Great write up. That is a really nice bike you have. This helped me make up my mind about the X14iEDS. Now if I can just decide on an air cleaner. There are so many damn choices (like its a bad thing).

 

That's the great thing about Harleys and our Sporty in particular, so many ways to make them our own.

 

Give us an idea on what style cleaner you like. i'm sure we all have some suggestions Thats what we do here

 

Looks great. Which bags are those, they are what I have been looking for.

 

They are Boss Bags. www.bossbags.com. You can also look at Leather Pro. They are literally brothers. www.leatherpros.com.

 

Update 2:

Today I decided to play with the positioning of the torque cones that I installed in my exhaust. They can rotate 360 degrees on the bolt's axis which means they can be infinitely adjustable. For the purpose of this test I'll describe two positions:

Position 1 (P1)- the disk facing towards the tip of the exhaust (rear) of the bike with the bolt towards the engine

Position 2 (P2)- the disk facing towards the engine (front) with the bolt facing towards the tip of the exhaust

I have the V&H Straight Shot slip ons installed on my '07 Sporty. YMMV

Adjusting the cones was as simple as turning the bolt with my 1/2" socket.

The first thing I did was measure the actual exhaust volume from 20' behind the bike using my SPL (sound pressure level) meter. [to double the volume pressure level, volume has to increase 10db] I also measured it at idle and at 1/8 (approx 2500 rpm) of a twist of the throttle standing just behind the right handlebar. Both were done while the bike was in neutral. I also did a subjective evaluation while on the bike under acceleration.

The difference in peak volume at idle was between P1 and P2 was between 2-3db higher in P1 over P2. P1 had peaks of 87db vs 84db for P2 The sound quality at idle, to me, was nearly identical.

The difference in peak volume at 1/8 was between 3-4db higher in P1 over P2. The P1 had peaks of 105db vs 102db for P2. The sound quality at 1/8 throttle was nearly identical.

Although I can't quantify the sound level under various levels of acceleration between P1 and P2, what I can say is that P1 is definitely louder than P2. I would estimate between 3-4db. The sound quality, however, is quite different. In P1, especially under hard acceleration, has a much deeper bark to the sound and a much meaner growl than the exhaust tone of P2. While P1 sounds aggressive, P2 has a much smoother and mellow tone while twisting the throttle under power through the gears.

This seems to be reflected in the power between P1 and P2. P1 seems to have more power and quicker acceleration. While P2 has an extremely smooth power delivery while giving up some ultimate HP. The one thing I did notice in P2 was the slight dead spot the power delivery has in P1 is reduced (which the torque cones already reduce than without them) in P2. As I said before, that dip in the torque curve off the line in 1st gear wasn't eliminated. I believe it's inherent in the bike. The option is to just launch at a slightly higher RPM to skip over the dip. No big deal. The dip is not an issue in any other gear.

That's my wrap up.

This will be added to the original post

 

Some great info in this thread, thanks for posting.

 

Great review! Interesting db info on the Thunder Torques. While we've had them on the dyno in various configurations, we've never done any db tests on the.

They were designed specifically to alter the sound as little as possible, while increasing the low & mid range power, without sacrificing any top end.

Cool review. Thanks!

 

Thanks. I will do more testing with the torque cones when the rain here finally stops. I've ridden in this weather but it's not exactly conducive for testing.