Greetings to all,

I am new to Buell and to the site, salutations! I am wanting to build a Buell based bobber. I have an XB12 Thunderstorm engine, taken from a crashed 2009 Lightining.

My questions are: Can I fit a carburetor instead of the injection? My idea was that I did not want to have to mess about getting a tank to take the fuel pump and I would like the appearance of the finished bike to have a 1950s flavour.

I have been told that a Sportster inlet manifold and carb will fit. Anyone tried this on this specific engine? I know that it has been done on earlier models, but it seems that they did something a bit different with this one. Read on.

If this is indeed the case, that prom is sorted and we can move on to the next, the electronics. I was thinking that my options were:

1 To get every sensor that has anything to do with fuel management ie oxygen, throttle, exhaust, fuel etc, isolated on the engine management chip, with the idea of leaving me with a basic ignition system. Who does this and how do I get hold of them? I know that Adreneline offer this as part of a package, but not for this model.

2 Take off the original wiring loom and stick sportster ignition in the engine. Sounds easy, but my engine is with the frame builder at the minute and he told me that when he removed the cover where you would expect to find the stator plate, on other models of Buell, all he could see was oil pipes. Not good, any ideas anyone?

3 A costly option, use Charles Altman's little box of tricks, I forget what it is called, but the company is Altman Micro Machines. Now he reckons that my engine uses a sportster crank position sensor, but from my research a 2009 XB12 uses a 32850-08A sensor. The closest that I could get to this in the sportser archive was 32850-04 which was superseded by 32804-04B and fitted to 2010-2012 sportsers. For all I know, they may all be one in the same, if you know your way around these numbers or know someone who does, please put me out of my misery.

Somebody somewhere has the answer!

Many thanks in advance

I think you would be far better with a pre-08 engine.

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08 Specialized Langster

.many inherent probs using a thunderstrom engine lots o folk have converted the early engine to carb in chops .new chopper n off the shelf ignition unit n coils sorts it

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IF IT BLEEDS WE CAN KILL IT ,THIS STUFF WILL MAKE YOU A GODDAM SEXUAL TYRANASURUS ,YOUVE BEEN PUSHING TOO MANY PENCILS DILLON .GET TO THE CHOPPER

Put it back in a frame where it belongs!