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[boomer]

Took my bike to the local dealer for the 1K service last week.  They tell me one of the ACR took a crap and it needs to be replaced.  One week later I get the bike back with both the tech and the service manager telling me that in spite of the noise that sounds like an exhaust leak, the bike should be OK to ride.

Last night while on a little local putt, the noise is getting noticably louder so I head the bike back to the barn to look for the "exhaust leak".

Back to the dealer this morning after I told them the new ACR was loose in the head.  I did a scientific diagnostic ( I looked in the whole on the side of the head) and could see the ACR moving around.

Now on a Friday afternoon, my $35K scooter sits at the Harley shop with them telling me that the head may need to be replaced.  This bike has spent m9ore time in the shop that on the road or in my garage. 

I am wondering if there are other owners that have had similar problems with their 110 motors.  I feel as though I got screwed when I traded my perfectly relaible 03 Anniversay Bike to get this FLHTCUSE2.

My dealer seems as frustrated with this situation as I am.  I do however wonder just how "Customer Centric" the MOCO is that they will not even allow the dealer to pull the head until they have a tech specialist from the factory confer with the shop.

If Harley wanted to build a "higher performance" bike, they should have made it perform.  I have my 05 FLHTRI with a 95" kit and really radical cams Rinehearts and SERT.  I have never forgotten to push the little blue buttons to start the bike.  Too bad the MOFO or is that MOCO didn't just design this motor with HTCC heads and manual compression releases.  A lot less wire and bullchit and no doubt much greater reliability.

Has anybody heard of anyone removing the ACR's and machining their heads for manual compression releases.

I'm sorry I didn't just do the engine work on my 03.  It would have been cheaper - faster and more reliable.

I have owned this bike for less than one month and it has been in the shop for 14 days.  LEMON LAW CANDIDATE

[hard10]

Took my bike to the local dealer for the 1K service last week.  They tell me one of the ACR took a crap and it needs to be replaced.  One week later I get the bike back with both the tech and the service manager telling me that in spite of the noise that sounds like an exhaust leak, the bike should be OK to ride.

Last night while on a little local putt, the noise is getting noticably louder so I head the bike back to the barn to look for the "exhaust leak".

Back to the dealer this morning after I told them the new ACR was loose in the head.  I did a scientific diagnostic ( I looked in the whole on the side of the head) and could see the ACR moving around.

Now on a Friday afternoon, my $35K scooter sits at the Harley shop with them telling me that the head may need to be replaced.  This bike has spent m9ore time in the shop that on the road or in my garage. 

I am wondering if there are other owners that have had similar problems with their 110 motors.  I feel as though I got screwed when I traded my perfectly relaible 03 Anniversay Bike to get this FLHTCUSE2.

My dealer seems as frustrated with this situation as I am.  I do however wonder just how "Customer Centric" the MOCO is that they will not even allow the dealer to pull the head until they have a tech specialist from the factory confer with the shop.

If Harley wanted to build a "higher performance" bike, they should have made it perform.  I have my 05 FLHTRI with a 95" kit and really radical cams Rinehearts and SERT.  I have never forgotten to push the little blue buttons to start the bike.  Too bad the MOFO or is that MOCO didn't just design this motor with HTCC heads and manual compression releases.  A lot less wire and bullchit and no doubt much greater reliability.

Has anybody heard of anyone removing the ACR's and machining their heads for manual compression releases.

I'm sorry I didn't just do the engine work on my 03.  It would have been cheaper - faster and more reliable.

I have owned this bike for less than one month and it has been in the shop for 14 days.  LEMON LAW CANDIDATE

Boomer, sorry to hear about your bike being in the shop. I'm pretty sure Unbalanced has had some experience w/ ACR's. Maybe he can shed some light. Don't forget to register your bike. Follow the link in my signature.
AJ

[Vosselman (NL - Europe)]

Boomer and Hard10,

I know of one 07 Ultra with the same problem.
Lot's of noise, almost like hitting the engine with a hamer.
Dealer replaced the first set of ACR's. They were cooked. Unfortunately also the second set cooked in short period of time. The third set, with a new HD number (updated version) is working ok. The updated version has a higher power rating.

Do you have the SERT? Be sure the ACR is enabled in active engine settings.

[hard10]

Hard10,

I know of one 07 Ultra with the same problem.
Lot's of noise, almost like hitting the engine with a hamer.
Dealer replaced the first set of ACR's. They were cooked. Unfortunately also the second set cooked in short period of time. The third set, with a new HD number (updated version) is working ok. The updated version has a higher power rating.

Do you have the SERT? Be sure the ACR is enabled in active engine settings.

I don't have the SERT, I runnin the PCIII. I'll try & find out what the new ACR P/N is.

[Unbalanced]

I had a burned out front ACR the rear was fine, but I had a 2nd problem and that was the setup of the SERT to make them run.   What I would like to know is what is wrong with your head that they need to replace it for a ACR.   This doesn't make sense to me, could you find out more to understand this?

After much to do, the dealer needs to uninstall all versions of the SERT from their computer then reboot then install the 4.62 version and then recreate your map with a 4.62 base map and all will be right again provided when installing your updated map they say Turn on ACR with the radial button.

I have now about 50 starts on the bike since Harley sent me the ACR and have no more banging in the engine at start.  /phew glad it seems to be resolved.   My bike has been in the shop for 1 front head gasket where we did the rear as well and new rings, then it has had 3 rear head gaskets the last one also included new rings and a new rear jugg.   Based on the results of ultrafxr and after a reoccurence of his leak at 6000 miles I was quite disheartened.

I only have about 500 miles on my bike so far since the new headgasket / jugg.   The bike has about 17,500 on it now with another 200 going on today on my ride home from the inlaws house.   The bike has been in the shop many many weeks over the last 10 months and it is quite frustrating.   

If the only problem you have is a bad ACR and a possibly bad front head even though it is in the beginning hopefully the change will resolve it and you will ride worry free from there.   

Sorry wish I could be more encouraging,

[Hoist!]

What's the deal? Is there a new P/N for improved ACR's? Are the originals NG, just kept quiet like everything else? What the new P/N? What changed? Inquiring minds, ya know! Hoist!

[boomer]

An update!  Apparently the factory rep is coming to look at my scoot today.  Then he will determine whether to pull the head or not.  I am think that the damage to the head may be from not properly torquing the new ACR and having it work loose as opposed to a bad head from the factory.  With the ACR wobbling around in the head, and the head being aluminum, I could see this being a viable way to trash the threads.

I hope they will replace the head rather than trying to take the short-cut and repair the threads.

Luckily - The saving grace to all this is that I have a great relationship with this dealership and they are really pulling out all the stops to make it right.  I sure hope that the MOCO feels the same way.

I have absorbed a lot of info regarding the whole scene surrounding the ACR concept.  After all of that, I am still of the belief that the best long term fix for all of these bikes is going to be to convert these engines to manual compression releases.

The bugger of all this is that it seems that there is power to the ACR at all times, they are activated by adding ground to their circuit during start-up.  The directions in the SERT instruction manual are specific as to how to set-up the ACRs for test and run.  I hope they used the proper basemap.

Not Brain Surgery or Rocket Science.   

It seems the MOCO is well aware of these issues and have tried to address this by patches in the downloads rather than changing the engineering of this part of the scoot.

[Chief]

An update!  Apparently the factory rep is coming to look at my scoot today.  Then he will determine whether to pull the head or not.  I am think that the damage to the head may be from not properly torquing the new ACR and having it work loose as opposed to a bad head from the factory.  With the ACR wobbling around in the head, and the head being aluminum, I could see this being a viable way to trash the threads.

I hope they will replace the head rather than trying to take the short-cut and repair the threads.

Luckily - The saving grace to all this is that I have a great relationship with this dealership and they are really pulling out all the stops to make it right.  I sure hope that the MOCO feels the same way.

I have absorbed a lot of info regarding the whole scene surrounding the ACR concept.  After all of that, I am still of the belief that the best long term fix for all of these bikes is going to be to convert these engines to manual compression releases.

The bugger of all this is that it seems that there is power to the ACR at all times, they are activated by adding ground to their circuit during start-up.  The directions in the SERT instruction manual are specific as to how to set-up the ACRs for test and run.  I hope they used the proper basemap.

Not Brain Surgery or Rocket Science.   

It seems the MOCO is well aware of these issues and have tried to address this by patches in the downloads rather than changing the engineering of this part of the scoot.

It sure would have been simpler if the ACRs were hooked into the start switch instead of the ECM. You only need them when you push the start switch, so why not hook them there? My SM told me how they were hooked up and was the one with the above analysis in how to over-complicate a simple concept.

[Twolanerider]

It sure would have been simpler if the ACRs were hooked into the start switch instead of the ECM. You only need them when you push the start switch, so why not hook them there? My SM told me how they were hooked up and was the one with the above analysis in how to over-complicate a simple concept.

Not sure who it was with here on the site.  But I remember having a conversation with someone when the ACR equipped models had been just announced.  I made an only semi-sarcastic comment to the effect of "automatic releases are new for Harley, wonder how they'll mess them up."

Someone quite rightly pointed out that ACRs weren't at all new.  That there wasn't any reason to particularly expect difficult.

"But they're new to Harley" I responded.  And new to Harley is always a problem for Harley.

Whomever it was on the other side of the chat just grinned and basically said, "well, there is that."

Harley is nothing if not consistent with their new product inconsistency.

[Midnight Rider]

Was the necessity for ACR's dictated by the new primary design?  The damn compression on the 110 is not THAT high to warrant needing CR's, so it must be something with the new primary that created this need.    Sometimes HD can f up a steel ball with a rubber hammer....

[boomer]

Even if they had set up the ACRS through the ECM and made them close once the Crank sensor realized the engine was running not starting it would have simpler.

Being a simple guy - I would have just opted for less electronics and manual compression releases like I have on my '05 95" FLHTRI.

These 110's are such cool motors that it becomes a real shame that some engineer at the MOCO had to try and justify his existence.

Blue Buttons - Manual Compression release you hear me!  Perhaps at some point in time there will be some HTCC heads for the CVO that are machined for manual releases and we can get rid of this crap!

[grc]

Not sure who it was with here on the site.  But I remember having a conversation with someone when the ACR equipped models had been just announced.  I made an only semi-sarcastic comment to the effect of "automatic releases are new for Harley, wonder how they'll mess them up."

Someone quite rightly pointed out that ACRs weren't at all new.  That there wasn't any reason to particularly expect difficult.

"But they're new to Harley" I responded.  And new to Harley is always a problem for Harley.

Whomever it was on the other side of the chat just grinned and basically said, "well, there is that."

Harley is nothing if not consistent with their new product inconsistency.

Right you are.  They are the only folks I know that can borrow 10 year old technology, put it on their bikes, and totally screw the pooch.  This whole thing with the ACR's really makes you want to run right out and try the Harley version of drive-by-wire, doesn't it?

Jerry

[grc]

Was the necessity for ACR's dictated by the new primary design?  The damn compression on the 110 is not THAT high to warrant needing CR's, so it must be something with the new primary that created this need.    Sometimes HD can f up a steel ball with a rubber hammer....

Terry,

I'm guessing the cam timing on the 110's may have had more to do with it than the primary ratio change (I don't think the ACR's are stock on the 96 inchers with the same primary ratio).  I've seen a couple posts indicating rather high cranking compression numbers, much higher than you would normally expect for a 9.3:1 static compression ratio.

Oh, and BTW, they could screw it up even without the rubber hammer.

Jerry

[sadunbar]

Right you are.  They are the only folks I know that can borrow 10 year old technology, put it on their bikes, and totally screw the pooch.  This whole thing with the ACR's really makes you want to run right out and try the Harley version of drive-by-wire, doesn't it?
Jerry

I am thinking the beta testing of both the drive by wire and the ABS brake system is better performed by others...

Scott

[Midnight Rider]

Terry,

I'm guessing the cam timing on the 110's may have had more to do with it than the primary ratio change (I don't think the ACR's are stock on the 96 inchers with the same primary ratio).  I've seen a couple posts indicating rather high cranking compression numbers, much higher than you would normally expect for a 9.3:1 static compression ratio.

Oh, and BTW, they could screw it up even without the rubber hammer.

Jerry

That's why we're so fortunate to have you here, Jerry....to explain those things that make people like me go "duh".  Makes sense, since the cams in the 110's are different than our 103's.  There were a lot of ways to make the ACR's work, and they had to pick the one that has the absolute most potential for screwing up, and one where the dealer has to go into the system to see what's wrong.

But if they chromed the steel ball, people would pay $299.95 for it.