Thought I should share my personal experience and reason for choosing Harley’s Stage 1 Screaming Eagle download.
I bought my 09 Street Glide in November and like most, the first thing I did was change the exhaust. I chose V&H slip-on Ovals; not the Monster Ovals, the original smaller ovals. I wanted to retain reasonable back pressure while adding a little more sound. I held off on doing anything further on the advice of my Dealer who said I should be alright as long as I didn’t change the air filter to a less restricted one. Of course at that point he would recommend a Race Tuner $$$$$$!
I have spent months reading everything I could get my hands on regarding all the different fuel enhancement devices. I’ve talked to two dealership service advisors and a service Tec who is the guru with the Race Tuner and Dyno tuning. It became obvious over time that if you asked 10 people their advice you’d get ten different opinions. It’s not only frustrating but in most cases the advice was tainted and biased by retailers / distributers pushing their product.
About half the people on this Site and every other Harley Site simply want to add slip-ons and free up the air intake and many end up spending 800 to 1,000 dollars on a Power Commander or Race Tuner. This is overkill and a waste of money unless you have modified the engine further by changing cams, displacement, ported heads etc…
Now add to the mix a dozen different add-on devices piggy backing your ECU and it becomes more difficult to decide what to do. They all do about the same thing and are much less expensive, generally around 200 to 300 hundred dollars a don’t require dyno tuning. Just wire it in and find a place to strap on the box. With all the opinions and technical advice from people, anyone should be able to eventually tweak it in to their satisfaction. (Gee what a bargain!)
So after 6 months of tossing around which direction I needed to go I went with some very reliable advice from a co-worker who happened to be one of the finest mechanics from a local HD Shop. He simply told me that all I needed was to take the bike to the dealer and have them do the SE Stage 1 download, $125.00 dollars and a half hour labor, around $250.00 all said and done.
I spent more because I bought the SE Air Cleaner and had them install it at the same time they did the download. I was apprehensive when I went out to start up the bike and take it home, but the end result was surprising! As soon as I hit the starter it fired off and came down to a smother idle then I had before. It also idled at 900 rpm rather than 800 as it often did after being warmed up. As soon as I let the clutch out and road through the parking lot I could tell the jerking parking lot speed was gone. There was no abrupt throttle response from closed throttle to slight opening and the bike was running much better.
So anyone contemplating slip-ons, and air cleaner up grade, save your self the grief and expense and just go get the download and be done with it.
All I can say is it worked great with my 2009 but I can’t comment on earlier models.
I bought my 09 Street Glide in November and like most, the first thing I did was change the exhaust. I chose V&H slip-on Ovals; not the Monster Ovals, the original smaller ovals. I wanted to retain reasonable back pressure while adding a little more sound. I held off on doing anything further on the advice of my Dealer who said I should be alright as long as I didn’t change the air filter to a less restricted one. Of course at that point he would recommend a Race Tuner $$$$$$!
I have spent months reading everything I could get my hands on regarding all the different fuel enhancement devices. I’ve talked to two dealership service advisors and a service Tec who is the guru with the Race Tuner and Dyno tuning. It became obvious over time that if you asked 10 people their advice you’d get ten different opinions. It’s not only frustrating but in most cases the advice was tainted and biased by retailers / distributers pushing their product.
About half the people on this Site and every other Harley Site simply want to add slip-ons and free up the air intake and many end up spending 800 to 1,000 dollars on a Power Commander or Race Tuner. This is overkill and a waste of money unless you have modified the engine further by changing cams, displacement, ported heads etc…
Now add to the mix a dozen different add-on devices piggy backing your ECU and it becomes more difficult to decide what to do. They all do about the same thing and are much less expensive, generally around 200 to 300 hundred dollars a don’t require dyno tuning. Just wire it in and find a place to strap on the box. With all the opinions and technical advice from people, anyone should be able to eventually tweak it in to their satisfaction. (Gee what a bargain!)
So after 6 months of tossing around which direction I needed to go I went with some very reliable advice from a co-worker who happened to be one of the finest mechanics from a local HD Shop. He simply told me that all I needed was to take the bike to the dealer and have them do the SE Stage 1 download, $125.00 dollars and a half hour labor, around $250.00 all said and done.
I spent more because I bought the SE Air Cleaner and had them install it at the same time they did the download. I was apprehensive when I went out to start up the bike and take it home, but the end result was surprising! As soon as I hit the starter it fired off and came down to a smother idle then I had before. It also idled at 900 rpm rather than 800 as it often did after being warmed up. As soon as I let the clutch out and road through the parking lot I could tell the jerking parking lot speed was gone. There was no abrupt throttle response from closed throttle to slight opening and the bike was running much better.
So anyone contemplating slip-ons, and air cleaner up grade, save your self the grief and expense and just go get the download and be done with it.
All I can say is it worked great with my 2009 but I can’t comment on earlier models.
All that matters is YOUR happy. 
