Cabo: My humble opinion??? Those pipes were made for two bikes: the Deluxe and Heritage. If I owned either of those bikes I wouldn't leave the dealership without them put on. They look sick. The way they make those two bikes look far outweighs any performance.

 

This is a fatboy. Were they not made for this?

 

That is a sick looking fatty!

 

Sorry double post

 

I think with softails owners in generally it is more form over function. I have seen a lot of modding on this board and most of it has nothing to do with performance. If you go to say the Dyna forum there is tons of modding done to make there bikes perform better. I have the 36 inch fishtails on my heritage for looks and sound but not performance. You will have to choose whether you want looks and sound or performance and sound. Good luck with your decision and I hope you find exactly what you are looking for.

 

No tuner yet, just got an s&s stealth ac, gonna get it dyno tuned this spring

 

I recently picked up a '12 Heritage. It is bone stock. In about a month I am going to be doing a Stage 1 on it, including some 28 1/2 Long Tails with removable baffles.

I will be spending a good part of a day on the Dyno, doing runs on a variety of configurations.

Some of the runs I do will be comparing the stock exhaust with the LT's with baffles, with baffles and Thunder Torque Inserts, without baffles, & without baffles but with TTI's.

I will do the above tests with stock mapping and air cleaner, and then with tuned mapping and Stage 1 Air cleaner.

We have never dyno'd the Thunder Torque Inserts on Fishtails. We have on Many other slip-ons, and full systems, each case there were significant increases in low & mid range torque.

The results should be interesting, and I will post them up.

 

Boy, just in the last few posts they do and they don't affect performance. I should clarify, a noticeable loss in power was not a concern to me when putting these 39's on. I was told I would see a slight loss in HP with baffles and a slight loss in torque without them. I was told I would not notice it in the seat of my pants, that amount of lost performance does not concern me. I don't race mine or run it into the ground so what will a small loss in either mean to me? Not much if anything. I ride my bike pretty much stripped down, no big wheels, pass. seat, bags and so on. I also ride solo 95% of the time unless someone hops on the back when the bars close or the party's over. I just don't think I will see that much of a difference but I could be wrong too, we shall see! The black fatboy looks sweet the way it's set up and 16over, swing up this way next summer and we will hit some river bars and check out some bikes in the unplanned, unorganized bike shows that take place after a load of bikes down from the city shows up.

 

First off, I can't imagine someone with 42" long exhaust pipes that stick almost two feet past the rear of the bike as someone who has performance as their first priority. Really? Come on, the question itself is ridiculous.

That said, any true dual system does not have the performance potential of a 2:1 system due to the fact that the 2:1 system has the advantage of exhaust gas scavenging. A properly designed 2:1 system will always outperform a true dual system. Now by how much? That will depend on the cam choice, fueling, engine displacement and other factors (RPM, altitude, etc.).

For most of us, exhaust was just one part of our many performance upgrades. Often, these upgrades were done at the same time, so the net improvement of performance of our upgrades was noticed by us after installation.

In my case, I installed the Samson 33" removable baffle/tip system when I installed the Arlen Ness Big Sucker, and PCIIIUSB (which was dyno tuned) all at the same time onto my 95" motor. The difference was amazing!

Could it have been more amazing if I had chosen to install a properly designed 2:1 system on my bike instead? No doubt, even my tuner said my bike would be stronger with that type of system. Now how would a 2:1 system have looked on my bike? Awful!! And I care about how it looks.

My bike dyno'd at about 90hp/100tq with its current Samson system (and its other upgrades, of course). That is waaay better than stock. Would I notice another 10hp/10tq with a 2:1 system? No doubt! Would I enjoy the looks of the bike with a 2:1 system? No way!

So there it is. Obvious. Our bikes are personalized to our multiple tastes/priorities. I suspect that folks who choose a true dual exhaust system are getting better performance than stock systems, but not burning the candle as bright as possible. Why? For the sake of the looks of the exhaust system.

Anyone who has a chrome exhaust has made the same compromise (even if they are not aware of the fact that they made a choice). A ceramic-coated black exhaust system is the best design for heat-removal from the engine and thus will improve the longevity of their motor. That means, in the absolute, for all of us who chose to go with a chrome exhaust system are not as concerned with the long life of our motors as those who go with ceramic coated black exhaust systems. Does that mean we hate our engines?

Nope. All decisions we make in life are compromises of some sort.

So what.

 

So the question is, how much, if any, HP loss will you have if you already have stage-1?