I am disappointed with the sound of my Twin Cam. My Evo sounded so much better to me, the Twin Cam sounds too sterile. I borrowed my buddy's 03 carb model FLSTC during vacation and it sounded a lot better than mine, I realized because it idled slower. The HD dealer did a stage 1 kit for him before he took delivery and he's never touched it since other than for maintenance, and it idled about 900 or so vs. my 1100 idle. I have a Fuelmoto Dynojet PCIII but it doesn't allow changing the idle speed.

I am aware of the danger of idling a twin cam too low - oil pressure being too low, additional stress on the crank. But I figured if my buddy's carb bike idles at 900 or so for 11 years and a lot of miles, I could safely lower mine a bit from 1100.

Here is a comparison of my TC bike to my EVO:


The manual idle control is a super easy install, you simply remove the air cleaner and the idle air controller (you do not need to lift the tank as the instructions say). There are two 5/16 bolts on top and a Torx screw on the right of the TB that you must loosen that holds the throttle cable bracket to the throttle body. When you take out the bolts and loosen the bracket screw you can pull the bracket away enough to get the factory idle air controller out and the manual one in, transferring the o-ring from factory to the manual. Be sure and loosen the manual controller up (unscrew it) all the way before you bolt it down. You have to leave the factory idle air controller hooked up or you'll set a check engine light. The simple device works by allowing you to adjust how much idle air is allowed in the throttle - fast idle is full out, slow idle is full in, you have a range of about 1100 to 600 or so. As you'll see from the video, it's easy to reach your hand in and adjust it, it moves easy and has detents to click it where you want it. Here is a link to the device.

http://www.american-motors-usa.com/s...yna-und-tourin

Here is a video of the idle control in operation:


I'm going to play with this a while at 950 or so idle and see if I like it. I'm not sure if it will affect drivability but I will post up my results as I experiment with it.

 

You realize you have taken away the bikes warm up idle capability. You can't compare a efi to carb bike for that potato sound. If you had a good tuner you could have dropped your idle without messing with the iacv. My tts will allow me to drop idle well below 1k but see no reason to do so. I idle around 1040-980 according to tach. I commend your effort but see problems arrising down the road for you.

 

I have to manually idle up the bike when it's cold and then down when it's warm. Like of like having a choke again. It's easy to do with one finger.

 

As stated above, you shouldn't have done that. That is not the way to adjust idle and your bikes computer will think something is wrong and start throwing codes and trying to correct it. . Bad, bad, bad idea.

 

Actually no codes after riding for several hours yesterday.

I noticed that if I idle the bike too low (like 800, which I don't do) it will set a CEL, but when I idle it up, the light goes right out.

I found that 1000 is a good idle speed. My stock speed is about 1100. At 1000, no codes, and the bike runs great.

 

Exactly what problems do you see down the road?

 

I'm curious as well, I don't foresee any problems with the bike idling at 950-1000, my buddy has tens of thousands of miles on his 03 carb'd bike idling there.

Perhaps his comment was made assuming I'd idle my bike at 600, which I'm not going to do.

Or maybe I'm missing something in which case I would indeed love to learn from someone else's experience.

 

Months later, this mod has been one of my favorites. I keep the bike at 950 using the controller. I have to idle it up when cold starting and then control it down to 950 as it warms. No issues at all.

And once in a while if I feel like idling it down cruising through the bike show...I do. Sounds cool for a minute or two.