HOLY SHIT!

If you can read this, I am riding right now.

If you can read this, I *didn’t* get screwed somehow, in which case I would be at home, probably erasing this entry (which I’m writing friday afternoon and queuing up for tomorrow).

Friday afternoon, Eddie (I said “Eddy” but that’s wrong spelling in all entries before this one) called me for the credit check.  HD is offering me 13.49% APR on my financing, which blows.  I believe Citibank is offering 10.49% so I might switch.  Gotta look into HSBC, and TD, the two banks of which I’m actually a customer, and see if they can do better.  No one wants to cut you a low rate on a luxury item =P

To the world of cash-poor fools, you now have a new rider.

And Eddie said my fishtail pipes came in and they installed them for me.  The medallions (emblems / badges) are going to be a few weeks off, and they have a guy who sits and spends the afternoon getting them just right.

EFI Management (Part 3) (COUNTDOWN: 1 day!!!!!)

Ok, so!

After I posted yesterday, I spoke with the dealer yet again.  I then called Harley Davidson directly.  The number for their corporate office (customer service line) is (414) 343-4056.  I spoke with a gal named Roxxanne.  Awesome!

I told her the whole story. She said she wouldn’t give me anything in writing, but that she codified our conversation and gave me a reference number to give to any dealer that didn’t believe me.  Here’s the story:

If you get a Stage I kit, you may not use a Screamin Eagle Super [Race] Tuner (“SEST”).  If you get a Stage II kit and do not change the exhaust, you may not use a SEST.  If you get a Stage II kit and you do change the pipes, then you are **REQUIRED** to get a SEST in order to balance the different loads on the engine and to keep the AFR (air-to-fuel ratio) ideal for reliable long-term operation.

Interesting, right?

The “catch” is that the SEST will not be covered under warranty.  The warranty will not be voided by ANY of this.  If you disobey the MoCo and use a SEST in either of the two forbidden cases above, there may be warranty “impact” such as the dealership refusing warranty service on damage they can prove was caused by your use of the SEST.  9 times out of 10, if you know what you’re doing and you aren’t abusing anything, the SEST will just help the bike run right.  Don’t ride like an asshole and you won’t blow anything up, pretty much.  But other than the SEST not being covered itself, I was completely relieved to hear all this.

So I called the dealer and told them.  “Get me a SEST, please!” I said.  Well, not really, I asked and asked politely.  But then the dealer wanted to confirm everything (Big Chris actually, who is really on the ball and hands-down the most reliable person there – he actually calls back!), so I passed on the reference # and he got it confirmed.

He called me back and said he’d verified all of it.  But then he gave me the great news:  I didn’t need a SEST anyway because the SuperTrapp pipes were the exact pipes the Stage II ECM download was made for!  SuperTrapp used to manufacture the screamin eagle pipes for Harley Davidson, and it didn’t count as “different exhaust” for the ECM’s purposes!  Wahoo!  He said to ride it and judge for myself if it seemed hot.

I can still do the SEST, but can keep my options open.  The PCV has that history of failures that the other tuners don’t have. Maybe it’s the PCIII that had failures and they’re imputed to the PCV, but whatever.  I want to look into the MasterTuner as well.

My next three-bills purchase will probably be a custom seat.  And that’ll be a while coming.

And some snowmobile mittens to go with the hand deflectors will get me on the road longer this winter than any winter prior.

I confirmed with Big Chris he’d be there at 9am on Saturday.  Eddy too.  Hoping the signing on the dotted line doesn’t take too long.

If you don’t see any posts tomorrow or Sunday, you’ll know why.

^_^