I've wrestled with whether I should make an issue out of this or not.  If you convert to S1/L1 your exhaust will pop loudly between shifts.  You will be told by your dealer that this is normal.  That has always raised a red flag with me but I like the throatiness of the exhaust so much that I put up with a few pops until I get up to speed.  The pops were loud, they were embarrassing and there was no way to keep them from happening.  To say it was "normal" sounds like an old school American answer.  I don't buy it.

My exhaust quit popping at 6,000 miles (installed at 500).  It now runs and sounds exactly like I think it should and I just rolled over 7,000.  Victory needs to figure out what changed and engineer it into the original S1/L1 re-map.  There are a bunch of aftermarket exhausts about to hit the street and I'm willing to bet some of them will sound and work perfectly right off the bat. 

My question to Victory is this:  My S1/L1 doesn't pop anymore.  Should I take it in to get it "fixed"?

A lawsuit of any kind is not an option for me, no matter how bad it gets. I took a chance on a first year model and I'm going to give Victory every chance possible to make things right. The positives of the bike far outweigh the negatives.

My main gripe is the fact that Victory could very well be working on this problem but we would never know it. Meanwhile, we the owners start bouncing these issues off of each other and get madder and madder at the silence from Victory. New potential buyers come to this site, read about the issues and think "Hmmm, why should I spend over $20,000 on a bike with cosmetic/performance issues that Victory doesn't seem to be addressing?"

The exhaust is not a safety issue. The bike runs fine. The problem for me is that a motorcycle is all about the sensory input. You smell everything in the air. You see more around and above you. You feel every little vibration plus the g-forces of a really fun road. You hear everything, even if it's a mile away sometimes.

Motorcycles are initially judged by their looks and their sound. The Vision is visually stunning. Some can't stand it and don't get past that. Others really like the looks and think, "I like it, what does it sound like?" A lot of people are totally content with the stock sound. Some wish it was even quieter. A lot of others (maybe even most) think it could use some extra grunt in it's voice. The Stage 1 upgrade fits the bill for a lot of us middle-aged buyers who don't want a "loud pipes save lives" bike but we don't want a Goldwing either. It is a low, powerful throaty sound that I can light off at 5:00 in the morning and not piss off my neighbors when I go to work.

The popping really ruins the mood. To say it is acceptable or normal is weak. Victory is basically saying "Hey, hear that big V-twin off in the distance that sounds like a 12-guage shotgun when it shifts?  That's our flagship bike with an exhaust upgrade.  We meant to do that.  Sounds great, doesn't it?"  Yeah, right.  Victory may be working on it, but in the meantime a lot of buyers will be looking to Ness, Kuryakyn and other aftermarket suppliers to do it right the first time. If Victory could could just find a way to say "We recognize that this (whatever it is) is an issue and are working on a fix." they would have a bunch of us going to the wall for them. The way it is now, I have no way to know if it's being addressed or not.

Better trunk lighting is a huge issue with the touring crowd. Is Victory working on it? Heck if I know.

V-Tex,

I have no idea why it stopped popping. I took it in for service at 6,000 miles and when I got it back, the popping was gone. No re-map, just oil change, clean K&N filter, check for fault codes. The weather has warmed up about 20 degrees around here so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I don't claim to be a tech by any stretch but it seems like the closed-loop EFI re-calibrates itself on a daily basis. (I know it does it constantly but it even varies from ride to ride.) It's getting more consistent and predictable but for a while there I never knew what it would do. Mileage on the exact same stretch of road would vary by 10-20%. One day I could not ride conservatively enough to make the average mileage readout register in the 40's. The highest I got was 37. The very next day, I rode slightly over my normal commute speed and got nearly 50 mpg. Some days it would not pop once, others it popped all day. Ever since the 6,000 mile check-up everything has settled down. Mileage is consistently in the 40's and the popping is basically non-existent.

I didn't have the stock exhaust on very long (less than two weeks) but I don't remember it popping. The mufflers wouldn't have covered it up, trust me. Heat was not an issue since it was winter time here but I do remember it being a lot leaner when it was stock. 50 mpg was easy. To me, the S1/L1 means more flow of both fuel and air. If the popping were caused by a lean condition, wouldn't it have been much worse stock?

My whole point is that you can't convince me that a loud pop every time I shift is the sign of a well tuned machine. Just because you say it's "normal" doesn't mean it's right. I know if I'm sitting at a light in my truck and a Harley guy pulls away and his bike backfires down the road, I think it sounds like a piece of crap. If it was an Ultra or Screamin Eagle, I'd actually wince. That's just not right. I was really embarrassed when it happened to me.

It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to walk up to a Victory tuner and say "Make that exhaust pop every time." He could probably do it without much of a problem. Then say "Ok, now make it go away." It seems like it should be just as easy. This is the first non-stock exhaust I have ever put on a bike and I may be making a big deal out of nothing but for the amount of trouble Victory went through to reduce NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) on the Vision, that pop from a factory authorized set-up really stands out. I'm glad it's gone but I sure wish I knew what caused it in the first place.

sjavera,

That makes 100% sense.

I've always had the feeling that my Vision was constantly reinventing itself. Always for the better but it made me wonder why it wasn't right to start with. I probably dragged it out to 6,000 miles because of two factors; 1) The weather has changed dramatically over the past 4 months. 2) I don't ride consistently for weeks at a time. If you ride in Florida or California where the weather is more consistent, and commute all the time, the bike would probably quit popping a lot sooner.

Now Victory just needs to get the word out to their dealers that there is a break-in period involved with the re-maps but it will eventually go away once it learns your riding style. This will motivate people to wrack up miles in a hurry to get it broken in faster.

Fantastic info. Thanks again!