Okay I bought my 1st Harley, an 08 FLHX. Last week I put a set of rinehart slip-ons on bike. I called dealer and asked if that's okay? Is it wrong to do that without stage 1?
He said if it runs good, it's okay. If it runs crappy you need the stage 1.
It runs great, sounds great. I have also read that if the fuel mix is not right the pipes will blue. So I guess want I want to know is what does stage 1 mean? Is this a kit or something I can do myself. Can I just do the stage 1 and leave the factory air intake alone for now. Then in the spring if I want a free flowing air cleaner I know I'm good to go. Lots of you guys have been through this. Just tell me the next logical step to take. I tried to read and figure it out here but it's confusing. What is PCIII and the other term I keep seeing is "Sert" something like that.

 

I second the notion, I have the same ?'s.

 

Mikeman, congratulations on the Street Glide - it's a terrific bike!

A "Stage One" setup generally means aftermarket pipes (or mufflers), freeflow air intake, and ECM mapping. Depending on your equipment choices and where you buy them, this is about a thousand dollar upgrade and gives a nice increase in power.

The PCIII, SERT, FuelPak, and other fuel management systems generally attach to the stock ECM and remap the air/fuel ratio so that the engine does not run lean. With the freeflow intake and exhaust, you are increasing the amount of air that moves through the engine, and the fuel needs to be adjusted to bring the ratio back into balance.

Conventional wisdom is that if all you are changing is the mufflers, then you don't need a fuel management system because you are not making a significant increase in airflow. But as lean as the stock engine runs, I would be tempted to add it anyway so that I don't aggravate an already lean condition.

If you have the opportunity, you should do the complete setup to maximize the gain in performance.

You can perform the upgrades yourself with simple tools, but with the SERT and PCIII you can achieve maximum power increase by having you dealer tune it on a dyno. The FuelPak is tuned using the settings provided by the manufacturer (V&H), and cannot be fine-tuned on the dyno - good enough for most people.

Since you already have the slip-ons, I suggest that your next purchase should be fuel manager followed by the air intake. You don't want to run the intake without the fuel manager because the engine would run too lean and potentially cause damage.

 

Pastor John, Great explanation!

 

Here is the waqy I understand it. The bike stock is supposed to have a happy balance between the air intake, fule and back preasure from the exhaust. All these components work together to produce a smooth running motor. If you change one of the elements, there needs to be a little compensation done to the other components. In the days before all the EFI, most peole would re-jet the carborator and add a more open air intake for the carborator. In the new tech world, there is a computer that does the balancing act for us. This computer information can be "remapped". All they do is hook your bike to a computer, they tech enters in the bike, pipes, year, and they send the new data to the computer.

I had this done to my 05 out of the box and have not had a problem with it. If you do not do this, does it mean you will have a problem? Probably not if your bike runs ok. I am sure that there are many on the board that can add more value that I have with my simple response.

Best of luck and ride safe.

 

I don't know, the pipes on my 2009 Ultra blued under the heat shields.
Is this normal?
They didn't say anything at the 1,000 mile service.
Should they have not blued?
Let me know if you think I should get the bike back to the Dealer to check out.

 

Anyone know the general price difference between the V&H Fuel Pak versus the Power Commander III ??

Just trying to get an idea of costs for each, in general.

 

Really really normal.

Actually that is the reason for the heat shields. Back in the day (before "heat shields"), all the bikes blued to some degree or other and we all lived with it.

 

^
Man, that's a sweet color! !

 

Time to call jamie at fuel moto for your pcIII. then its all do it your self