Against the advice of my doc and over the bitchin from my wife, I decided to ride to work today since it was nice and cool this morning. On my way home I got stuck in heavy traffic and I started smelling something like burned oil, then noticed smoke coming out of my breather bolts. I have a dk outlaw intake and external breather bolts. Is it normal for smoke to come out of the bolts? It wasn't heavy smoke, just a light white smoke.

 

Mine does that sometimes when it gets really hot in stop and go traffic. I also have a DK intake and external breather bolts.

The way I look at it is that if you didn't have the external breathers, it would still be smoking, but all that smoke would just be getting sucked into your engine!

 

That's pretty much it too. I do think those little breather bolts are a shitty way to vent but better than your motor eating it.

I did a set of those on my brother's RoadGlide for him when I did his bars, stage 1, etc, and they spray oil all over the place. If it was mine I'd run their kit that has the hose and a little filter on it and get it back away from the jugs a ways giving the oil a chance to disperse a bit. Won't be spraying oil down the side of your bike and/or smelling it either. I've owned other bikes with breathers routed like that and never had a problem.

 

I sent an email to DK asking about the external breather vs breather bolts and they recommended the breather over the bolts on the big twin.

 

Looks like I'm gonna be upgrading to the tubing style breather. I can't stand the smell and the smoke.

 

My 2001 SG is normally aspirated with the Stage 1 SE air cleaner backing plate. The breather bolts are banjo bolts and a 90 degree hose fitting that hold the backing plate mount and carb. This hose fitting setup vents by two short pieces of tubing from each of these fittings to the a/c backing plate and down the intake. I replaced the fittings on the back of the a/c plate with standard pipe thread (1/8 pipe thread I think) brass plugs, replaced the hose and routed it to a brass T and from there it vents down to a breather filter. I spent less than $15 for everything including the breather filter and took me an hour including the beer break.

One problem I am having, though, is now that the breather filter has a bunch of miles on it and it is getting pretty oiled up and I notice that a few drops are slinging back on my rear pipe. Not much, just enough to be annoying ...I need to replace the filter and get a longer tube to route it down and back.

 

http://www.knfilters.com/search/prod...x?prod=RK-3931
I have this K+N intake and the breathers are cast in the mold, nice setup.
I use a blackened stock air cover but modded to lighten it up and expose the element for better breathing and sound.

You can find them selling for allot less.

 

Smoke coming out of the Outlaw Breather Bolts is something that will happen when the engine is hotter than is good for it. Yes, may be unavoidable at times, but as a general rule, it is a indication that something should be done to cool the engine down some...OR that the wrong oil or amount of oil is being run. Check out this thread, lots of good info here-

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/oil-a...f-my-bike.html




Outlaw Breather Bolts were designed originally for Sportsters, even hopped up Sportys do well with Outlaw Breather Bolts.

The idea behind them is a super simple and clean (exposed) look for the breathers.



On Twin Cams, about 30% of them generate excessive crankcase pressure and the Breather Bolts can't keep all the oil in. In those instances, the more traditional hose & filter external breather system is better.

Click this LINK to see all the choices in EBS



The filters that come with our EBS are cleanable/reusable. Just hit them with some soap & then spray them down, at least every 5000 miles, and they will be ready to absorb more oil without ever leaving a drip or mist anywhere.



Regarding the K&N filter linked...that system is pushing all the hot, oily, oxygen depleted air back into the combustion chambers, it is not fitted with an External Breather System.

Here's the difference-







External Breather Systems generate more power and extend Engine longevity.