Cycleworks exhausts [Archive] - Kiwi Biker forums

xwhatsit

27th February 2009, 22:54

Spied a Cycleworks exhaust for a CB250RS on Tardme the other week, one of the wreckers selling it. I was nearby the other day so I popped in to take a look, needs a bit of paint but looks really nice, no rust really. Two into one, yay.

Was tempted to buy it, good price, but I've realised I'll need to fab a bracket for the centre stand (centre stand leans on stock exhaust when folded up). So I'm wondering if I should bother.

Cycleworks -- any good? They were a NZ company, right? Looks solidly built, should I really pay $180 for something that old and square-looking? I'm tired of rusting stock pipes blowing out and holing. Would like to get something that'll last. I'm not in the market for a pipe for `performance' (not that pipes ever do anything for that) or looks, I'm in it for practical reasons as in not throwing money away on more stock exhausts that don't last through winter.

crash99

27th February 2009, 23:02

Hey - I had a couple of new cans made by them for my 900 Hornet - top quality, awesome sound. Mine are stainless. I recommend Cycleworks in general.

R6_kid

28th February 2009, 01:12

Take off the centre stand.

xwhatsit

28th February 2009, 01:17

Take off the centre stand.
Not a fucking chance. I had to spend a month or two without one when the original broke a weld (too much kickstarting on the stand standing on the other peg), and once you've had a centre stand there's no way you can live without it. One of those race-stand things doesn't come close.

I've ditched the chain guard, the sensible bars, the battery, the mirrors, the rev counter, the automatic decompresser; but I draw the line regarding practicality with the centre stand. Just too damned useful and time saving.

R6_kid

28th February 2009, 01:24

So buy the pipe, and deal with it when you get it? I've got an old centre stand that you could modify to fit. It's not from a CB250RS but it's from an old 250 which I no longer own. It's yours free if you want it.

twotyred

28th February 2009, 06:32

Cycleworks -- any good? They were a NZ company, right?

yes good and they have been making bike mufflers for thirty years and still are:cool:

Trudes

28th February 2009, 06:39

I have cycleworks exhausts on my Hornet, they are good, not stupidly priced, well worth the $$ I spent on them to make the bike actually be heard!

geoffm

28th February 2009, 09:18

Madness

28th February 2009, 09:34

As has been stated, Damon has been making exhausts for ever. He can't have kept going all these years by making rubbish.

pete376403

28th February 2009, 09:41

Cycleworks -- any good? They were a NZ company, right? .

And still are - Located at Taita, Lower Hutt.

I have a Cycleworks 4-into-1 pipe on my GS1100, purchased in 1993 or 4, still very good condition. It broke at the collector when it hit the expansion ramp on the interisland ferry. Damon repaired it without question and made a better type of joint while he was at it.

Thoroughly recommended

xwhatsit

28th February 2009, 10:48

Right-o, might have to pick it up then. Thanks for all the advice.

vifferman

28th February 2009, 10:56

Cycleworks -- any good?
I had a pair on the XBR500RS Mutant, and they seemed fairly solidly and well made. $180 sounds like a pretty reasonable price for a zorst.

xwhatsit

12th March 2009, 09:20

I bought it yesterday, but the cheeky bugger wouldn't let me take it home. `Too dangerous' or something. I had brought heaps of bungie ties with me and everything though!

Told me to bring a car. *Thud*.

vifferman

12th March 2009, 12:16

I bought it yesterday, but the cheeky bugger wouldn't let me take it home. `Too dangerous' or something.
Once you'd paid for it, what business was it of his? Isn't it now your property, not his?
Anyway, even if it was dangerous, couldn't you have sedated it before you lashed it to the hull of your vessel?

xwhatsit

12th March 2009, 14:50

Anyway, even if it was dangerous, couldn't you have sedated it before you lashed it to the hull of your vessel?
Well that's what I said; I also asked if I could borrow his angle-grinder to chop it into sections to fit in my backpack but he wouldn't let me near anything sharp either.

xwhatsit

18th March 2009, 16:20

Finally got it home -- many thanks to PirateJafa who stopped in on his way around the Shore to pick it up.

Got $17 spraycan of exhaust paint from Ripco and gave it a bit of a splash.

Fitted it's very snug. Could barely fit the pipes around the frame downtube. Also of worry is that because it cuts in so close to the swingarm at the back, the centre-stand scrapes it and gouges it as you go to fold it up. It has a little bracket built into the silencer on the end for hte swingarm to rest against. Not sure if it's a subtle difference between CB250RSA and CB250RSD models -- might try fitting the footpeg between the exhaust mount and the footpeg hanger instead of having it on the outside like a stock exhaust. The extra clearance might help. (edit: footpeg doesn't work, it's got flanges. Little washer did the trick)

It's hella loud, which I'm a bit pissed off about. It'll quieten up a bit when I fix the leak because I forgot to buy new exhaust gaskets, but it's still a noisy sucker. Sorry neighbours! Maybe repacking it might help, although there seems to be plenty of material there when I pulled the baffle out to have a look.

I'll have a squiz at the sparkplug after I cover a few kms. I'm wondering if it's a shade lean on the main jet, as while it seems much smoother down low, it seems a tiny bit weak up top, but it might just be my imagination. Could just be my reluctance to really wind on the throttle, as it wails like a banshee.

The other issue might be ground clearance at the front headers, but I need to compare a photo really. Hopefully not as I hop curbs a fair bit.

It's very tidy though. Fits the bike so tightly, looks very stylish. I'll miss the rear-view of the two megaphones sweeping up dominating the skinny profile, like the old GP bikes though. Nice to unclutter the LHS of the bike though.

twotyred

18th March 2009, 17:23

nice,it even looks loud!:rockon:

geoffm

18th March 2009, 20:14

Ahh, the classic slash cut Cycleworks pipe, found on 70s and 80s ratbikes all around NZ when I was a lad.
Do a plug chop for the jetting, or bring it out for a dyno day (..when my new controller turns up - the old one was :buggerd:
Geoff

xwhatsit

18th March 2009, 21:16

Well it is on a 70s/80s ratbike! :D

I'm not sure if I'm too fussed about getting it perfect at this stage, as I've nearly finished accumulating the bits to build a ~335cc engine to replace the one that's in there. Then I'll get worried about jetting and exhausts. I'll do a plug chop -- I've got a 125 main jet (stock is 122) rattling around somewhere, might be a bit too big though.

Slightly worried about the noise. Sorry Mnkyboy and Madness! :lol: Maybe I'll change my route so I don't go past so many KBers houses :)

The slashcut I think is a bit ghey. Might be possible to modify it to remove the `slash' part of it -- chop it off so it's square, just leave the little baffle-end tip sticking out the back? Dunno.

Bonez

19th March 2009, 05:18

Well it is on a 70s/80s ratbike! :D

SNIP!

Slightly worried about the noise. Sorry Mnkyboy and Madness! :lol: Maybe I'll change my route so I don't go past so many KBers houses :)

SNIP!

It'll drive you nuts on a long ride, even with ear plugs. Helps to be bit deaf. If you where'nt you soon will be. Still got one for a 500/4 hanging in shed. Had a few fitted to various bikes over the years. One option is to cut the "muffler" off, weld in a bit of pipe an stick and Dunstall replica muffler or reverse cone shorty. Looks cooler too ;).

xwhatsit

19th March 2009, 09:01

It'll drive you nuts on a long ride, even with ear plugs. Helps to be bit deaf. If you where'nt you soon will be. Still got one for a 500/4 hanging in shed. Had a few fitted to various bikes over the years. One option is to cut the "muffler" off, weld in a bit of pipe an stick and Dunstall replica muffler or reverse cone shorty. Looks cooler too ;).
I'd like to do that but the collector is a funny little cone thing -- basically I think the two pipes just exit into the muffler independently, so if I cut the muffler off I'd just have two individual pipes which wouldn't be much use.

vifferman

19th March 2009, 09:30

It's quite different to the Cycleworks zorsts fited to the XBR500RS Mutant - that had twin 'mufflers' that probably mimicked original CB250RS ones, only in black.
What's in side the 'muffler'? What you could do is cut the end square, gut the thing, and get a muffler shop to make you some new innards: some steel wool wrapped perforated core (either just one length, or two concentric lengths of different sizes), and a new end cap. The core should (if it's the right diameter) just wedge into the header end of the muffler, and you can rivet or bolt the end cap inside. (Alternatively, just do what I've done, and just 'glue' it in with black high-temp silicon - this also seals any size difference up to a few mm, and stops any vibe-induced rattles or buzzes.

Whatever you do, don't go in and ask them to design it; they'll either say, "Uh... we don't do m'cycle zorsts" or want to build the whole thing.
I got really frustrated with the FahrtSturm's bastardised mufflers: the motorcycle exhaust guy out East Tamaki or wherever wouldn't just make me some endcaps - he wanted to have the bike for a few days, cut the exhausts apart to see how they were made (despite me telling him what was inside), then make complete new innards. So I wasted a couple of hours of a work day riding out there and back.
Two car muffler places freaked out when I turned up and wouldn't even look at them.
Fuckwits.
So, in the end, I drew up what I wanted, complete with measurements, didn't say what it was for, and got Woolf Mufflers to make them. $60 all up, and exactly to spec.

xwhatsit

19th March 2009, 10:19

What's in side the 'muffler'? What you could do is cut the end square, gut the thing, and get a muffler shop to make you some new innards: some steel wool wrapped perforated core (either just one length, or two concentric lengths of different sizes), and a new end cap.
I think that's pretty much what's there. I think that's the problem! It's an old-fashioned `straight pipe' design. Then again so were the original megaphones (I think, from seeing one of the originals rusted apart copmletely) but they had a much smaller exit, and there were two very long ones with a lot of internal volume to absorb the noise. Honda said the reason for twin pipes on a single was to help exhaust exit speed (or something) and to give a good exhaust volume (as in size, not sound). Maybe they weren't just talking marketing crap.

Perhaps repacking it would help, or switching to steel wool as you said (current packing looks like fibreglass)? Be interesting to see how much louder it is if I pulled the baffle out completely.

For all I know it's not that loud, it just seems ridiculous because I'm on the bike and used to the whisper out of the stock pipes. Just that, for somebody who does most of his riding at night, I feel like a bit of a dick.

From my seating position on the bike, aside from the volume, I must admit it sounds pretty kewl. Dirtbike/motard-style thump at low RPM which turns into a wicked snarl as it hits high RPM.

I'll get this loud-pipe phase over and done with in the next few months before I finish uni, then I'll buy an old-fart's bike like a VFR or a BMW tourier.

neels

19th March 2009, 20:24

It must be a cycleworks thing to make them loud. I put a pair of their mufflers on my XJ after the end fell out of one of the factory ones, but I think the new ones are as loud as the original with no innards and no end, strangely enough I don't mind :msn-wink:

johan

19th March 2009, 20:30

I just saw this thread and I have to comment.

I can highly recommend Cycleworks. They fitted and modifed my exhaust for my Ducati 998 and did a terrific job!

They also fixed,welded some aluminium parts for my bike.

If you have seen my race bike, you know I only have one sticker one it, and that is Cycleworks.

pete376403

19th March 2009, 20:33

If the pipe you have is anything like the Cycleworks on my GS1100, I'm sure the baffle is removable and you shuld be able to repack it. Any screws/bolts into the side of it near the outlet?

Squiggles

19th March 2009, 20:45

For all I know it's not that loud

Fuck, you've heard the TL eh? makes yours sound electric, a bit of noise'll do it some good :headbang:

xwhatsit

19th March 2009, 21:44

If the pipe you have is anything like the Cycleworks on my GS1100, I'm sure the baffle is removable and you shuld be able to repack it. Any screws/bolts into the side of it near the outlet?
Yep, I pulled it out when I got it, it looks like fibreglass packing. I don't know how to tell what's good packing and what needs re-doing to be honest but it seemed to be all there.

I'll stick with it for a while and get some opinions of other people IRL; things sound different when on and off the bike.