Muffler adventure and Uh-oh

[Mike1nw]

I bought used factory mufflers off flea bay.
For my 07 883.
I bought the bike used, and it had obnoxious V&H which are basically empty tubes.
One of the factory muffs had a broken bolt ☹
Ok, I got an easy out, which broke off too...

In the tile dept. of Home Depot are hollow diamond- tipped hole saws. About $18. The 5/16 one and a drill press drilled out the evil stuff.

Tapped for a 3/8 x 16 stud. Voila!
Cut the heads off some SS bolts and made studs.

The new mufflers are great.
Old V&H were 5.6 lbs each
Factory muffs are 6.6 lbs. each, so there is practically no weight penalty.

Part no. 64842-04 muffler seems to fit 2004-2013 Sportsters, per Ronnie's microfiche. The back one has a dimple to clear the shock bolt, but only one part no. is listed.

I'll post a pic of the jig I made so I could use the drill press. Probably couldn't have succeeded without the drill press.

[Andy56]

I have a 2008 bike here not too dissimilar to 2007 and on stock mufflers I have no studs.

Where are the studs?

The muffler slides over the header and held there with a clamp. The muffler has two threaded holes for bolts that go through the mounting bracket.

[Mike1nw]

Yes, same here, but instead of bolts into the threaded holes, I used 4 studs + flanged nuts.

[Mike1nw]

With the factory mufflers, and a few dozen miles, it is much more pleasant to ride.
Even feels quicker.
With loud mufflers, it seemed like it didn't want to go past 65.
Had it up to 70 briefly, no problem.
Will take a ride on the interstate soon.

[wmbettsjr]

I just bought a set of 04 factory pipes from the same place to replace the Vance and Hines on my 2005 xl. I'm liking the sound but haven't ridden her yet as I'm also replacing my rear shocks with 15 inch progressive's and rebuilding my forks with progressive springs . Can't wait to see how she behaves. I'll post any performance changes once I do. Good luck with your new pipes, keep it rubber side down!

Sent from my moto g play - 2023 using Tapatalk

[Andy56]

It is conceivable the setup you had was losing you low to mid range performance where you are probably wanting to run the engine.

[Mike1nw]

Today, I took it on interstate 10 briefly, it simply hums along at 70 mph 🙂, That's 3765 RPM, with a lot of reserve power, for a while I was thinking of replacing the 34 tooth crank sprocket with the 38 tooth one, But I'll leave it.
It seems to want less throttle too. I'll run a few tanks to compare MPG

Best $96 I spent.

[denguy]

Gee, another case showing that sometimes HD knows what's best.

[Andy56]

When considering a lot of people just want to make noise they have little understanding of what they are actually doing for the performance of the engine.

In comparison my HDI 1200 runs at just over 3,000 rpm at 70mph.

[Mike1nw]

Conventional wisdom is, Fuel Injection takes care of lack of back pressure, the O2 sniffers automatically call for more fuel.

But this might not be true.

Years ago, I had a Shadow 1100, installed longshot pipes on it, then slash cuts, Either way I had to rejet many times for it to behave.

The spark plugs on my 07 Sportster, while running open V&H pipes, always looked normal. So the F.I. system was trying to counteract the pipes. Just guessing.