My 07 Screaming Eagle Ultra Classic 2 finally sold this weekend and I was glad to see it go. I own two other Harleys to compare this bike with so my prejudices are balanced with familiarity. My 05 Road King Custom and my 07 Street Glide have had and continue to have their share of problems as Harleys do. My Screaming Eagle seemed to have more.
I had rented a 07 Ultra Classic (96 ci) for a 3day ride up the coast. I was impressed with it. Three months later I decided to buy the Screaming Eagle version. I really liked the two tone blue model and to this day with exception of the leather tour pack, I still think it is the best looking touring model built to date.
The HEAT was the first thing I noticed. Damn! Can HD make a bike any hotter to ride?
From this forum and others I read that the 07 line up and especially the 110 motors were running hot. The air fuel ratio seemed to be the culprit. I’ll get back to this later.
The second thing I noticed was that the bike was not as quick at the 96 cubic inch version. The 110 motor is bigger but I think the EPA sucked the life out of it. In my opinion, the stock version of the 96 would beat the stock version of the 110 in the quarter mile by 4 or 5 minutes.
The third thing I noticed was the bad gas mileage. I know this depends on how you ride. Yes, I know the disclaimer. Your mileage will vary. I did 85 mph on the highway. Yes, it is above speed limit so don’t try this on your highway. I got 141 miles to the tank and that’s a dry tank. That is a little over 28 miles to the gallon. My other two bikes get 170 miles with 0.3 to 0.4 gallons left inside the tank and 194 per tank with same 0.3 to 0.4. Some of the posts I had read SEUC owners were claiming up to 45 miles to the gallon. Half their ride must be down hill and at 55mph. Yes I remember, your mileage will vary.
Some of the other problems are familiar to SEUC owners. The heated grips had to be replaced. The front fairing had to be replaced because the clear coat around the windshield screws bubbled up. The clamps that hold on the brake and clutch levers had to be replaced because the chrome chipped off. The bike would die at idle. Experiencing a slow speed turn while the motor dies only ends up with dropping the bike. Effing Harley.
I didn’t like the fact that the tour pack didn’t have any lights on the back and in my opinion; the leather tour pack was too small. The seat wasn’t comfortable and the backrest was useless. I couldn’t get the backrest far enough forward without distorting the cushioning in the seat. It needed to be thicker to reach my back.
I’ll get back to the air fuel ratio thing. It didn’t take me long to figure out this bike ran hot. When I stopped, a heat wave up would run up my inner thighs. I called it, “stop light barbecue”. The California Air Resource Board halted any dealer modifications that had anything to with emissions so a SERT wasn’t going to happen. I looked in the HD P&A catalog and found the Race Fueler. It wasn’t as complicated as the SERT and simpler to understand. The directions tell you what pods do what but no actual settings to start with. I found the most of the information on another web site. After interpreting the set-up directions from a different model year, learning how the ECM varied the air fuel ratio at idle and some trial and error, I actually got it work. I was happy. It didn’t die, it didn’t get hot and it was noticeably quicker but the gas mileage got worse.
I bought the bike to do long distance touring. I like to travel 4 to 6 hundred miles in day. With one eye glued to the gas gage, I would find myself stopping at gas stations in the middle of BFE. These were the old run down gas stations that probably get one or two customers a year and have buzzards perched on the pumps. This bike had to effing go.
I did get a lot of looks when I road the bike and had a lot of conversations when I was filling it up although not as many of the conversations were with the opposite sex as I would have liked. I did have some great rides with bike. I have read posts that talked about head gasket failures and always thought that richening the air fuel ratio would have solved this problem. Maybe I am wrong. The problems needing Timken bearing conversions, crank run out and oil pump failures were out of my league. I don’t think I had enough mileage on my bike to encounter these problems. Boat owners have a saying. “The happiest day of boat owner is the day they get it and the day they sell it”. That’s how I feel now. Good luck with your CVO. Sorry for the long post.
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Topic: Diary of a SEUC (Read 5846 times)