Well, I picked up my bike from Carpenter, did 200 miles on the way home. I will post my initial impressions. I only drove my bike about a year, stock. I added Jardines, triple K&Ns, and a retune with TuneECU, .and drove that 2 years. So what the difference is from stock, I can no longer accurately say, as I am not comparing the bike to a stock bike, there is no way I can accurately say what the stocker was like, it's been too long.
Below 3000 rpm, my Jardines with Hanso's tune was definitely stronger, from 3500-4000 I'd say it was a tossup, At 5000 or 6000 it just screams, no question that they provide what's advertized.the Carpenter package definitely comes into it's own at 4000 and above.
Most of what I knew about the Carpenter package came from the .com site, a couple/few guys there had it done. My main observation is that people tend to have an emotional investment in their decisions, in other words, if people spend a lot of money on something, they cannot bring themselves to say it wasn't worth it, I think most people can understand that.
I questioned why Carpenter's dyno charts never showed anything below 3500 rpm, "someone" replied that it was hard on drivetrain/didn't matter, whatever. I suspect the reason is that there is nothing there. Like I said, I don't remember accurately what actual stock would be, but as I said, Hanso's tune and Jardines was definitely stronger below 3500 rpms. 3500-4000, I'd say it was a tossup, above 4000 and up, the Carpenter bike is crazy fast. I have to honestly say though, at 60, 70, even 80 mph, a 5th gear roll-on is rather disappointing, it has less than what I had. A couple people on the .com site said it was nice being able to just roll on, instead of downshifting, I have to assume they must have come off a stock bike. I can't say they didn't deliver what they promised, but for an inexperienced person viewing a dyno graph, it's hard to translate it to real world. All I can say, is that going from stock (on a Touring), to a good aftermarket exhaust, and a retune, is comparable to going from that, to a Carpenter package. If someone had lent me a Carpenter bike for a weekend, I'm not sure if I would spend that kind of money. But it really does pull, if you get the rpms up there. There is obviously a lot of power there, but how much more you can use in the real world, I'm not sure, I promise I will put some more miles on it and report back. And Bob Carpenter is a gentleman and a scholar, my friend who took me up there ( a diesel mechanic) was really impressed by his shop, he said a half dozen times, you could eat off his shop floor, he didn't use the bathroom, I did, you could actually eat off the bathroom floor, LOL. First class setup.
