hmurphy
12th July 2009, 19:10
I have been asked by one or two people how I modified my pipe on the FXR1fiddy. The photos are below. Figured the bike is common in buckets so others might want to give this a go. There are a few benefits from doing it.
Basically if you want to do EXACTLY what I did, follow these steps:
Take pipe off bike. Note from the pictures the around-about measurements from where I have welded it (note I made this by eye so no exact measurements were taken).
Cut the header pipe an inch longer than where you measured just to be safe.
Cut the mount on the muffler off keeping the cut as CLOSE as you can to the muffler. This is because you are going to be using this mount again! Cut each end off the muffler AT THE ORIGINAL WELDS!! It is thin material so it shouldn't take you long at all. Use a really thin disc on a grinder for each of these steps.
Take a look inside the muffler and you will see how freakin' restrictive the thing is!! From here I just shortened each end of the muffler by about an inch and a half because any further on each end and I would have been cutting into the packing.
Weld the ends up then slide the muffler on to the header pipe and choose the horizontal angle you like (I may have taken some length of the cone area on the muffler, I am not too sure! I just made sure it was as short as possible). Keep the muffler as close as you can to the bike for clearance and also for the mount that will be put on which is quite short (see photo for the mount).
One thing I could recommend here would be to not point the end of the muffler straight at the rear tyre. I haven't had a problem with it yet on mine, and I like to joke that it warms the LHS of my tyre but really it's probably not too smart.
Once you have tack welded the pipe while on the bike in the position you desire, take the mount you cut off earlier and line that up with the bellypan fairing mount (I am pretty sure that is what I have used) with the bolt you will be using for it. Tack weld that onto the muffler.
Take the pipe off and weld her up, give her a paint and she's good to go!!
I used a TIG welder for all of it, but I am sure a MIG could do it I suppose. Ideal work for a TIG really. I highly doubt ARC could do it!! The bike sounds a little bit gruntier but still quiet in comparison to a lot of the other buckets. It also backfires under heavy engine braking now. It apparently isn't harmful and I am not down on power or anything now. I reckon it makes the bike sound meaty as!
I mostly did this for the look and also for crashing - I don't want to bust the thing when it hits the ground! You can see scratches are still on it from previous crashes when it was still mounted to the side of the bike. I also need to clean off the surface rust and give it a proper paint job.
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/4083/dscn2608.jpg
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3287/dscn2610x.jpg
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7915/dscn2611a.jpg
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/3003/dscn2612.jpg
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/6051/dscn2613.jpg
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/2219/dscn2614u.jpg
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4240/dscn2615q.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5759/dscn2616e.jpg
Basically if you want to do EXACTLY what I did, follow these steps:
Take pipe off bike. Note from the pictures the around-about measurements from where I have welded it (note I made this by eye so no exact measurements were taken).
Cut the header pipe an inch longer than where you measured just to be safe.
Cut the mount on the muffler off keeping the cut as CLOSE as you can to the muffler. This is because you are going to be using this mount again! Cut each end off the muffler AT THE ORIGINAL WELDS!! It is thin material so it shouldn't take you long at all. Use a really thin disc on a grinder for each of these steps.
Take a look inside the muffler and you will see how freakin' restrictive the thing is!! From here I just shortened each end of the muffler by about an inch and a half because any further on each end and I would have been cutting into the packing.
Weld the ends up then slide the muffler on to the header pipe and choose the horizontal angle you like (I may have taken some length of the cone area on the muffler, I am not too sure! I just made sure it was as short as possible). Keep the muffler as close as you can to the bike for clearance and also for the mount that will be put on which is quite short (see photo for the mount).
One thing I could recommend here would be to not point the end of the muffler straight at the rear tyre. I haven't had a problem with it yet on mine, and I like to joke that it warms the LHS of my tyre but really it's probably not too smart.
Once you have tack welded the pipe while on the bike in the position you desire, take the mount you cut off earlier and line that up with the bellypan fairing mount (I am pretty sure that is what I have used) with the bolt you will be using for it. Tack weld that onto the muffler.
Take the pipe off and weld her up, give her a paint and she's good to go!!
I used a TIG welder for all of it, but I am sure a MIG could do it I suppose. Ideal work for a TIG really. I highly doubt ARC could do it!! The bike sounds a little bit gruntier but still quiet in comparison to a lot of the other buckets. It also backfires under heavy engine braking now. It apparently isn't harmful and I am not down on power or anything now. I reckon it makes the bike sound meaty as!
I mostly did this for the look and also for crashing - I don't want to bust the thing when it hits the ground! You can see scratches are still on it from previous crashes when it was still mounted to the side of the bike. I also need to clean off the surface rust and give it a proper paint job.
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/4083/dscn2608.jpg
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3287/dscn2610x.jpg
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7915/dscn2611a.jpg
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/3003/dscn2612.jpg
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/6051/dscn2613.jpg
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/2219/dscn2614u.jpg
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4240/dscn2615q.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5759/dscn2616e.jpg