Chris' 2015 CVO Road Glide Ultra "build"

[86MCLS]

Yeah yeah yeah... You don't actually "build" a late model Harley, more like throw expensive accessories at it.

I bought the CVO specifically because of the power of the 110 engine, and it already had many of the upgrades I would've done on a standard Road Glide anyway, like heated seat/grips. I bought this one used in December '15 with just over 6k miles and the previous owner had already done a bunch of upgrades like Stage 2 Boom audio, air cleaner, tune, Vance & Hines exhaust, some extra chrome doo dads, some Willie G bling.

Now, where this "build" may actually be a build, is that H-D considers the CVO a "factory upgraded" bike so many other upgrades/accessories have the disclaimer "will not fit CVO" In hindsight I should've just bought a standard RG with the 103 engine & built from there. So, there will be some MacGyvering to make stuff work!

First up will be mini apes, then converting the Tour Pak to a quick detatch. Then a few other things. Gotta get creative on the audio stuff because with these newer Harleys if you upgrade to Stage 2 Boom audio speakers & amps it requires the head unit be reflashed by the dealer only. And once you have the flash, if you disconnect the rear speakers (as in, the speakers that are in the Tour Pak that I want to make quick detatch) then the whole damn stereo goes dead! So basically you can either have the upgraded stereo, or the quick detatch, but not both. UNLESS you spend almost $2k in parts to go to speakers in the lids... And since these newer Harleys are computer controlled on a CAN bus & the head unit is essentially the brain of the entire bike, they did a good job making the stereo upgradability pretty much proprietary, and the nearly non-existent aftermarket stereo stuff out there is more expensive than the Harley stuff.

Below are a few pics from back when I bought it.

 

[1evilregal]

nice bike! I keep warning the wife that one's going to jump in the back of the truck and follow me home someday.maybe that's why she ddn't mind me picking up an suv....

 

[michmalibuman]

Nice bike, I've got a 2014 Limited with a stage II kit also would like to put a quick release trunk on it didn't know about the speakers.

 

[86MCLS]

Nice bike, I've got a 2014 Limited with a stage II kit also would like to put a quick release trunk on it didn't know about the speakers.

Well the first thing I'm going to do is unplug the rear amp & speakers to test the theory and see if it's true. Supposedly with the stock Stage I audio you can run 2 speakers no problem (duh, pretty much any RG or SG that's not an Ultra or CVO doesn't even come with a Tour Pak and has only fairing speakers). However the Stage II kit supposedly has the head unit constantly looking for at least 4 speakers so if the 2 rear ones go missing it throws a trouble code & kills the system. My initial thought is if the theory is true to "fool" the system by putting 4 ohm terminating resistors at the ends of the plugs so that it thinks there are 4 speakers when there aren't. The only caveat to this is Stage II also means a rear amplifier, and I need to tear into it to see how it's wired and if I can bypass the amp when installing the terminating resistors. I really don't want 150W running through each terminating resistor to make that work around actually work.

I bought these speakers below thinking they might be the more budget friendly answer. The guy at the parts counter told me no it won't, but I don't see why they won't work. I had to buy the speakers to get my hands on what exactly the installation instructions are to verify my thinking... The catalog lists the mandatory amp as NOT the fairing amp but rather it's the same part number of the amp that's used for both Tour Pak and saddlebag lid speakers so I had sneaking suspicion that these fairing lower speakers actually wire up to the REAR of the bike. That particular amp does not fit in the fairing or anywhere else on the front end of the bike. Also mandatory parts show a saddlebag mount kit for the amp as well as an "installation kit" that's just a couple of harnesses. SO... Idea here is to remove the amp from the bottom of my Tour Pak (essentially killing my Tour Pak speakers) and mount it in a saddlebag, then wire those lower fairing speakers. It should be grabbing amp power & audio signal from the exact same spot my Tour Pak speakers do, so it SHOULD work. While not cheap even considering I'm going to reuse an amp, it's still better than going the lid speaker route. And the system can be expanded up to 8 speakers total & all of those splits appear to come from the rear of the bike so if I REALLY want to drop coin on audio for saddlebag lid speakers as well as these lower fairing speakers in addition to the main fairing & Tour Pak speakers, then I could...