One thing I'll add is I never had any ping on any Harley until I upgraded the cam in my 114. Before the cam upgrade I had no ping at all on 93 even in 100 degree heat. Not even if I lugged the engine. My adventures with pinging started when installing the SE 447 cam and using the canned tune from Harley's tuner to maintain warranty. Fortunately the tuner does have the ability to correct the problem, you just have to learn how to do it.

Also I'll add the less restrictive mufflers made the pinging worse. When I switch to a more restrictuve muffler (Fuel Moto Jackpot) I was able to run the canned Harley tune with very little pinging. Boosting the VE tables got rid of most of that and gave it a good bit more power. One tick off of the timing advance took care of the rest of it.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies. Maybe I got some bad gas in there. It’s been real cold here between rides.

 

What about running a colder spark plug? worth a try and cheap.

 

I have a local non-ethanol pure gas close to the house but its only 90 octane... It runs fine in the bike except on a very hot day as I get a tiny bit of ping under heavy load. A tiny bit of octane boost fixed the issue.
I have recently found one station in my area with 93 ethanol free gas and I get no pinging with the 93.
I prefer to use non-ethanol and that 90 octane is one block from my house but my SE Stage 2 setup likes what the book calls for, 91 or better octane.

 

Run 91 and decrease your timng by about 3-4%

 

Watch out for octane boosters on your Catalytic Converter bike. They have lead additives to boost octane but can and will kill your cat. It would be nice to know what the fuel system and O2 parameters are during the condition. These bikes run narrow band O2 sensors, there's not a lot of room for fuel management like with wide band sensors, especially if something is wrong upstream.
As to your suspicion of "ping"... Be sure your using at least 91-92 octane and even try a different brand. Check the crankcase breather system, for overwhelming the intake with crankcase vapors, that can dilute the A/F charge causing a lean scenario. It also causes excessive carbon build-up on the pistons and valves. Carbon build-up increases your compression ratio, thus causing detonation/ping. Other possibilities: wrong map, timing curve, restricted/dirty injectors, air leaks behind the throttle plate (the crack they said you have in the intake), wrong heat range spark plugs (which would be very remote on a Harley but it could happen if someone was goofin around) carbon build-up on pistons/combustion chambers due to the wonderful crankcase breathing system Harley's have.
I've cleaned my injectors with Chevron Techron, using measured amounts with fill-ups with great results. Because of the smaller fuel tank, you must do it several times when filling the tank to empty the bottle with measured amounts. I've also cleaned combustion chambers removing the horrible carbon build-up. The intake and valves get really covered with carbon from the crankcase vent system. I've re-routed my vent system to atmosphere and that was an big improvement. My pistons now have minimal carbon build-up. I use a bore scope to inspect the combustion chambers. You can get an inexpensive one on Amazon.
Stu

 

Are you using the recommended spark plugs or some after market magic doohickeys?

 

As far as octane and ethanol shenanigans go I did an experiment one time. I tried 90 octane ethanol free and never heard such a racket from a motorcycle engine. Pinging so bad I thought the heads would fly off. I immediately put some octane booster in it to get through that tank of gas. That 90 octane ethanol free with octane booster didn't run any better than 93 octane ethanol gas did. Working with my tuner was what helped my get things straight, but as I mentioned before I swapped the cam I had no pinging at all evern after going with the Stage 1 upgrade and the Harley approved tune for it.

Good luck.

 

Most of my mileage is high speed interstate.

 

Hey Jake...Carbon build-up in Harley's will not clean out with "wringing it out once and awhile". Carbon build-up is a common blight on the Harley engine mainly due to crankcase venting into the throttle body, loading up the air/fuel charge with oil vapors, the oil vapor collects inside the air plenums and builds up on the back of the intake valves and on the pistons. Then there are those guys who just lug the engine around from bar to bar with periodic bursts of acceleration, excessive carbon still exists. I've scoped many and it's horrible. There's too much carbon to deal with without specific de-carboning procedures. And if you keep the stock venting system going into the intake, it won't stop. Re-working the vents to a catch-can or to the atmosphere will stop the excessive build-up from crankcase venting. An extra benefit will stop all the oil in the air cleaner and there's a small performance benefit too. The high-performance auto crowd have routed these vapors out of the engine for years, especially drag engines.
One other thought on this problem of carbon... The characterizes of Synthetic oil adds to the condition.