Hey all im new to this forum
I purchased an 07 fuel injected 883 in 08 i bought it with 100 miles and by the end of the summer i had ove 9700 miles on it. it is my first harley and i love it. Over the past two years i have been heavily customizing my bike to my liking, and unfortunately my local h-d dealership doesn't exactly have the best reputation for . . .well . . anything.
Last winter I decided i no longer wanted my sportster with 48 hp so i decided to upgrade it to a 1200
All the work was done by a local shop who also hopped up my dads street glide and everything came out mint
my build specs:
883/1200 conversion pistons
bored to 1200 cylinders by an amazing local machinist that specializes in harleys
SE cam
Vance and hines Short shots
K&N air filter
Power Commander with a custom 550 dollar tune on it that i believe is bogus

The problem:
About a month after i had broke in my bike i noticed it was running extremely hot one day but i wasn't close to home, but drove straight there. When i got home, i noticed i had no oil. So we realized i had burnt some serious oil, and roasted my heads due to the extreme heat.
i got the rings re done, and the heads rebuilt, and thats when i got the custom tune which sucked . . .bad
I rode it probably another 5-6000 miles last summer (it rained a lot) and they were trouble free miles with the exception of my rear cylinder pipe popping and the occasional sniff through the throttle body.

It went back to the shop this winter to get my wheels powder coated and also to get the rocker boxes redone because they had clouded up from the heat. I got it back almost a month ago put some serious mile on it the first week . . .about 600 or so and checked the oil it was almost a quart and a half low. after filling it ive rode it about another 80 to100 miles and its already about a half a quart low.
My bike is now doggy and slow, the front cylinder plug is relatively clean while the rear reaks of oil and is black and shiny ive decided to stop riding it but i want to know WTF is going on my rear cylinder is consuming serious oil . . . .o and it smokes on startup now as well
is it just my heads can't handle the power?
or the tune is destroying my motor?
i'm very confused and with the money invested into this bike I can't justify dumping more money into it being a college student and all that crap

any suggestions thoughts any thing?
o and sorry for the length but its a long story!

 

welcome to the forum...to bad under these sercomstances. i won't pretend to know alot about motors but smokin on start definetly sounds like rings again...question...why if you did cams and a big bore kit would you stick with stock 883 heads?? i won't go into guessin...i hate it when people do that crap...someone will come along with some good info, good luck

 

Sounds like the problems that you read about on NHRS when torque plates aren't used during boring.

 

I thought the '07 and up 883 cylinders weren't supposed to be bored? I thought I read that here somewhere. Anyway, when I did mine I used 1200 cylinders and had the 883 heads ported and polished. It was done by a local indy. I haven't used a drop of oil in over 12,000 miles.
I'd take it back to whoever did your work, and ask them to re-do it, and do it properly this time. He obviously didn't do something right.

 

I could be wrong, but I think it's 09 and later 883 jugs that can't be bored.

 

This may be the only logical answer, Unless the wrong rings are being used or are gapped wrong or not at all.



Nope, your right.

 

ide be looking for another builder/machinist.883-1200 aint rocket science

 

PS: The 883 heads are fine stock even with 1250 jugs. You'll have less power than ported heads BUT they will be fine as is and would not cause the problems your having.

 

The NHRS site has a wicked representation of how far off it can be on there if not properly done. If your indy doesn't use the plates, they advise to run, not walk away...
But rings could be a factor also, I know I've read about some issue with rings hardness and liner composition changes that led to oil consumption problems. Might be another angle to look at if the cylinders are true under torque.

 

Thanks for the info guys. . . part of the problem might be that it has been rebuilt once, and there was glazing on the cylinder walls and that went to the machine shop to get "trimmed off"

Im not sure what you guys are talking about, about two things though . . i keep reading references to indy? and torque plates? im new at this so bear with me if you could. . .

And I have taken it back to the guy multiple times he was a family friend who did awesome work on my dads bikes and other local bikes, but he wouldn't take any responsibility for my bikes issues

And i didn't upgrade the heads yet because i was going to school full time working as much as possible and building a toyota rock crawler so funds were tight

Now that i may have to break into this motor again though i may just save up some cash and do it all from scratch maybe get a zippers kit or something to that affect

and does anyone have ideas on why its only the rear cylinder the first time it started drinking oil when i went to get it rebuilt we compression tested it and it was only about 20 percent efficient and now that is the cylinder that went again, and it has been the cylinder that has always backfired out its pipe ever since the first swap . . .