It's probable pre-iginition since the fuel charge cannot keep up with your demand. It's just a tad lean till the fuel catches up with the air flow. Hence the ping which is the gas and air mixture exploding rather then the slow normal burn. Couple little pings will probably not hurt anything but of course a Harley motor diving like a hot rod will not last as long as one driven gently. Guess you could increase running richness just a tad but will hurt fuel mileage.

 

This theory seems to make the most sense to me. I try not to ride it hard all the time but when I pass a guy on the freeway I like to get it over with as quickly as I can and that's when I hear the what is probably pre-ignition sound.
Thanks Ripsaw. Thanks everyone for taking the time.

 

Maybe it can be remapped a little to richen things up in that throttle posiion.

 

What speed and in what gear does it happen?

 

Great explanation

 

It's pinging! Mine does it, especially on very hot days. I want to get a new tuner that has autotune capabilities.

 

I have an '09 electraglide w/ power commander, has been dynoed. I would characterize the sound you hear is like that of a bag of marbles hitting the floor. Make sure you are not getting ethanol gas. Getting hard to fine "true" gas. Might need to change your timing a little.

 

I hear ya. Ethanol is crap. It has a high octane value so the oil refiners can use lesser quality fuel then add ethanol to up the octane. Great scam. Here in Saskatchewan you can get ethanol free fuel only in premium. I run premium in all my vehicles because they are tuned for 91 octane. And gas mileage decreases with ethanol because it has less btu's then gasoline.

 

In response to the original post---> that sound is normal as OLdMike pointed out, it's fine to open the throttle just not all the way in 1 brisk motion.You will get all the accel. you need without the ticking if you take 1.25 seconds to open her up rather than try to just twist her guts out like that.

 

Yes, that is right. Before I had the retune, I could avoid the "ticking" by gradually rolling rather than twisting quickly. The performance was actually better with the gradual roll. But, I am so glad I dont have that issue anymore. The retune did it for me. Not sure what my tech did, but it is great.