Freer breathing and MOAR NOIZ!

As promised, here is the Friday post I mentioned last time. It is the install of the new exhaust system I  talked about a few weeks ago. My parts came in that allowed me to fit the Cobra F1 exhaust system to the bike properly so I made it out to the garage and got to wrenching. Read on to see how it went.

First thing I have to do to get the new cans on is remove the belly pan. Ever since I closed it in to make it a race belly pan, I always seem to bring back a bunch of souvenirs from the track. There was a little extra this time around thanks to my out-of-gas, off track excursion. Three bolts and away it goes for a good cleaning. While I was under there I checked the bottom of the bike for any oil leaks or other signs of distress. All was good so I moved on to the next step.

I wanted a before shot to illustrate some of the change and the differences between the Cobra exhaust and the OEM system. I showed the profile pics in my other post about the exhaust. Here you can see from the rear end of the bike how large and clunky the stock mufflers are. You can also see how the tires picked up a good chunk of the California desert when I rolled off track while they were hot from some good laps. I'll have to clean the bike before my next track day in a week and a half. 

Here are the parts I ordered. They are the header-to-muffler exhaust gaskets that slip over the header pipe and under the end of the slip on mufflers. I was tempted to try and reuse the old ones, but after a few thousand miles of use they weren't coming out without a fight and would have ended up a shredded mess anyway. Now I can put the old mufflers back on whenever I want if I can't get the bike to run correctly with the new freer flowing exhaust system. I may take the OEM system with me to the track just in case the bike doesn't run right when out on the track so I don't lose the day to a poorly tuned bike.

Comparing the two slip-on ends of the mufflers, you can see some of the areas where the OEM exhaust system gets its extra weight from. Just at the end of the stock muffler you can see extra steel built up around the tip. You can also see the the stock muffler starts to flare out much sooner in the bend than the Cobra system. The wall thickness of the two mufflers is also a bit thinner on the Cobra exhaust. I reused the stock header clamps to mount the new exhaust. The gaskets fit the new system just fine and the clamps secured it firmly in place. The Cobra exhaust fit right up with no issues and ended up looking pretty sweet.

The new rear end looks a bit more trim than the stock exhaust. It may be just these two pics, but the Cobra headers flare outward just a tiny bit less than the stock system. I talked before about how much less they weigh as compared to the stockers. With the way the bike carries the mufflers up around the midline of the bike, taking off a few pounds from this area will help the side-to-side transitions from tight corners and chicanes. 

I fired up the bike and ran it with the new exhaust system. While it doesn't have the ear splitting sound of a MotoGP bike, it does sound meaner and a bit more aggressive than the old stock system. Running it in my garage, the throttle response seemed normal without any hesitations or flatspots in the power band. I'll have to see how she runs out on the track to make sure that I don't run the bike lean from the extra flow. Usually when running an aftermarket exhaust you have to add more fuel to the fuel-air mixture in the form of needle adjustments or bigger jets. I'm hoping that the changes I have to make are minimal if any. I tried to upload a sound clip, but my computer wasn't haven't any of it.

I have a bunch of work to go through this weekend if I'm going to have the bike and trailer ready for my track day on the 25th. I have one more post I'm writing up before I get out to the track, but with Turkey day coming soon it might sit for a while. Have a good holiday readers and get out and ride!

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