I wanted to pass along my experience for other’s benefit and ask for opinions on what you would do. First off, Jamie at Fuel Moto has been responsive and helpful. Those guys really are great and have tried to help me with resolving my problem. I wouldn’t hesitate in purchasing from them in the future. If I had the time, I would order my replacement unit from Jamie but, I need the unit tomorrow and located one about 80 miles from me.

Here’s my story. Purchased the power package from Fuel Moto in late 2009 for my 2009 FLHR. Installed the PCV, stage one A/C & slip-ons. Ran it for about 17,000 miles and upgraded to 2011 Electra Glide Ultra to increase the comfort for my wife. Swapped out the PCV, A/C and slip-ons and put them on the new ride. The PCV was listed as being compatible for the 103 on my ECU. To make a long story short, I always fought with excessive engine heat on EGU. I ride frequently with the local HOG chapter and would compare oil temps with riders on EGU’s. I would frequently hit 290 – 300 degrees. Whereas they’d be at 250 - 260 range. At 300 degrees the thing would ping and clank like a drunken Dixie Land band. But, no matter what I did, I couldn’t bring the oil temps down. Would just bite my tongue and find an open road to hit to cool the bike down.

I had Fuel Moto send several maps, each progressively richer and with timing retarded etc in order to try and resolve this heat issue. I swapped out the factory cooler for a Jagg. I put a lower temp thermostat in the Jagg Cooler. That only slowed down the over heating problem from coming on. I’ve run synthetic oil in it from mile 500. After nearly 2 yrs of futz’n around with this heat issue, I decided to try and take it to get dyno’d hoping that they could figure something out. Also I was scheduled to do a Utah, WY & CO ride starting 2 days ago. Well, Fri night the tuner calls me and tells me that he’d been fighting my bike all day and finally called Dyno Jet. They had him run some tests and turns out my PCV isn’t working right. It keeps trying to revert back to the HD factory tune. I had to postpone the trip trying to run down a replacement PCV. I pick up the new unit tomorrow and the tuner will start the process all over again on Tues.

I had actually called Dyno Jet a year or so ago to ask them how to tell if the Power Commander is working. I was told that if it isn’t working, the bike won’t run. Well, I guess that ain’t necessarily so.

So bottom line, I’ve been running my bike extra lean for the last 18,000 miles. Now, I am concerned about what cumulative damage/pre-mature wear I’ve done to my engine (pistons, rings…etc). As any damage caused by an after-market add-on invalidates the warranty, most likely (and understandably so, I guess) no help from the dealer should the engine fail on me.

So here’s my predicament, for those of you that are smarter than me.
My bike is set up with all the mods I like. Busted my a$$ and paid off my bike early. Now I am concerned about having to drop $3k – $5k on possibly rebuilding/replacing the engine.

Or, I saw the 2013 Electra Glide Ultra Limited Anniversary edition. Damn, she’s a real looker. They want a lot of coin for the bike. But, I could do a trade in and chip in $5k - $8k and get a new bike and strip the mods off of my 2011.

What do you think? Would you be concerned about engine damage? If you were concerned about engine damage, would you consider selling the bike or just taking your chances with a possible engine rebuild or replacement down the road?

 

I'd go with the 2013....start fresh.....

This coming from someone riding one that's 13 years old

 

I've got a 2012 with 30,000 miles on it. If the engine craps out on it, im gonna have a crate engine installed (like maybe a 120). I figure thats $8-9,000 but I would proably spend the same money trading up to a new one.