I going to take a guess and say that no one in this thread has ever owned a Harley. You want to talk about making strange noises? Drove me nuts. To lessen the amount of noise that they would make is to 1. use a higher octane fuel. Harley owners call it pinging. It is actually detenation. Not sure what causes it, think it has something to do with unburnt fuel. the higher octane helps a lot. 2. Use conventional oil. If I put synthetic oil in my old Street Glide the ticking was something unbearable. Just as soon as I changed over to conventional, the ticking subsided. Never went away but the engine is a bit closer to you on a bike compared to a truck.
If the higher octane fuel is the fix, really nothing you can do about it that I know of. Just keep buying the more expensive gas.