I have full exhaust/tune however I kept the stock A/C on my 103. Is there actually a difference with a high flow? I thought the newer bikes already had high flow filters?

If I'm missing out I wanted to know...

 

An aftermarket high flow air cleaner will give your engine more air, which means better combustion, which translates to better performance, and a little more hp.

I'm running a SE Heavy Breather a/c, with stock decatted head pipes and V&H slip-ons.

I bought a PC-5 from fuel moto to which they programmed to the above add-ons.

My bike has never run so well.
No pinging, no knocking, crisp clean responsive throttle.
Noticeably faster and smoother, I could not be happier.
I cannot believe what a difference this has made in the way the bike runs.
So yes, I believe the high flow a/c (with the tuner) makes a big difference.

 

If you only did the exhaust, think of it as putting water through an upside down funnel. Doesn't increase the flow of water at all.

 

All I wanted was a different exhaust and I was told I needed to get a tuner and a high flow air cleaner...all because of that computer crap. It was a lot simpler on my '75 shovelhead.

 

Yes.

I know some models do, but I'm not current enough with new models to know which ones. It's easy enough to check friend, take a look, is the element exposed completely around it's perimeter? Or is there only a small port or section of the AC open to available air? If it's primarily boxed in except for one small area it is not high flow.

 

See post below from Fuelmoto. It should answer all your questions.

We have a ton of data on air cleaners on the Rushmore bikes including flowbench & dyno test info. The stock Rushmore AC is slighly better than the stock air cleaner on earlier bikes, most of the improvement is in the cover design. By far the biggest issue with the stock air cleaner is the element cartridge is only about 1" thick, this not only affects airflow it directly affects the overall volume (area between the throttle blade & the interior of the element) as well as the inlet path. The direction & effect the air flows thru the air cleaner as an assembly and most importantly airflow at the inlet of the throttle body can/will greatly affect flow & performance, its not just about the peak flow numbers. The stock Rushmore AC flows just over 200 CFM and most aftermarket Stage 1 air cleaners are in the 300+ CFM range (about 50% more), however even this increase in max CFM only tells part of the story.

In most cases a Stage 1 air cleaner is among the best dollar per Hp you can spend, in most Stage 1 applications swapping the air cleaner is generally good for 2-5Hp/Tq relative to the rest of the mods you are doing, most aftermarket options also have a cleanable element that will last the life of the bike so you can consider the cost savings there as well.

Below you will find a dyno chart of the Fuel Moto Pro Billet air cleaner vs the stock air cleaner. This was a back to back test on a completely stock 2015 FLHX, no retuning.

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Which bike do you have? If you have the 103 HO, your bike came with the Screamin' Eagle Ventilator AC, which flows a good bit better than the standard Harley AC does, though there are definitely some out there that flow even better.