I got home and mowed the yard took the bike to Taco Hell about 4 miles away came out moved the engine button to run turned the key hit the starter and the most awful sound ever came from the engine. It sounded like the compensator. I had the thing fixed last year and OMG the same blood curdling sound.
I was wondering if anyone else has had a second failure. They told me at the shop they put the SE compensator in when they exchanged it.

 

Mine is doing it too with about 10,000 miles on the SE comp. Search it a bit. Some guys have had to replace it at about 20,000 miles or something like that. The part has been revised since it original design too.

 

Have heard of it but rarely, my SE Comp has 20 K on it now, the last 10 K of it with cams .. No problems..

 

There also seems to be quite a few cases mentioned where the comp nut backed off. Some of the shops are not torquing the bolt properly, which is a two step process. Torgue down, back off one turn then retorgue.

 

I kind of had the same issue. Had my compensator replaced a few months back. Recently, I started getting a bit of a kickback after the engine was warm\hot... Kind of like it did before. Here's what I found; my battery was not turning over the engine fast enough and would get a big a..ss bang\kickback once in a while. Now, after replacing the battery, I do not have any issues. So, maybe, it may just be a weak battery not turning the engine fast enough. In any case, it seems to have fix my problem.

 

That's just great! Now I have something else to look forward to.

 

root cause of the crank bang problem is compression build up in the heads. the compensator upgrade just helped mitigate the issue. but it never really fixed the problem. to explain the root cause better think about what happens when you start a push cord lawn mower. the mower is almost impossible to start if the piston is just before top dead center. If you detect that it is just before TDC, you pull the cord a bit to get the piston past TDC. what 's happening here is the compression buildup makes it almost impossible for you to crank the engine. if you try to crank a lawn mower that is just before tdc, what happens, it yanks you back. Same issue with you bike. when you shut your bike off, a lot of times the engine will stop with pistons in the position approaching TDC. when the starter trys to engage and start the engine, the compression springs the crank back causing the starter gears to slip....the bang grind. replacing the compensator to the new SE comp, just gave you more spring preload to help prevent the crank spring back. the root cause is the compression in the heads. as a bike ages, carbon accumaltes and incresases this compression. the fix is compression release.

 

S&S makes a " Easy Start Cam" with a compression release. I would assume the S&S cam would do the same thing as suggested by Speakerfritz. Dam, it's always something to fix on these machines. About ready to buy a bicycle and call it a day.

 

I'm on my 5th comp. 4th s/e. Original upgraded at 21k. That one was replaced 4k later in conjunction with IPB, main shaft bearing and clutch. That one lasted a long as the test ride. Number 4 was in for 1k. My 5th was installed with a new clutch spring. 30k now and all is well. Also, just bought the extended warranty!

 

Holy ****!