Hey chaps.
My local dealer reckons I need a race tuner on my street Bob to avoid engine overheating after V&H pipes were installed.
I bought my 2006 with the pipes, and converter removed.
Is this a BS story, or legit?
In SA, the race tuner costs R5500. Can I get by without it?

 

You'll need some sort of tuner, it doesn't have to be the race tuner. If you plan on doing an intake, or any other motor work, do it now and get a tune on there ASAP, those pipes are going to lean your engine out a lot, and that can easily cause damage in a hot environment

 

It's probably BS. There are tons of fuel injected bikes with pipes and air cleaner, but no tuner, running around without any problems. And American Iron magazine has done mods like this to quite a few Harleys, tested them on the dyno, and concluded that no tuning changes were needed, other than what the stock engine management system did automatically. If you want to play it extra safe, maybe you can find someone to put it on the dyno for five minutes, for cheap, with a sniffer up the tailpipe to confirm that things are in the safe range (that's what I did with one of my bikes).

If you are going to make more extensive changes, like cams or a displacement change, you'll almost certainly need tuning though.

 

BS...Without putting more air in the motor with a stage one air cleaner, you aren't running leaner (not measurably anyway...) They are lean from the factory though so a tuner wouldn't hurt...