Poor Gas Mileage

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Kachow

Kachow

Member
I don’t know what the mods have been to my exhaust, because it’s loud, way loud. But the bike has really crappy fuel consumption, roughly 25 mpg. Even my VTX 1800 with a power commander does better than that, though still crappy at 28 mpg. What kind of mpg is are you guys getting on your rocket threes? I know it has a lot to do with the right wrist, so my first tank I was romping on it a lot and didn’t expect much, but my second and now third tankfuls I’ve been a lot more conservative and I still can’t seem to do better than about 25-26 mpg.
 
DaveM said:
It did sound rather bad when I first looked at it, so I suppose the first thing is to try and see what has been modified on those pipes and then work from there.
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I’ve looked at the exhaust, but I don’t know what I’m looking to understand it. there seem to be baffles in the three pipes, but if there was a cat underneath it’s been removed. The seller did give me an aftermarket three into one muffler kit, and I’m thinking about installing it, but a lot of work to do it, especially at my age lol. one thing I was wondering if you guys could tell me, is there possibly a fuel management system been installed that has really enriched the mix? How would I check for that?
 
DaveM said:
Well before you do anything on the fuel side you need to install the three into one muffler kit that is if you are going to do it.

There are various fuel management systems maybe have a look at this one, the price does not look all that bad. I have no idea how well it works but I am sure someone might have more information on this here.

https://www.regulatorrectifier.com/...cket-iii-high-performance-tfi-fuel-controller
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Okay, that's a great help, thanks. I guess I'll first do the exhaust and see what happens. That's a very reasonable price for the fuel controller, and I like that it has a stock setting.
 
All right, I did put the three in one exhaust on there, and it was a disaster. It’s a cheap aftermarket piece of junk that was flimsy at best with the bracket they gave, and the flex pipe didn’t flex far enough to get the right position. It was pulling hard on the header pipe, which I didn’t like. It was a bit quieter than what I have come to realize are racing exhaust that the previous owner put on there. So now I at a standstill when it comes to my excessive noise problem, other than to search eBay or whatever for three stock mufflers.
 
Oh you bet I’m wearing them, I have tinnitus which is pretty debilitating and it’s through exposure and hereditary and all that crap. 45 years as a machinist didn’t help but this bike is crazy loud. My other bike is well. OK I should wear earplugs but this bike is I absolutely have to.
 
So I made a second attempt to quiet my exhaust, which consisted of fabricating three small baffles. I didn’t think they would be effective, but they were too effective. In fact, they quieted the bike like my neighbors Goldwing. And it seemed like the bike was running OK until I got it above Say 3K rpm’s and it went flat. Everything was running too hot, meaning too lean. the bike was really angry at me at that point, so I brought it home and pulled everything out, now I’m back where I started. One thing I learned from the experience is, I’m not sure I would even want to put stock mufflers on the bike for fear that the same thing might happen. Only the cost would be several hundred dollars.
 
I’ll give an update on this because the thread is about fuel consumption: I did manage to get stock exhaust from a local guy, and that cured the noise problem. As far as fuel consumption, it hasn’t improved very much, I am learning to ride the bike better, so that helps, and my fuel consumption has settled at around 29-30 mpg, which is mostly city. I’m planning to take a long ride tomorrow, which will include quite a bit of Highway riding, so maybe I’ll have an update on mpg’s from that ride.
 

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