I am seeking others experience about engine noise on 2006 softails. The engine sounds like the pistons are slapping at two different engine speeds. The dealer tells me this is normal; and is due to emission requirements forcing theengine timing to be advanced. Anybody else ever heard of such a thing?

Bruhan

 

I had a 04 Heritage and I now have a 06 heritage. Both have had the so called noise. I was told the same thing by dealer and by friends that have softails. Not to worry. Get louder pipes and you wont hear a thing.LOL All kidding aside I have had no problems with my bikes my o4 had over 14000 and my 06 has over 3000

 

Louder pipes are will be on my Christmas list.

Thanks for the advise................

 

I find that the adjustment of the primary makes a big difference in noise levels. My bike is an 05 Deluxe and has the manual primary adjuster and once that chain gets a bit of slop in it the sounds can be interesting at different rpm levels. If you have an automatic primary chain adjuster, then that probably is not an issue.

I have heard that there is tranny noise in the 5th gear of the new 6 speed trannys. Baker has a cure for this and its costs about $900 to repair. Down the road Harley may have a fix for that problem.

So I doubt that you are hearing any piston slap at all, the sounds are something else. Piston slap will result in a trashed engine in short order and is usually caused by an inproper bore size or broken rings.