For the first time since I bought the bike new I found oil that had dripped from the bottom of my air cleaner today. Maybe coincidence but it was the first time I'd take my wife on the bike. Not sure if her additional 120lbs made the bike work harder, or if it had just accumulated slowly and finally saturated the bottom of the filter and started to drip. Only have about 2500 miles on the bike.

Anyway, HD apparently doesn't want to sell stock air cleaners as they don't even show up on their site. They do however have the Screamin' Eagle High Flow K&N replacement.

My question is, are they really high flow? They look identical in the picture except for color. And since all that's in the box is the filter, in order to fit with the ham can cover they can't be any thicker. So what makes them high flow?

29400267 Stock air filter element
29400293 K&N High-Flo element

 

The cotton gauze filter media will flow more air than the stock synthetic filter media. It will also allow more dirt to pass through.

 

Hodor yes they do flow more,once the ECU adapts you might notice the bike will run more freely up top with one but it's seriously marginal 1 or 2 HP. . The oil is from the head breathers mate. You'll have to organize an external breather and catch can if you want to get rid of it. The system is an EPA thing but no bike should consume hot oily air like that.

Peace.

 

Thanks Guys

 

Took off my airbox this morning. Definitely room to add fittings and/or grommets to pass the breather tubes behind the mounting plate and into a can at some point down the road. For now I ordered a K&N filter that I'll be able to clean. I did notice that the tube from the rear jug had oil on the end of it while the front tube was dry. Not sure why that is but I'm hoping that yesterday's two-up riding caused an increase in the flow, since I rarely have my wife on the back anymore. We had to slow down to a near stop three times yesterday in an hour's riding due to deer in the road. I constantly scan because of them, and while I don't want to hit one by myself I really don't want to hit one with both of us on the bike. So she doesn't get to ride behind me often.

If the oil accumulation does not slow down without her 120lbs on the back I may be in for a lot of washings of that K&N filter before my warranty expires next June. If it has been consistently but slowly puking oil there and yesterday just brought about the tipping point I can live with that. Until...

 

This is the reason why so many( myself included) vent the breathers to atmosphere. There is always oil mist presented by the breathers which is then sent back into the throttle body but some can accumulate overtime & induce an oil drip as you are experiencing. The breathers act like a motorcycle version of an EGR valve.

 

No they don't. An EGR valve recirculates some exhaust gas back into the combustion chamber. The crank case breathers are exactly that, and nothing to do with exhaust gasses.

 

Often a high oil level will suck or breathe oil into the filter. People find that running with the oil level at the full/cold mark will result in a wet filter. Try reducing the level some until you find that sweet spot/level that doesn't do that. This has been an issue for many years and the twin cam also was susceptible.