I had basically a stage III 103ci kit put on my bike. Why is explained here...
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/softa...xspensive.html

Anyway going through the takeoff parts and was looking at my stock 96ci pistons. They only had 6800 miles on them and look like this! I ran Night Rider XieDs on the bike for over 5500 miles of the total miles on it. It always smelled rich to me and almost did not pass emissions last year as a result of being so rich. Just WOW. I always run top tier 91 octane fuel, which is the highest I can get in Phoenix. Just very shocked to see how caked they were. Or am I off?

 

The color of the spark plugs would suggest that it wasn't running too rich - it would be unusual for a fuel injection system to run rich because the O2 sensor would correct the mixture, that unless there's poor tuning done by way of a piggy-back device or tuning device.

Could it be due to ingesting oil through the positive crank case breather system?

 

Like 1004 mentioned your plugs don't suggest you were running rich. I imagine you have an aftermarket exhaust on there. That might have cause your problem with emissions. As for your caca covered pistons do you vent your crankcase to O2?

 

Bike has V&H big shot stag. on it. Ran a stock intake for the first 6k miles on the bike. Then I installed a Trask, formerly Doherty, power Pacc with power vents.

 

Doesn't look bad either. Some will depend on how hard you ran the bike.

 

I tents to ride it like i stole it!

 

Plugs look good. Maybe sucking in some oil from the breathers.

 

According to DK Customs; this is exactly how they explain the need to vent crank case into outside of motor and not back into the intake... http://www.dkcustomproducts.com/Poli...K-ACI-ALBB.htm

 

+1. Got myself a venting kit for this reason.

 

It is now, since installing the Trask / Doherty intake. I think I am venting back into the intake but I have never seen any oil from it. The power vents seem to do a good job of controlling it. The shop said they were worse than normal, like the bike was seeing way to much fuel or something.

Funny thing is ever since installing the Power Vision and pulling the XieDs I could smell the difference and my wife even commented on it. With the 103 now and power vision she commented again that I did not stink up the garage and I do not smell like fuel. I think those things were just causing it to get to much fuel in places it was not needed. I knew it was a temporary fix just did not know it could do this.

O,well, this was not the cause of the upgrade just something discovered during.