Morning!

Just picked up a 2001 Softail for a price I couldn't pass on (It's winter here and people are selling cheap).

I fired it up when I was there and the PO kept his hand on the throttle. Told him to knock it off and it idled fine for a few seconds and then had this erratic fluctuation in idle, it would cough through the throttle body and then die. Started up just fine and would duplicate the same thing. Still, I feel like it's something I can tackle.

A few things:
Intake is the open filament K&N style with the weight lookin' things on each side (it's terrible looking in my opinion). I took this off last night and there was no gasket from Throttle body to bracket and no gasket from bracket to intake.

When I took off the intake the IAC and butterfly were black...I mean real black, almost blurple. I have since cleaned that but have not fired the bike up without the intake (I have a new intake and gaskets arriving Thursday).

The bike has RevTech DFO installed at the standard recommended settings 3,3,4,4

Here is a video of what's happening:
My first suspicion is a leak due to no gaskets and the IAC compensating for this, then possibly the gummed up IAC itself. 3rd, which I am really hoping it's not is low fuel pressure; I really don't want to buy a pressure gauge to use once.

Any techs or old hands that have heard or seen this want to weigh in? Up until about 6 months ago, I was only used to carb'd motors so this is new territory to me.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Just caught a fraction of a second of the connection for the California charcoal canister fitting with no cap on it (maybe??). Have see this either fall off from heat or people remove it to give it a cam sound. Do not use a vacuum cam. Harley's is extra heavy for the heat if that is the problem.

 

Thanks for the reply RIPSAW. Are you talking about the fitting off the Throttle body or the little plastic one behind it? I tried to grab a part of the video with those because I figured it may have something to do with it.



1 or 2? Again, thank you. The closer I get to fixing this, the quicker I can go do donuts in the snow LOL

P.S. I was too lazy to go to O'Reilly around the corner so I ordered a bunch of vacuum caps online a few days ago along with a few other items. It's either lazy or smart...I got a huge pack for the price of a small pack at the parts store.

 

My money is on the IAC motor; suspect it needs a good cleaning. Nothing wrong with that intake; gasket maybe but get the IAC motor clean and see what happens.

 

I am sitting here at work holding off on buying goodies for it until I chase the gremlin away. I suspect you are right on the money and am really hopeful it will be that easy. I ordered a different intake because I don't like the way this one looks on the bike. I am going to order new breather bolt washer gaskets for it and sell it to someone I'm sure. Just not a fan of the two nuts hanging down from it LOL.

 

I am thinking your throttle body is slightly different then mine. Is that metal pipe part 2 your original vent system that is now being dumped to the open thru those two cylinders on the valve covers? Not sure were that pipe is but it appears to be on outside of throttle plate. Even if it's just that, it should be plugged since it's letting unfiltered air enter engine. That plastic hose further back just may be going to a charcoal canister.

Idle sounds lean to me and the IAC cannot keep up. Could even be fouled plugs. Check plugs and do a compression test with throttle body wide open when changing plugs. That black you are seeing is from spitback of too reach mixture probably or a lot of overlap in a lot of cam duration. Engine sounds strong with that exhaust but how does bottom end torque fill ?

 

I will check compression tonight when I get home. It was snowing when I picked the bike up so I was only able to run it down the road a small distance. Seemed to do fine until it returned back to idle.

 

Well. I popped on over to Harbor Freight to pick up their cheap compression tester. It seemed to work well but I wish I had better results. Am I completely boned? I had to do this cold, pressure seems even in both cylinders which seems odd, maybe thats just me. Where should I go from here?

Front:




Rear:



The plugs:






IAC was removed and cleaned thoroughly.

There is a 2015 103" motor with 0 miles a few hundred miles away....will that mate with everything on an 01? I was really hoping something would get straightened out tonight.

 

You are OK..90 and above is fine. And they are well with in 10% and your plugs are dry. They are rich from a tuner however or have a lot of miles on them. How many miles on motor. My guess is they have more then 10K and could be up to 20K on them.
Replace them with two Harley plugs. They are the required resistance and the closest replacement is twice the resistance and only works if you drive bike easy since the knock sensor works off the plug resistance.
Mine have 10K on each set....
Someone stuck way to much anti-seize on there.

 

thanks for following this post and helping out. I cycled about 5 times on each cylinder. And I agree about the anti-seize. Bike has 27k on the odometer. I will pick up some new plugs. Any other suggestions on the idle issue? Should I just assume it's the DFO causing it at this point?