Gentlemen THANKs for the great read ! If I have read it right I be OK with what I plan to do to my bike. First thing I did was to get the Xied's and noticed better responce, now I want to get a new headpipe and hope it cools it down alot. I will be using the stock mufflers with the new pipe. How does all this sound ( Mr Wizard ) ? Do I need to change the o2 sensors or are the stock ones fine ? I have over 1K miles and now I have Amsoil everywhere. Ijust want it cooler, on me and on the engine. Thanks Rick

 

OK, since I'm the guy that started this whole mess I'll be the one to respond. In my original post I was hoping that someone, anyone, would agree with my theory that you didn't need to retune with a catless headpipe and slipons. Nobody would exactly say that and honestly I was a little put off. I was of course dead wrong but more on that later. Here's the reality: your ECM will adapt to a new cat free head pipe and yes, even slipons, as long as you don't go with a Stage 1 A/F. But (and this is what I was missing) it will not adapt to a point that improves upon the already very lean A/F ratio when it was stock. So your trike will sound better and lose some perceived heat on your right leg but it won't run very much better and won't really cool down unless you tune it somehow. I have seen the light.

How will it sound with the unclogged head pipe through stock mufflers? Better, much better. I don't get the "raspy" thing others have mentioned. But the difference isn't night-and-day. After 500 miles like that mine is in right now getting Jackpot 3.5" mufflers with the standard baffles, which I see are 2.0". I just like the thing to sound like my idea of a Harley, with due respect to those who like 'em quieter. I tried it for a while and you might want to as well.

Bottom line?

If money isn't too critical I would do in this order:

1. Tuner! Yes, even with a dead stock bike. (See more below)

2. Head pipe

3. Slipons, if desired.

4. Stage 1 A/C

That's about all you can get by with at most dealers and keep your warranty. Some will let you get by with cams, and some won't even let the above pass. Talk to your dealer first, but most will let you do these 4 things especially if you bite the bullet and let them do it for you.

If money is more limited I would do a tuner before anything else, even slipons! Why? It will make more difference than anything else, even with a dead stock trike. I like the new Dyno Jet Power Vision for a number of reasons. First, it reflashes your ECM and doesn't have to ride piggyback on the bike, although it can stay on as a systems monitor if you want it to. It's very user friendly and simple to use. and a computer is needed only for doing updates; it doesn't have to stay with the bike to be tuned. But the best part of all is that if you get it from Fuelmoto, Jamie will at your request load it with a canned map he has developed to take you all the way from stock through and including header, slipons and A/C. You can ride it this with this map until you're more familiar with the tuner. With my pure stock trike it made a significant difference in power, around a 20* reduction in heat and it even sounded better. It was the best $500.00 I've ever spent on a Harley.

So my advice now that I've seen the light is to sell the Xieds for fifty bucks and get a tuner at the very least. Go from there as your budget allows.

 

Couldn't have put it better dondee !!!!!. The O2's aren't used with the PCV tuner, but do they come in with the PV ? They are a narrow band O2 that doesn't have much range in their ability to sense proper mixtures. I would think once you rich up, you are probably out of their range. Without them you just rum in open loop and the ECM is all that controls. You can use a wide band O2 if you go with the Auto tune feature. But they are 18mm base so you need other than stock 12mm ports for them .
These aren't needed unless you use Auto Tune.

 

I understand you guys wanting tuners but I don't want to go that far, just cool it down some. If I can just change the headpipe and nothing else then I don't see why the Xied's arn't a plus ? Are you saying that if I was to get a tuner I would lose more heat then changing the pipe without a tuner ? I understand a tuner with cams and completely different exhaust and bigger air cleaner but I don't want to go that far.

 

Rick... There is no need to change 02 sensors unless you want to change from narrow to wide band for an auto tuner. The factory ECM will not work with wide band.



As dondee stated above... he saw the light.

There is a huge difference in stock and properly tuned. It has to do not only with the way the engine preforms but heat and motor longevity. If you don't want to tune your bike then that's OK with all of us. If you want to reduce some of the heat then get rid of the cat and drop in the xIED's. There are many here that have done just that and are very happy. Others leave their bikes stock and are very happy then on the other side of the fence there are those who want it all... they too are happy.

There are degrees of removing degrees and putting the proper "Harley" performance back into your ride. Unfortunately MoCo left it up to us to dig into our wallets to "get that love'n feeling" back. Good news is the ECM is not digitally encrypted so we may change the tuning fields if we want. Bad news is... encrypted ECM's are coming.

 

Thanks to all of you for your advice. For now it's headpipe and Xied's (because I have them ) and a tuner in the future. Thanks again Rick

 

Mr. Wizard said: "
There are degrees of removing degrees and putting the proper "Harley" performance back into your ride. Unfortunately MoCo left it up to us to dig into our wallets to "get that love'n feeling" back. Good news is the ECM is not digitally encrypted so we may change the tuning fields if we want. Bad news is... encrypted ECM's are coming."

Whoa Wiz!!

I hadn't heard that but then again I don't get out much. You mean they will be able to read a trail of all the changes that have been done historically to the ECM? No way they could do that retroactively to a current ECM is there?

Originally Posted by Rickm
I understand you guys wanting tuners but I don't want to go that far, just cool it down some. If I can just change the headpipe and nothing else then I don't see why the Xied's arn't a plus ? Are you saying that if I was to get a tuner I would lose more heat then changing the pipe without a tuner ? I understand a tuner with cams and completely different exhaust and bigger air cleaner but I don't want to go that far.

Rick I think Mr. Wizard is trying to be nice as he was with me so I'll give you the unvarnished truth here. You can ride the trike just fine any way you like, even dead stock and there's nothing wrong with that if you're OK with it. But you seem to be objecting to the excessive heat just like I did, so I'll give it to you straight: There is no single thing you can do to the bike, even including the head pipe, that will make it lose as much heat as a tuner. Period. There, now I've said it. Yes, I am saying that if you get a tuner you will lose more heat than changing the pipe without a tuner. Yes indeed.

Now, we need to talk about what I call the two different types of heat on this trike. You have actual engine heat (primarily at the cylinder head) and then you have perceived heat on the leg of the rider. You feel them both but your engine mostly feels it's own heat at the head. If you put on the new head pipe you will feel some difference on your leg, but it's not night-and-day because the engine itself is still hot. Real hot. You've done nothing to reduce the actual cylinder head temp, even though you might feel a little better. A tuner will reduce actual engine temp because the trike won't be running so lean overall. As one who did it with the tuner first then the head pipe later I can absolutely tell you that I lost more heat, both real engine heat and perceived heat on my leg, by far with just the tuner than when I later did the head pipe.

I really think it's a process and only you can decide how far you want to take it. Everybody's threshold of pain is a little different. But I can tell you from personal experience that the tuner is by far the single biggest change. I'm sorry it took so long for my hard head to come around, but once I get the religion then I'm on board big time. I'm thing about getting a new tattoo of the Bar and Shield with the words "Tune First" in the middle.

 

Hummmmm.... When you reinstall your factory flash then MoCo can't detect any ECM changes period.

Second... encrypted ECM's aren't new in the industry. It has nothing to do with tracking what changes have been made. It has to do with keeping you from changing anything within the ECM. In other words... an encrypted ECM can only be changed by the factory who has the decrypting code abilities.

Example... A Dodge Hemi. Up to 2010 you could simply purchase a tuning device and make a Hemi scream, change the tranny shift points and even calibrate the speedo.

In 2011 and up Dodge encrypted their ECM's. The aftermarket tuning work place has yet been able to break this code so they may apply their tuning devices thus putting them out of business.

My point is... Harley will encrypt their ECM's one day. When that happens it is very possible that there will be no flash tuners to help you tune and remove heat. Add the encryption to the new CANBUS systems and there will be no tuners and/or replacement ECM's to install that will auto tune an ECM....

As far as different types of heat are concerned... I think I wrote about that a few years back. The explanation can be found here. https://www.hdforums.com/forum/tri-g...eat-a-b-c.html