G-Dub- see the attached gearing / mph chart. Stock values are black numbers and red / green numbers are the modified compare of using a 30t front pulley.

With a 30/70 set of pulleys you'll end up at 3550 rpm in 5th doing 80, vs the stock 32/70 pulleys doing 80 at 3300 rpm.
Your 1st gear overall ratio with the stock 32/70 pulleys is already 10.1:1 with the stock 32/70 pulleys, already quite good. Gears 2-5 look good also.

In short, your bike is already very well gearing-optimized from the factory for good acceleration performance like all the pre-2007 bikes used to come. The overall ratios your bike came with stock is what we are trying to get our later model bikes to. With a lack of 6th gear you end up slightly more limited with ability to shorten final drive ratio further as you'd end up pulling too high of rpm in 5th at say 80, and you may feel your gears 1 through 5 are running a bit short on top speed per gear.

But would it be quicker feeling off the line with the shorter ratio 30/70 pulleys on your specific year / model? Maybe. Would you start losing usable range per gear? Probably. Mostly because your transmission gears are different and already more optimal out of the gate. You already have good engine power to pull your current optimized gearing so honestly I don't think this will give you much real world benefit. Going to a new 6-speed trans might be a good upgrade (although costly) since you could then set up an optimal ratio of 1-5 gears and leave 6th as the cruising gear. But if it were me I'd just rock what you have, and any further upgrades would be engine based- I'm sure your bike feels fast as it is.

The attached chart assumes stock tire size, 1000rpm idle, 5500 redline. You can plug in your own numbers at the site, just select the 06 FLSTF from the list as the starting set of data. Change the final drive pulley sizes or the motor sprocket size to get different calculated gear, speed, rpm values per gear. http://woodsware.aciwebs.com/gears/

 

^^^^LA_Dog. First let me say I forgot a couple useful bits - SE ignition module (6200 rpm rev), and V&H Longshots. One or both could be contributing to the following, so let me answer these questions as best I can:

Don't pay a lot of attention to the tach at speed, but it's not alarming, and almost never go 80. I'd say 3k-ish in 5th at 70, but I'll check next time out.

This bike does not like low raps at all. I try to keep it above 2200 at all times, and slow corners (Cali stops) are in first. It bucks at low raps...below 2k.

It's very torquey, very quick on strong (but not full...I feel like it would pull me off at full) throttle.

There's a lot going on inside this bike, I don't know the full pedigree, never had it cracked open or dyno'd, and I'm about to change to 2:1 exhaust. So I understand if it's hard to tell.

Thanks for any guidance.

 

Everything sounds pretty normal and also pretty good. If you want to know your exact rpms at a specific mph just take a peek at the chart in my last post. JMHO, I don't think messing with the gearing is going to give you much benefit. I'd probably suggest a dyno tune to make sure everything is tuned optimally and healthy, and then ride the **** out of it. If you are worried about flying off the back of bike at full throttle, I'd say she's doing pretty good My Big Dog 107" chopper is like that and it's a wild ride.
Some bog at 2k rpm is normal- Realistically we don't really want to ride at that low of rpm in gears 2 on up. Some bucking at low rpms could actually be carb or timing related. You need a dyno or experienced tuner to check and at least rule it out.

Going to the 2-1 pipe might give you some added TQ in low and mid, but sounds to me like you may not need it from what you're describing.

 

I was thinking that a dyno is necessary. Seems logical. I'll go that way first.

Not gonna lie...playing with gearing sounds mighty fun. Like the drag-racing days.

 

Hey LA, with respect to re-calibration of the speed sensor (pulses per km) what would you think would be the easiest/cheapest way to do it? I'm using SEPST and don't want to buy another tuner...

 

LOL yeh if you like messing with bikes and mechanics then it is always fun to try changes and see what's what. I do that a lot. For example, I took a big gamble and bought a 70t billet Ness pulley in hopes it would fit on the Breakout and stock belt- based on only doing some basic measurement checks and it looked close. Even though I read in several forums that it won't fit. but I like doing that stuff. In this case it panned out great. Other times, not so much!

 

Honestly not sure- I know the Powervision will do it and also the TTS. I don't think any of the HD tuning modules have that capability. but I don't know much about the HD tuners sorry!

 

I was in the same situation, the least expensive way that I found was to buy a Power Vision Tune License, about $200 USD, and then either a friend or a shop that has a Power Vision can retrieve your current tune and make the gearing changes and reflash it back to your ECM. The biggest drawback to this approach is that if you wanted to make further changes to your tune with the SE tuner you would loose your gearing changes because the SE tuner works with the last tune that was in the VCI. However, you can hook a PV back up retrieve your updated tune and apply the gearing changes, once you have a PV Tune License you can use as many times as you wish. The process becomes more cumbersome but it is possible.

 

Thx for the reply...that's what I feared. Unfortunately I don't know anybody with a PV...not very common around here. That might turn out to be an obstacle.......but maybe the dealer can do with their HD Digital Technician software.....

 

EagleRay- You may run into some problem with that- I recall reading some posts over in the PowerVision Information Thread that some guys had no luck at the dealer and tech claimed they could not change that parameter with the HD computer. Other guys said they had it done. So you could get an answer either way! I know for sure that the service manager at Glendale Harley put the 30t/68t pulleys on his bike and I seriously doubt he's riding around with an incorrect speedo ;p