My bad.. loadmaster........are you coming off a water cooled bike..??

thanks for the welcomes and the feedback guys, flashback, you hit it right on the head, what i have is a hammering which is loud even at highway speed, and yes im coming off a suz c-50, i dont think its a good idea to put in synthetic, with only 400 mi. but i will swap out the oil, supposed to do it at 600 mi. anyway. i think the best course of action is to do nothing right now, get a couple hundred more miles on the clock, if nothing improves, then its back to the dealer

First off, welcome!

Secondly, I came off of a liquid cooled Honda and I could not believe how loud my Roadie sounded in comparison. I equated it to the rythmic chug, chug of a washing machine on its last leg.

The loudest your bike will ever sound is when it is new with the stock pipes on it and the Yamaha oil in it.

Since I put on slightly louder pipes and went to 20/50 synthetic oil it sounds much better. The oil helps quiet down the engine and the pipes take your focus off the engine and on to the sound of the exhaust pulse.

But, if you think there is a problem, stay on that dealer!

When I first got the stock bike the sound of the tappets drove me crazy.

I got the V&H pipes rejetted put syn oil in her and got the ipod on with the speakers in the helmet.

Now all I can hear is the thud of the pipes.... and its great

I have a 07 Roadie. took it into the dealership at 1,000 miles complaining of engine knock noises. Dealer ran the bike up and down the street numerous time then stated" Sounds perfect to me" "If it don't sound like a old washing machine it ain't working right "

I never asked again. Now the noise feels just like home...

38 years in the saddle on just about every type of engine there is and, after 14 months on a 99 R, I'm surprised at just how quite the Roadie is. When you consider what's going on between your legs, it's amazing there isn't a lot more racket coming from the engine; pushrods, huge pistons, big gears, big valves..big everything!!!!!!!!!!

Personally I love it. Part of the appeal of 'nostalgia engineering' is the acknowledgement that real engines make noise and sometimes lots of it. A friend of mine was making one-off go-faster bits for some Roadstar drag-racer guy in the US when they first came out and before anyone really got into the aftermarket business. At the time I had a VN1500 Classic and we got into an inevitable comparison discussion. From his perspective the Roadie was and is a superbly engineered, if not over-engineered, motorcycle and he had nothing but praise for it.

Loadmaster, it's a big-arsed engine that will make a racket. In the words of some Harley marketing blurb I read years ago (though I've never actually owned one) in defence of the racket that eminated from pre-evolution shovel engines, he said that the 'mechanical turbulence' that harley engines produced was part of the appeal for owners. Of couse, in that case it could have just been dodgey design, sloppy tolerances and ordinary manufacturing standards.

As for the Roadie and I...long live 'mechanical turbulence'

Reperio

I've owned a slew of bikes; water cooled, air cooled , twins, triples, in line fours, flat fours, and of course singles! They all make noise.Here's where I think we have a problem with "bike noise". Feel free to correct me. When we fire up our trucks (you guys do drive trucks, right?) or your better half's car, they're quite. If there is some weird noise coming out from under the hood, some things wrong. Plain and simple! So when we fire up our bikes (that we have more $$ invested in than our trucks!) and it makes some off the wall noise, we instinctively wonder whats wrong. Imagine this: there's a very likely chance NOTHING is wrong with your scoot. We can thank the automotive industry for making vehicles so quite, that it makes us question our poor bike mechanical integrity, sometimes to death. Just a thought.....BB

I think you may be onto something BB----Charlie

Hi folks, Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, I found the source of most of the noise my 04 Silverado was making. Turns out to be the crash bars were vibrating against the frame at the top. [Stock bars] the top part of the bars is a "V" and there was nothing to keep it from "Knocking" when I accelerated. So I removed the bars, cut and slipped a piece of rubber over the frame where the "V" fits and it was magic! Almost all the knocking i was hearing is gone. Even seems to ride smoother with less vibes!
Happy Riding everyone!

There is supposed to be a piece of rubber in there. It comes with the Yami big bars. If that's what you have.