Given your problem and how the stocker seems to fix it - the build you're working on seems counter productive and will probably sit in the garage. Maybe sell all that stuff and get a street bob to mess around with - it can still look cool with stock pipes.

 

p51bombay, what do you mean get a FXDB? lol I have one already. Are you messin' with me, man?

I have a young son. He is real young now, but he will be growing up.

I have room to store the parts so when he gets older we have a project to work on.

I just can't the noise maker everyday, and I generally ride my bike everyday. Especially now that it costs my family around $400 for gas to and from work every month now if we both drive.

Nothing is counter productive if you are having fun at it. If I built a bird house, and I was enjoying myself, but wasn't going to live in it. Would that be counter productive as well?

 

I parked my bike at the far lot where we play soccer. I coach a U8 girls team. The lot is by where the softball teams play. I saw a few kids checking out the bike while I was walking up.

None of them were touching it. My town seems to have more bikes in it than the average towns I have lived in. Huge mot orcycle community. One if every garage.

Well as I was leaving a young lady and her mother were waiting for their dad. I heard the young girl say, come on dad. He is going to fire up his bike. Not in a cool "come on dad", but a please hurry up. This thing is going to be loud.

Well I fired her up, and it was smooth and just a litle rumble. She smiled at me, the mother that is, and came over to me. Without yelling we had a conversation about how good the bike looked, and how good it sounded. The daughter was very pleased that it didn't roar into a thunderous blast. She smiled and said, "that sound different, and is really cool"

Weird. I never had that experience before. I have had a compliment on the roar, and now on the lack of. Both were cool. I liked that the games went on, and I could ride my Harley without disturbing the games, or taking the center of attention away from the kids playing ball.

 

Well I have to say that I've gone back to my stock set up too. I had the Screamin' Eagle II slip ons for a while and while I like the sound, it just gets too annoying after a while. My commute to work is a little over an hour of interstate riding and it was just too much. I switched out last night and reprogrammed my PC III. I went out for a 3 hour ride this morning and I have no fatigue. I too ride with a full face but the noise was really not making the ride enjoyable any more. I may have lost a little performance on the top end of the rpm range but for the most part acceleration feels more responsive and I can hear the motor again.

 

I know you may laugh at this, but I wear a full face helmet and always use cotton wool for ear protection. I also wear a thin nylon balaclava under my helmet.
I think you would find that this would sort out your hearing problems.

 

Why not use 'foamies' (foam rounded conical-shaped ear plugs) ... you can get them fairly cheap in bulk from auto parts store, or even a drugstore ... in my experience, works better than cotton ***** ...

I have a full face helmet, but I rarely use it unless I know I am going to be riding in a steady rain for a while (over a half-hour) ... I find that it seems to create about as much noise as it masks ... has a kind of funky echo ...

R/
'Chop

 

I use custom ear plugs for long rides and it helps but thats more for the wind noise. Even with my full face it can be annoying. If you add to that the exhaust noise it just made it that much worse. I do like the sound of the Screamin' Eagle slip ons that I had on there but unfortunately for any kind of long distance riding they are just not as easy on the ears. I can always throw them on in about 20 min and re map the PC III but I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

speak for your self ....loud pipes saved my life at least once that i know of.Probably more than that...cagers never seem to see bikers,noise gets you noticed when your in there blind spot.

 

If the same money spent on loud exhaust was spent on improving riding skills, there wouldn't be nearly so many life threatening situations.

 

Sorry, one anecdotal, unsubstantiated opinion hardly constitutes a credible study. In fact, hundreds of anecdotal, unsubstantiated opinions don't constitute fact either.

I'll stand by my comment until someone can post a link to a credible study (conducted following scientific standards) that demonstrates that loud pipes do anything at all to increase other motorists awareness.

You are equally entitled to your own opinion (and not once did I tell you to speak for yourself...)