Right, time to fit our performance exhaust. I will add before we start, that I thought there was a blow from a small hole or crack in the bottom of the back box of the current exhaust (my reason for purchasing the new exhaust sooner than intended), only to find on removal that there was one but a purposely drilled or pressed one that was supposed to be there. That's how the original one is made, which is odd. Maybe it adds to a nicer sound, who knows? But if you find one it's actually meant to be there.
The new exhaust seems decent enough, as we know it's stainless steel, so it's not going to rot away like the standard exhausts do eventually. It's not much more than the standard ones either, so it will more than pay for itself between 12-24 months. Like I mentioned before, that actual performance element of it is yet to be seen by myself.
The Lextek performance exhaust kit is the one we are going to use here. There are other back boxes, short & carbon tip etc but you would have to buy the downpipe & gasket separately. This long type included in the kit was the one I preferred anyway.
We need to remove the bottom half of the fairing to be able to get at where we need to work before we do anything. Just a screw at bottom either side and two attaching to the top fairing.
When removing the original exhaust system at the cylinder head the main down pipe is quite wide, which stops us from using our preferred ratchet on the one side of the two bolts (once more I couldn't get it in). You will have to make do with a (12 mm) spanner for that one along with tedious 2 inch turns to get it undone I'm afraid. The second bolt can be removed with our ratchet with extension attached after removing the plastic grate above it (fake radiator? It's an air cooled engine), shown in the pic (four screws each corner). For which you will need the same ratchet set up & 10mm socket. If all you have is a set of spanners, you'll need to take the side panels off fully to get at these bolts.
You will want to keep hold of these bolts as there are no new ones included in the new exhaust kit.
At the underside there's another bolt holding the mid section of the down pipe to the chassis, this of course will also need to be removed.
All that's left then is the bolt on the rear foot peg rest bolting the back box to the chassis and the exhaust system should just come away.
Included in the kit is a new gasket (a gold copper ring) which goes in first where the exhaust downpipe connects at the cylinder tead. It's always recommended that you change this at the same time and seeing as there's a new one in the kit you may as well. You can prise this out with a flat head screw driver but first...
I know it's not as quite a big deal as a head gasket for example but, if you wish to continue to use the one that's already in there then that's your decision, on your head be it! The gaskets do crush down under the torque of the bolts for a good fit to / around the actual connection and that ones been crushed to the last pipe.
HOWEVER!!! The first time around we are going to leave the 'original one in' as this is an initial test fitting and we won't crush down on our new one yet. With car back boxes I've come to realise that through experience, even if one is for a particular model, it doesn't always seem to line up exactly as we expect it would straight off the bat.
Tighten the bolts as tight as possible, even now we don't want no play / wobble to test. This time the pipe is thinner and we can get our socket on both sides.
Again we have to secure the down pipe to the chassis underside point using the same bolt as before.
Don't forget to slide the connecting jubilee clip over the down pipe, we're not going to secure this now, just inter lock the pipe & back box securley but, it's there just in case we forget later on.
Put the connecting bracket on the back box & slide it onto the downpipe then secure it to the foot peg rest.
Now checking alignment just as predicted it doesn't line up exactly as wanted!! It's a bit too close to the swing arm, up against it in fact. The swing arm needs to move up and down freely.
So we need some spacers on the footpeg rest connecting bolt, to space it slightly away from the swing arm.
If I had access to a lathe I could have turned a spacer to an exact size from steel, brass or even nylon. Can you get to use a lathe? It might be a good idea. As it is you'll have to use a collection of good old washers as a spacer here. Or the method I used.
There was no washers of a great amount in my possession, however I did have some nuts and bolts the same size thread but longer. Using these and the few washers that I had, I devised a way of spacing the back box away from the swingarm by using a series of nuts. *I'll edit a picture of this in later. Remember, the swing arm needs to move up and down freely.
Once this has been done the thing to do is disassemble, put the new gasket in and reassemble again. Done.
When tightening the jubilee clip on the exhaust the screw is quite long and again comes close to the swing arm, I would arrange it so it doesn't impede it.
A closer look at the spacer method I used:
Nut 1 locks right to tighten / close the strap. Nut 2 is tightened left towards the bracket. With each turn towards it the gap between the back box & swing arm is widened. Finish up by locking it in place by a nut on the opposite side (3). Each nut is joined by a washer.
The gap:
There's now a wide enough gap between the back box and the swing arm.
