triumph. They are certainly completely different from our old stuff being DOHC engines, so you can't adapt our "big block" to your engine. And Meriden Triumph big block is actually 750 ccm. .

WOW! Very cool! Thank you!