Stellar | 2008 H-D Street Glide

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It all started with a trip to Daytona Biketoberfest in 2009. Mike Wengrin was there with a few of his buddies and his stock ’08 Street Glide. Everywhere Mike looked he saw other bikes were decked out with nice big wheels, custom paintjobs, or something that made them stand out from the crowd. That’s when Mike decided he had to do something to make his bike stand out.

Mike actually became annoyed riding around Daytona with the bike in stock form, so he decided to calm himself by immediately heading over to Coastal Moto wheels that had just opened its store in Daytona. Mike spoke with the owner, Jason Spillers, and he gave Mike a deal he couldn’t refuse. Mike settled on a 21-inch front wheel with matching rotors that Jason would throw on for Mike just so he could feel a little better about his ride when cruising down Main street. Although a start, Mike was already convinced that when he got home to northern New Jersey, the bike was going to be torn apart and get a complete makeover. Mike states, “Let me be straight, I am not a bike builder or mechanic by any means, but I do know my way around a toolbox and am not afraid to get my hands dirty.”

Two days after getting home to the Garden State from Daytona, Mike made his way to Harbor Freight Tools and bought a hydraulic motorcycle lift table that his Glide would call home for the duration of the project. That night, Mike strapped the bike to the lift, borrowed a service manual from a friend, and by 3 a.m. and a 12-pack later, the bike was unrecognizable. Mike had boxes of parts all over the garage floor; one box full of all the parts that he wanted chromed, another box with his dismantled motor in it, and boxes full of the stock tins.

Over the next few months, the list of modifications that Mike wanted to complete got longer and longer. If he changed one small thing on the bike, he convinced himself that he had to change something else because of it. First, Mike sent all of the black parts such as hand controls, bag mounting hardware, floorboard mounts, and brake calipers out to Chromemasters (OCC’s go-to chromer) to be show chromed. He then called Jason and ordered a matching rear wheel from Coastal Moto. Thinking about motor upgrades, Mike called Scott at Hillside Cycles in Munnsville, New York, about how to make this bike go as well as it was going to show. After extensive research and conversations with Scott, Mike decided to send his cylinders and heads out for powdercoating and the Diamond Heads’ treatment before shipping them off to Hillside so it could work its magic. Mike decided to punch the motor out to 107ci with some high-flow Stage-4 headwork and Bob Woods TW8-6 Night Prowler cams. He also sent the stock throttle body to Horse Power Inc. so they could modify it to 54mm with a 1.8-inch manifold to really get the motor breathing.

While Chromasters and Hillside cycles were working their magic, Mike turned his attention to giving the rear of the bike an identity all its own. Mike ordered a set of TopShop Carbon custom saddlebags with a 4-inch stretch to start and a Klock Werks 6-inch stretch rear fender. He then put some of his tools to use by making the fender/saddlebag fillers out of heavy-duty 14-gauge steel to the exact shape that he wanted. Then Mike spoke to Paul at Native Custom Baggers and bought a set of its recessed taillights and fit them to his bag fillers, deciding to run them as run/turn/brake signals. Once Mike had the rear looking the way he wanted, he welded it all up and sent all the parts over to his boy Moose who is a wizard with the spray gun and had him match up the original White Gold Pearl paint.

Mike still had some time to kill while waiting on some parts to come back, so he utilized it by hand-polishing any of the visible stock hardware, the rear pulley, and anything else he could find. The horn was relocated behind the side cover so the powdercoating and diamond cutting would be unobstructed. Mike dismantled all of the Harley gauges and soldered in new Super Shite LED lights for the numbers and Super Blue for the needles that give the dash an unbelievable custom look at night without spending major coin for new gauges. He then upgraded the stock stereo by hiding an ARC Audio 125x2 mini amp inside the front fairing that pumps power to some extremely capable Focal speakers (look closely and you can see that the gauges have been rearranged and the air temp and batt voltage gauges were replaced with tweeters). Still maximizing this downtime, Mike replaced the stock handlebars with a set of 10-inch Paul Yaffe Monkey Bars.

When Mike’s motor parts came back from Hillside, he began rebuilding it solely by paying very close attention to the service manual and utilizing help from various internet forums. Pretty impressive considering this was Mike’s first time being inside of a motor. Once back together and without any problems he mated it to a custom-length D&D Fat Cat 2-into-1 exhaust that D&D fabricated just for Mike.

After Mike had everything back together and looking good, he took the bike to see Dave at JD’s Cycle Works in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for dyno tuning. After Dave did what he does best, the worked 107-incher pumped out an impressive 119 hp along with an arm stretching 116 lb-ft of torque. Now that’s what we like to see, more than 1 hp per cubic inch.

Mike is extremely happy with the outcome of the bike, but as many of the stories within these pages and garages across America go, no bike is truly ever finished. Mike already has plans to tear it all down again and color-match the frame and a few other secrets. It’s awesome to see the confidence that a man can get when he focuses on a goal and uses available resources to make it happen. B

Spec Sheet