With the '07 I had, it was about 30 seconds tops. Never intentionally sat to "let it warm up" before riding, but I never go about 3500 for the first mile or so. Its just how I ride, even my Ultra. No sense in hammering a cold engine, unless one WANTS to kill it, lol.

The FI on mine at low speeds, however, was at times a little jerky. That was stock and with PV programming. Makes low speed stuff a little awkward sometimes. By comparison, yesterday I test rode a 2022 Softtail std. the salesman told me the FI on it was way improved over even my TC103, and he was right. Amazing how easy that makes using the friction zone.

No experience with a carb'd sporty.

 

2017 1200 here. It could be the canned map I run. It could potentially be many things but I notice it can take several miles before I feel the engine is pulling and behaving nicely at lower revs in upper gears. I can start the bike and be rolling in just a few seconds without a hint that it won't run though.

 

On my 2003 Sportster, I start it up with the choke on, let it idle until it starts to lope and the RPM's come down slightly (about 1 minute), then ride for about 1-2 miles with the choke on.

Once I do that I push the choke in and ride conservatively until she is warmed up fully, about 10 miles, then can twist the throttle and go full bore.

Agree having a carburetor gives the motorcycle more soul than EFI.

 

Even on warm days I usually start bike and it idles while I dress out so to speak. No air flow, cold day or warm, bike gets to op temp fairly quick. I imagine there’s some one that starts and goes but it is not me.

 

The more I think about it the more torn I am.
On one hand I love the look and sound of a rigid mount Sporty with a carb.

Then I think about the convenience and ease of use of an FI bike.
First world problems...

 

My 2003 sportster has no problems warming up. It takes about 10 minutes of riding to get up to temp. The problems you state when the bike is cold is not normal, for a sportster anyway. For me the reason I chose the rigid mount was on the forums so many of the issues seemed to be elecrical and the rigit mounts are much less complicated in that regard.

I can never tell if folks just misunderstand the statement or if it is really a myth. It doesn't cause them but makes them sooo much worse. I learned this lesson the hard way when I thought my old weepy new to me sportster should have synthetic oil. What a disaster that was. Went back to conventional oil real quick. In my case synthetic took my oil weeps to oil leaks real fast. So there is some truth to it. That stuff seems to find the light of day much easier than convensional oil.

 

Doc Harley says always warm up your FI bike at least 30 seconds.

 

Can you elaborate on the weepy oil thing you're talking about? Because that's one of the things I mentioned in my OP- gaskets weeping or leaking oil.

One on hand you say its not normal and your bike has no problems then in the next paragraph you say "I learned this lesson the hard way when I thought my old weepy new to me sportster should have synthetic oil."
I am asking about the sputtering but also about leaks and weeping due to not warming up properly before riding away.

 

When I said the bike had no problems I meant no rideability problems when not fully warmed up. When I bought the bike it was 15 years old and in a state of disrepair and had the standard base gasket weeping, which I understand the newer sportys suffer from as well. I was also weeping oil from the cam cover and oil lines. These were not big leaks but just seepage that would collect lots of road grime. When I went to synthetic they became much, much worse. To the point I was suddenly seeing oil drips on the ground. I went back to convensional oil and the leaks went back to just seepage so to me if the bike has some oil coming out of it already with dino oil it will get much worse with syntheitic. If there are no leaks synthetic won't cause them but I wouldn't be surprised to see some oil weeping on older bikes when changing to synthetic even though there was none before.

The weeping base gaskets and not warming up the bike affects the FI sportsters too. They make a kit to bypass the gaskets which I added when I did my recent rebuild. No more weepy gaskets.

https://mid-usa.com/60145-hardware-b...win--sportster

For the most part the leaky sportster stereotype comes from the older ironhead sprotsters I believe. I just read an old thread called "how much oil should an ironhead leak". The term "should" in there tells you something. My brother has an ironhead and it definitely marks it's territory. My 2003 sat outside for who knows how long before I got it so all the rubber was cracking and seals were going south so I was always impressed how little it leaked given the condition of the engine.

 

Over time, a shaft spinning or sliding in a spring lip seal will weep a tad. Least to collect dust cake. If it's dripping, it's leaking.

Now to me, how bad it's dripping or on what makes a difference if it really needs repaired.

My overhead valve rider has plastic pushrod covers. They have shrunk and new o-rings didn't help stop it from dripping on the concrete floor of my outbuilding in VA

I fixed it by sliding a turkey roasting pan under the motor.

And I have yet to see any of the vehicles and a bike full of synthetic oli leaking in my garage. Now for the 46 Chevy Truck, I can only guess some farmer in Farmville, VA put synthetic in. It leaks 90W gear oil like it's water. Even dosed in with Blue Devil and it didn't help.

Now it does need fixed since that stuff stinks.

Know 20W-50 Synthetic appears much thinner then conventional oil.

I did an in frame rebuild on my 93 Wrangler. Had 300,000 miles on it. Got overheated when a freeze plug rusted thru under exhaust manifold. Killed the ring tension. Even with that milage, wear was only at maximum tolerance.

I careful fit the crank shaft and big end on rods to mid-tolerance with two different shell bearings and ridge reamed and crosshatched the cylinders. After 20K, runs fine with no leaks but definitely has some piston slap with 15W-40 synthetic and not on 15W40 conventional Mobile Delvac diesel oil.

Just got back in VA and did a oil change on his FIT. Uses 0-20W Mobile 1.

​​​​​​Leaves a lot in the 5 qt container and he brought a couple 0-20 quarts over. Started dumping the quart in to get the 3.5 amount in it and it was green. He had grabbed the Mobile synthetic 0W- 20 diesel oil.

It actually used in gasoline cars in other countries. Stuff is thin as water and green. Wife's Subie calls for 0W-20. Has 20k or so on it. Taps so bad on startup, I run 10W30 synthetic.


However, I'm not sure if Subie recommends synthetic. When I checked to see if the green oil was OK, I noticed Subie was not on Mobile's site as a recommendation vehicle.