Imagine yourself at the drag strip, side by side with your competitor. As the two of you await the green flash of light, the person in the opposing lane doesn't know that you're armed with a Pingel Easy Shift kit. Your opponent's forced to go the traditional route of shifting through the gears by way of clutch and shift lever, but you have an advantage because you're shifting via the push of a button. A matter of seconds or fractions of seconds determine the outcome of who crosses the line first, and those precious seconds are so...precious. With the Pingel Easy Shift kit, you just might gain that edge.
Pingel Enterprise has been in business since 1967, and offers a large volume of aftermarket motorcycle parts. The Pingel Easy Shift kit is a universal kit for FLH, Softail, Dyna, V-Rod, and Sportster models, including multiple imports. According to the head honcho, Wayne Pingel, with the push of a button an electric current moves to the shift solenoid, making the plunger from the shift cylinder move up or down while simultaneously interrupting the ignition coils, momentarily taking the load off the drivetrain for smooth full throttle shifting. To activate the system, start the bike in Neutral, and pull the clutch while pushing either the top or bottom button for 5 seconds. Now you're ready to go. You only need to pull the clutch lever when starting the bike for the first time, stopping, or finding Neutral. But you can also still manually shift at any time.
We found an '04 VRSCB owner by the name of Aaron Aubrey who had done multiple customizations to his bike, and it was begging for even more of a custom edge. We packed up our camera gear and headed to Anaheim-Fullerton Harley-Davidson to gain some insight by watching technician Matt Cortez go to work on the install.
 1. Here is the definitely...  1. Here is the definitely not stock '04 V-Rod awaiting the Easy Shift upgrade. |  2. The kit includes: Electronic...  2. The kit includes: Electronic Engine Kill module (A) with wire leads to coil, Electric shift cylinder and support bracket with cylinder clamp (B), fused wiring harness (C), two-piece dual button control assembly for 1-inch handlebars (D), ring terminals (E), control module (F), blue quick-tab connectors, zip-ties, 40-amp fuse (E), shift arm lever (G), and hardware (H). Also, detailed installation instructions are provided; read thoroughly before attempting installation and refer to your service manual if necessary. |  3. Matt removed the airbox...  3. Matt removed the airbox cover and side covers for wiring purposes and disconnected the negative cable from the battery. Then he removed the left grip to mount the dual-button control assembly on the inside of the grip. |
 4. Once in place, Matt routed...  4. Once in place, Matt routed the wiring along the handlebar to the battery compartment below the speedo/tach gauges in order to plug it into |  5. ...the Electronic Shift...  5. ...the Electronic Shift Control Module, which was mounted with Velcro atop the battery. Once installed, Matt plugged the connectors into the supplied fused wiring harness (Note: From the control module, the large four-pin connector went to the large four-pin connector on the fused wiring harness; the small four-pin connector went to the handlebar module; the large three-pin connector was routed to the large three-pin connector on the Electronic Engine Kill module). |  6. On the fused wiring harness...  6. On the fused wiring harness Matt cut the positive/negative cables to length, mounted the ring terminals, and connected the cables to the battery. The remaining red wire was spliced into an unused accessory terminal harness with a blue quick-tab connector. |
 7. The Engine Kill module...  7. The Engine Kill module was mounted next and the black wire was spliced into the front coil signal wire (blue and orange) with a quick-pin connector. The blue wire was spliced into rear coil signal wire (yellow and blue) with the final quick-pin connector. When finished, Matt tightened everything up with shrink-tube and zip-ties. |  8. Next, Matt installed the...  8. Next, Matt installed the shift cylinder bracket with the provided hardware and threadlocker to the downtube on the left side. |  9. The cylinder was put in...  9. The cylinder was put in place to be mocked up for accurate positioning. |
 10. Matt removed the shift...  10. Matt removed the shift lever and drilled two 3/16 holes to adhere the Pingel shift arm lever, which mounts to the shift cylinder rod. Then he re-installed the shift lever and hooked the shift linkage back up. |  11. After placing the shift...  11. After placing the shift cylinder in the correct location the wiring from the shift cylinder was routed to the control module, plugged in, and installation of the Easy Shift kit was finished. The side covers and airbox were re-installed, and Matt took the bike for a test spin. He came back and said that everything seemed to work nicely. He was able to shift up through the gears by pushing the upshift button and downshifted with the downshift button. He only needed to pull the clutch when coming to a stop or finding Neutral. | |