2011 FLTRU Air/Fuel issue

[roadog28]

So... I called ThunderMax this morning and had a great talk with one of the sales reps. Not sure they told me anything I didn't already know, but they did give me some piece of mind. Gonna give it a try sometime over the next few months. In the mean time I'm going to swap out the high flow air cleaner and re-install the stock set up. Hopefully that will buy me some time until I can shell out the cheddar for the TM. I also have a quite baffle for the VH High Output pipe that might also help reduce flow and "richen" things up a bit... but Ill just start with the air cleaner. Thanks for all the input. MIKE

[roadog28]

Been a while, life got busy and the weather has tanked here in KC... but I did get an opportunity to put the stock air cleaner back on and test rode it yesterday. The am outside temp was in the 55 range and the bike rode pretty good all the way to work. On the way home it was about 75 out and I really tried to put it through the paces to see if I could re-produce. In all actuality I was just riding it like I always do... which some would deem to be "hard". Zero stop and go traffic other than two stoplights all the way home and sure enough by the time I hit my neighborhood (about 40 min commute) the oil temp had climbed to 230ish and it started to ping. Nothing I would deem as a "major" ping event... but pinging none the less.

As a reminder, its a 2011 103 FLTRU with VH Pro Pipe HO and the stage one download... previously I had a VH high flow intake but am now running stock to try and richen it up a bit.

Like I stated in my earlier posts, I'm very interested in Thundermax autotune, but cant shell that out for a while. What I'm really afraid of is putting a $1000 tuner on it and it not fixing the issue. I ride in a lot of traffic, sometimes in the city and usually with my wife on the back. I want to be able to jump on and ride the damn bike without having to worry about it being too hot out or riding it too hard.

Help me out, shed some perspective and let me know your thoughts. Are my expectations too high with this bike? Should changing back to the old AC have improved the issue?

Thanks in advance from a completely bummed out Mike...

[mroach]

for what its worth i had the same issue and have a friend that's a Harley mech..changed the fluids to full synth and he added in some timing and cool as can be now. Like previously stated sounds like your map doesn't match your setup.

[roadog28]

Thanks for the response... I agree, need to get the right map in there which means a good tuner. What are you using?

[mroach]

I have the pcv, will add the auto tune later but for a reasonable amount of dough i got sorted. Call fuel moto they probably have a map for your setup that will be reasonably close so you don't have to spend any money on dyno time. After speaking with a friend that works for Harley he told me they are way retarded on timing which causes some of the heat, he also stated that allot of the maps address mixture and not timing. I don't think it sounds like you have anything wrong...just a bad tune for your setup. The thunder max is appealing if you can spend it upfront if not a PCV with the option to add it later is a good solution and most manufacturers and allot of tuners have maps for most setups for the PCV. I may eventually move over to the cobra tuner after its been ran awhile. So far to me that's the most appealing setup but i never like to be a member of the learning curve either so I think I'll sit that one out for a year or so.

[roadog28]

Just an update... going to pick up the Thundermax in late February. I've been researching the different options for months now and I think the TM is going to be my best shot. You can pull down their instruction manual from the website, and man, what a thorough well put together manual. There is 50 pages on how to deal with pinging. Here's the link if you are also thinking about a TM. Went for a 100 mile ride on NYE... 60-65 degrees out and had a mild ping in 3rd-6th at 3000 RPM's.

[roadog28]

Just an update... Finally got the Thundermax installed and what a difference. Ill post a full review of the Thundermax and my experience with getting it dialed in, but at least wanted to update this thread. Thanks for all the feedback.

[roadog28]

It's been a while, wanted to provide an update. Although the underlying problem here solely rests on the shoulders of HD and my specific dealer, I have learned a lot in the last few months and am hopefully right around the corner from a "fix".

To keep a long story short, I ended up allowing the stealer to sell me a SEPST and dyno time in an effort to get the ping out. Hindsight is that I should have never in a million years let them sell me anything, but rather just forced them/the MOCO to fix it. Unfortunately I already lost one riding season and really don't want to lose another.

Since adding the SEPST and dyno time, I have been back to the shop 3-4 times with the ping. They look at the tune, put it on the dyno, have someone else look at it, and then come back with the same story... It's hot out, or, bad gas, or something else. They either can't or won't fix it... which is a whole other story that my lawyer is dealing with (I'll post the results of that once its all finished up). Keep in mind that I bought the bike new, stock, and it knocked. I added pipes, intake, stage 1 download, FuelPak, PCV, Thundermax, and now a SEPST and it still runs hotter than hell and pings/knocks. It has improved, but in no way shape or form is this motorcycles current performance acceptable. On a side note, had I known then what i know now... the PCV or the Thundermax would have worked to fix the problem... I just wasn't savvy enough at the time to understand it.

But now I have the SEPST and will be doing my best to make it work. My theory after lots of research is as follows:

The bike runs too lean/hot (duh). And for whatever reason, the dealer will not tune the bike to run in Open Loop mode... even though it appears this would solve the problem. My plan for the time being is the get the software and cable (should be here this week) and see what they are running my cruise AFRs at. My gut tells me they are set to keep the bike in closed loop and that is the majority of my problem. Thy symptoms are consistent with this theory; bike starts and idles fine, acceleration and WOT are decent (but probably could be better), but the minute you are cruising or idling the bike gets hot and will ping. If the NB sensors are holding a 14.6-14.7 AFR in the ranges where i do 90% of my riding... coupled with the heat/humidity in KC and a very high flowing intake/pipe set up... it kind of explains where i'm at and why.

I am starting to think that I need to approach this as if the bike is a "pre O2 sensor" bike and only ran in open loop. Get my cruise AFR in the 13.9-14.1 range, which will shut down the closed loop function and hopefully knock out my heat and ping issues. The concerns I have with doing this on my own, are just that... I wont have any feedback measure to determine what my AFR's are truly at, and how the changes are affecting HP/TQ/timing, etc. I think the best solution would be to have a non MOCO tuner tune this sucker in open loop mode. But there are not any of those around me or the bike would already be there. So I'm going to take baby steps, first the software, read the map, learn about the functionality, then maybe make a change. I can always revert if need be... but it's got to be better then where I'm at. Ill be tracking my progress and probably reaching out for some assistance/support.

One of the good things (or bad things depending on how you look at it), is that since I first started having this issue... LOTS of other people are starting to come forward with heat/ping issues on the 11's and 12's. I don't think its going to be good enough in the future to just add pipes, intake and a new map... its going to require some serious effort to get these bikes to run like they should... and people need to know that going into it. As I first stated, this whole issue rests solely on the shoulders of HD... either they don't care, or are really between a rock and hard place with the EPA. If I had a product out there that had thousands upon thousands of pages containing feedback from customers who felt let down, ripped off, or explaining how they had to feed 1000's of dollars into a new bike to get it to run right... I wouldn't be sleeping at night.

Anyways, a little bit of a rant there... but I am hopeful that the solution for me is around the corner... Ill keep ya posted.