Dan,
Removing the Cat will make a huge performance difference.

The easiest way to “de-cat” is to replace the head pipes with a stainless steel p set-up such as Jack pot. Some owners have drilled holes in there Cat’s, others have cut out the CAT and welded in a replacement piece, some have replaced their 2010 head pipes with cat-less 2009 pipes.

I would suggest that regardless of which approach you use too remove the CAT, you should install a fuel management system.

Jim

 

The Tri headpipe that fuel motto sells is just the Ultra Pipe with extensions made up for the Tri Glide. You can't use the Ultra Headpipe without adding the runner's/extensions that go back in under the body of the Tri.

If you are taking out the back weld in the cat area and welding back to original dimensions after decatting, I suppose you could fab up an exhaust that would work. If you went to an exhaust shop to have the extra pieces bent out and welded on it will probably be cost prohibitive.

Might as well just spring for the aftermarket headpipe that Fuel Motto or Fullsac sells.

 

The easy way is to purchase a headpipe from Fuel Motto or Fullsac, dyno tuned for the Fuel Motto and you will get more performance gains than just modifying your stock headpipe!

For an owner with welding skills you can grind out the weld behind the Cat material and seperat the headpipe! By taking a 1/4" drill and drilling the Cat full of holes you will notice a little better low end torque and crisp or sharper throttle response on the low end, "stock mufflers and Air Filter".

Once you add free flowing slipons you will lose the small performance gain but will still run cooler! A word of caution about removing all the Cat material, you may experience drivability problems and there have been reports of not being able to properly tune with gutted OEM Headpipe.

Being the guinea pig for the frugal types and the people who want to keep their Tri's near stock I opted for the drilled out cats and a set of XIED's to richin up the AFR. I wrapped the cat with header heat wrap to further reduce radiated heat from that area.
This will in no way perform as a dyno tuned developed headpipe such as Fuel Motto sells.
My set up is just a temporary experiment and will go with an aftermarket headpipe this winter and a fuel management program, probably TTS.

I will say that some would probably be satisfied with the performance and the heat reduction on my Tri and take it no further.

In short unless you have some welding skills it would make more sense to just go ahead and purchase one of the aftermarket headpipes. The reason being once we get acclimated to a little extra performance we want more. I don't know that the cat material left after the drilling process will stay stable. If it collapses, will it act like a cleaned out cat and will there be drivabilty problems? It seemed stable when first drilled but who knows how it will react over time.

 

Dan, my trike is the 2010 FLHXXX. My husband put Jackpot slip-ons, they sound great! We also put the FL-xied-10 fuel management system, and an Arlen Ness Big Sucker stage 1 air filter. I lost about 3 miles to the gallon on gas with the xied. You do not have to remap.

 

Put a dollar amount on these great suggestions and add the loss of warranty,mpg and the skills to perform them correctly and stock exhaust or mere slip ons don't really sound that bad.

I really must pat HD on the back for the technology in these new models.They have made it impossible to make less than a 4 figure change to get to what the buyer thought he was buying off the exotic granite showroom floor.It is also brilliant that HD poopoo's aftermarket products but is happy to screw on what ever is in that big catalog,good business model I say.

I say keep the Harley stock and buy a used metric that is much more powerful and efficient and if it is a couple years old can be had for less than the price of cams,fuel boxes,headpipes,and downloads and run the crap out of it.

Keep the Harley shined up for bike night though.

T K

 

thanks everyone for your input, I got alot of answers, now just have to decide what I'm going to do.
this is a great forum with alot of great people, that are very helpful
thanks again everyone
dan

 

Dragging the mufflers is a problem. I'm running the 3" SE mufflers PN 80742-09A and they drag under certain conditions.

 

I'm running the 4" SE mufflers and they will drag under certain conditions. At times I angle into parking lots and drive ways because on the dip.

 

I put the Screaming Eagle FatShotz on mine last fall. Love the sound and performance.

 

Has anyone done a stage one with the download on their Tri-Glide? That is what I'm doing when I take mine in for the 1000 check-up.