Carbon Buildup - Harley Forum

timmy · #1 11-02-2009, 10:54 PM

Greetings Comrades
I have a new stock 2009 Road King with 800 miles. The left exhaust pipe tip is jet black with heavy carbon buildup. The right pipe is clean with minimal buildup. I cleaned the left at 500 miles but was black within 150 miles. If I'm not mistaken the stock exhaust is 2-1-2 so how can this be happening? I'm bringing the bike in for service next week and would like to know if I should be concerned with this.

Thanks for any assistance.
Timmy

unclepsycho · #2 11-03-2009, 01:03 AM

Welcome to the forum Timmy...
If the bike is equiped with a catalytic converter... the 'cat' is on the right... it would get hot enuff to burn the excess fuel. My Cat equipped bike has the 'cat on the right and a regular one on the left.... so if it is the same with the 09 bikes.,,... then that's why.
Mine has a cross over pipe, and is not 2-1-2.

other than the black pipe, how's it run?

timmy · #3 11-03-2009, 09:54 AM

Thanks Scott. It does have a cat on the rear collector which is the right pipe. That would explain the difference. It appears that both front & rear enter a common collector in front of the cross over however.
It rides great albeit sluggish compared to the 1200XL I've been riding for 4 years. Looking forward to some extended road trips this winter. That's one advantage to living in the South.
Timmy

timmy · #4 11-09-2009, 12:51 AM

An update on the excess carbon buildup. The Harley dealership checked out the problem and couldn't explain it. They did however suspect it could be a faulty muffler and replaced both. I've ridden over 200 miles since and it seems to be corrected. Both pipes look the same and it still runs fine. I've never heard of anything like this.
BTW the two pipes do go into a common collector before the crossover. This rules out a single cylinder running too rich or lean to reveal this problem.

Timmy

unclepsycho · #5 11-09-2009, 01:06 AM

Thats too funny.... Mufflers causing carbon build up??? Just like Pencils cause misspelled words... or in our case... keyboards cause misspelled words.... ah ha ha ha...

I bet they adjusted something like re-map the computer, otherwise it would just carbon up again.

Time will tell.

Thanks for the update Tim... I find it interesting what stories the dealers come up with when they either dont know what happened, or need to cover up one of thier mistakes.

unclepsycho · #6 11-09-2009, 01:09 AM

Tim
Did you happen to take pictures before???

unclepsycho · #7 11-09-2009, 01:18 AM

One last thought....

Maybe they put a cat on both sides??? it would be stamped in the side if it is a catalytic converter.

timmy · #8 11-09-2009, 09:42 PM

What ever they did corrected the issue. It would be fun to be a fly on the wall in these service departments. A while back I had to bring my new truck in for a slipping tranny. They kept it for 2 days and told me it was a bad sensor. I found out later from a friend that worked there they replaced the whole transmission! Go figure.

There seems to be several cat configurations on these bikes. I think mine is located in the collector under the floor board. This doesn't appear to have been tampered with. As long as they were being replaced, I had them install Screamin Eagle slip-on mufflers instead of stock. Sounds much better.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the pipe difference before.

BTW, your "Redneck Without a Clue" moniker is similar to a paddling club I used to belong to. We called ourselves the "Canoe Without a Clue Club". We had a blast! I plan to combine my two favorite pastimes, riding & whitewater this spring.

Timmy