Hi everyone, I have a question and would greatly appreciate it if someone has some answers for me. I have been using HDForums to research and I haven't been able to find an answer to my problem/question, I only find a portion of it, so I finally made an account.

I bought a 2009 Harley Nightster a few months back to mainly commute to and from work and occasionally take it out on the weekends. Everything has been great and I really enjoy riding it, but I have noticed one little thing on the bike that has me questioning it.

My commute to and from work is about 14 miles round trip with no deep inclines and that's with my housebeing about 1/2 a mile away from the freeway, so it's mainly all highway miles. As far as traffic, it's pretty backed up if you're in a car, but for a bike, it's not too bad. You still have some slow and go just to play it safe for traveling between cars though. Car traveling time is about 25 min, bike traveling time is about 10 min.

Now, I have done a lot of searching about what range the gas light comes on and how many miles to the gallon these bikes get which it all seems to vary. I've seen people get 130 miles to the gallon to some people getting around what I'm getting. For me, I cruise at about 70mph and accelerate hard occasionally. My gas light comes on at 79/80 miles EVERYTIME and I can usually push it to 100/105 miles before I fill up. I haven't taken the bike past that mileage due to the fact that once it's at around 100 or so miles, if I accelerate hard or sometimes under normal accerleration in first, the bike will go, have a big hiccup, then pick back up again. It's even happened to me in second gear. To me, that's a sign that the bike is most likely starving on gas and I need to get to a gas station and fill her up. Full tank, the hiccup doesn't ever happen.

Would this be something that's normal? Does the gas mileage I'm getting and the fuel light coming on at the time it does sound about right?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am sorry this is another stinking fuel light issue.

 

That range sounds normal. I don't know about the fuel light because I've only ridden carbureted bikes, but that sounds consistent with what I've heard from others on EFI bikes.

 

You never said what your actual gas mileage is. In my experience 45 MPG seems average for the 96" EFI motors. 40+ for the 110".

 

You need to calculate the real gas mileage. Your dependence on fuel light and miles per tank does not give us a clue as to your true mileage.

Fill your tank. Record odometer mileage .
Go for a long ride until you feel comfortable the tank is almost empty.
Fill tank again. Record odometer mileage.
Subtract the first odometer reading from the second. This is the number of miles ridden.
Divide the miles ridden by the number of gallons added the second time.
This is your true MPG.

Do this over several tanks of gas and discover the average.

 

Here's what cha do. Fill her up and put an extra gallon of gas in a gas can. Take note of the mileage. Take off riding with someone following you in a cage with the extra gas and run the bike dry. Again take note of the mileage. Put the extra gas in the tank and ride it to a station and fill it up then ride it home if you want. Now you'll know for sure how far you can get.

 

i would say that if your bike is stock then you should be getting from 48 min. to 53 on average.. my wife had a 2010 883 and she would get at least 50 to the gallon, a few times she would get 55+ to the gallon... each bike is different so the milage varies

 

The small gas tank on the nightster is my only complaint about the bike. If it was mine I would do what I've seen other people do and get a 4.5 gallon tank from a fi sportster and swap them out. That would give you another 1.2 gallons and from what I understand its a direct swap.