those bolts hold the backing plate to the throttle body and are then covered by a gasket and the air filter tube housing itself. I don't see anyway they could have fallen out and sucked into the eng once the housing was installed. if they were somehow able to work their way out and into the eng, it wouldn't be a little noise you would hear, it would be extremely loud and major damage would occur to the head's, valves, piston, cylinders etc.. engines do not like hard pieces of metal going through them.

my guess would be the guy got side tracked and left the screws out completely. this could be proven by no marks on the adapter where the screws would seat up against the countersunk mounting holes. Without the screws there, the adapter to throttle body gasket wasn't held in place, split and broke apart and sucked into the eng. since its just a paper gasket, the gasket pieces would be burned up through the combustion process and spewed out the exh.

 

I agree, my first thought was the 3 bolts that hold the intake pipe to the backing plate also went into the TB but after staring at it for a few minutes it came to me that i was missing them.

Update: the dealer came and got the bike this morning.
He said they will use a "Probe" to look into the engine and check for damage.
They seem like they are going to fix it, they are a good dealer with good mechanics and treat me great, i will still have to consider doing any business with them in the future tho.

 

Sadly, mistakes will happen..... it's what the shop does to fix a mistake that counts.

I know a few dealers that would have just said they fell off, or blamed you...

Your dealer picked up the bike, probed the engine for possible damage, and if they fix it right in the end.... I wouldn't hold the mishap against them.

Just my 2 cents...

Good luck with the fix...

 

Could not agree more. Shows how good they really are.

 

Any update on this?

 

Actually i just got the bike back 15 min ago.
They had some other people in front of me to get work done so it was at their shop all week.
As soon as i started the bike i could tell how much better it ran, usually it turns over a few times and makes a noise from the breather but it fires right up now.
Also the low end power and shifting is a ton better.

Goes to show how a little leak can rob your bike of power and drivability.