Does anyone know if there is a break-in period for HD's more specifically for gas mileage. My bike only has 2000 miles and gets chitty mpg. My pops claims his ultra was the same way until he got like 8000 miles. Anyone else experienced this?

 

as a motor "break ins" or wears in, tolerances loosen and frictional losses are reduced.

MPG goes up.

synthetic oil and the lightest viscosity allowed by the manufacturer will also help

If you have a tuning device, you can re-visit settings.

Most riders seems to see maybe 40ish MPG


Mike

 

I do have a PCV with auto tune and I am currently getting 35 mpg.

 

I don't use a PCV- lots of guys are happy with them.

Alot of the PC bikes seem to run rich if you run behind them.

Most tunes seem to be for "power" or "cooling" than MPG

there are 2 recent MPG threads which discuss using a switch to select between power map and MPG map on the PCV.
You might want to refer to them and see if anything there might work for you



I use nightrider.com xieds and get 43 MPG at 70 MPH--- recorded over thousands of miles.

Mike

 

I appreciate the input, I'm going to have to figure out the switch for map/autotune

 

first, you should find that your milage goes up as it gets warmer out ( I don't know why)...second the pcv can be set up with two maps, but if you use the autotune option you can only use one map...I run two maps on my pcv, one for power and one for economy, I find I leave it in economy almost all the time and it runs great...I have no idea of the gas milage I get as I don't keep track of it, but its not that great, but then again I do run the **** out of it most of the time...

 

Milage will go up when its warmer out because warmer air weighs less than cold air, and therefore holds less gas for a given volume. And, summer gas is usual higher quality than winter gas. The milage on my '09 was so bad for the first 3,000 miles that I took it back to the dealer twice to find out what was wrong. Nothing was wrong, it was just a very tight engine. Then, over the period of about two or three tanks of gas, milage went right up to where it should be.

 

Me too Mike!

 

All of my bikes have gotten better mileage as the miles added up. They seemed to do the best after about 5K mi.
My current SG gets 48-49 mpg if I keep the speed at 75 or lower and am judicious with the throttle. Above that my mileage decreases (I'm well into the cam with the 5 speed gearing).

 

Actually, that is incorrect. Warmer air is heavier, that is why it heats up as you go to lower elevations, aka, adiabatic lapse rates, about 6C per 1000 meters until you hit the dewpoint and the moisture in the air condenses and latent heat is released, then the rate decrease a bit depending on moisture content. Colder air is more oxygen dense, given that the base for comparrison is taken at the same altitude, hence the tuning problems at different altitudes.

You get less mpg at cooler temps for two reasons; 1) the motor needs a reicher mixture to initially start, warm up, then to keep running so you do not burn a hole in your piston, and 2) becasue the viscosity of the fluids in your crank, primary, and trans are heavier and require more power to overcome the resistance they put on the motor.
Mixtures or blends of fuel may play a bit in there as well, but that is an argument that as far as I have ever seen has never been proven.