THE COWS CAME HOME!..er.I mean..THE HORSES!!!

[Blake]

HAZAA!!


so... lets start with a funny story..


doorbell rings..

i open it..  its the ups chick.

Blake:  (sees 2 packages..small box and long skinny one..gets excited.. knows small one is the baffles) "HEY!"
UPS CHICK (UPSC): "Hey"
Blake: "Cool.  Where do i sign?"
UPSC: "Right here.  I just need someone 21 or older to sign for this."
Blake: (a bit confused. why would i have to sign for baffles and turn signals? but still determined.)  "Well Im not 21, But ill sign for it.  50 bucks says they're for me.  Blake"
UPSC: "Well...  Actually i need someone 21 or older to sign for them just to make sure."
Blake: "Alright.. hold on." (i go get my dad.. he comes up.. says something about me thinking im older than i am..yadda yadda yadda..thanks.)

UPSC leaves..  we take packages in.. yup.. small box is for me..  yup.. long box is for me too..  now ill admit.. i didnt know what the long box was when i opened the door.. thought maybe was something for my dad.. maybe something for work.. (diagrams? flowcharts? i dunno)...  so if both boxes are for me..why did i have to sign?  OHHH.. yeah.. i forgot.. i sent my shotgun into the factory to be fixed (wouldnt eject the shells)..HAHA.....and it had came back..  so..basically.. i couldnt sign for my own package.. that was an interesting experience..



Anyway.


First i open the gun.. read what the wrote.. its fixed.. hurray.. yadda yadda yadda (sorry..watched seinfeld today)... then i got to the box of motorcycle parts..  i ordered 2.. 2-1/2" baffles and two 8" baffles, and then 2 red lens dual filament harley style chrome turn signal.. and another set of two turnsignals of amber (for the front, red for the back).   baffles looked a bit interesting.. you cant look down the center when the baffle holes start..  (took pictures...)

turn signals:   for only being 4.95 a pop, arent that bad..  nice chroming..it has a nice rubber seal around the lens.  (took pictures too)

Also..another thing i noticed that im very tempted to try..  i have a mr-16 halogen light bulb (self contained..bulb reflector, and glass lens) that fits pretty good..but is just slightly smaller than the lens..   cost of turn signal: 5 bucks.. cost of lightbulb: 2 bucks..  = high power cheap driving lights.  price of same thing from kurkryan(or however its spelled) 80 bucks.. savings: 70 bucks (About..about 10 bucks or so for 2 lights..)   but these i definately wanna mount to the bike.  that'll be the project for tomorrow after work.


anyway.. back to the exhaust.


so i go in the garage.. cut the exhaust pipes to their correct legnth.  just past the rear axle.  and i drill a hole on the inside to mount the baffles.   i put a coat of aluminum engine enamel on them.. dry.. and another coat..  itll work for the moment to protect against rust.. and its high heat.. so tahts a plus..  from far away it doesnt look that bad.. and when you get close.. its not all that bad either.. you can tell its painted and that its not 100% glossy like actual chrome.. but its a good compromise.


so i mount the pipes back, put in the 2-1/2" baffle.. take it around the block..  THERES MY POWER THAT WAS LOST!!  thing pulled like i was used to it...
aroound 8-10k rpms though.. had a bad gurgle.. it would accelerate.. but not as it should..  the baffles helped on the high end tones from the exhaust.. and helped performance..so i thought lets try the 8"


i go back home.. take the baffles out and put the 8" in..  take it out..  power baby (about stock power)..pulls nice.. and the high end tones are reduced A LOT.. theres still some.. but not enough to give me a headache.. its a nice mid to low grumble.. still not harley ish.. more of harley-like... still has that nice low grumble i was looking for..

still though.. would pull great up until about 8k rpms.. then would gurgle bad till 10...  hmm... it pulls great till 8...


so i got the power back.. but something was holding it back...  wouldnt let it completely stretch its legs.  while cruising around moderately (Accelerating to 6 or 7 before shifting).. i was thinking..  backpressures obviously good.. carbs are good.. doesnt smell rich anymore..  my only conclusion.. my collectors.. or more specifically.. the front.  

when i get to 8k rpms... any gear..it gets a bad gurgle... what i can describe it as past that point..   rev limiter.   basically it feels like one cylinder (the rear from my guessing) is trying to pull faster.. the front cylinder is trying to pull faster too.. however.. the faster it tries to push the gasses out..  after 8k rpm.. it gets blocked off...  wont let it go any faster..hense.. limiting the acceleration.. when i took the front cylinder off i took pictures of the collector.. it is pretty abrubt and close to the cylinder.  ill post those too.  

but for the time...these pipes will go pretty good at the time...  powers back for a moderate band.. as long as i dont go hot rodding... itll work..  BUT.. as i said.. I'm learning a LOT about the exhaust not..  im definately up for building a new set..using mandrel bent exhaust components...itll just be a while..few months i suppose..



And.. yes.. i didnt post the pictures of what happen today.....been busy today....and also.. i figured ill just wait till tomorrow when i can get a good side picture of the pipes on the bike.. and also.. with the new turn signals on it.   I'd REALLY like to post the sounds of the different baffles... so you can compare them.. but no laptop at the moment..  ill do that again in 3-5 weeks when i get it back..



Definately making progress... just little steps...





Blake

[Lucky]

Ok, so when you said "sees 2 packages..small box and long skinny one..gets excited.. knows small one is the baffles"
I thought you meant the long skinny one was the UPS chick, lol

Hey! I just realised, i'm becomming the dirty old man I always wanted to be.... ;D ;D

[Blake]

HAHAHA..  glad to see your dreams are finally coming true Lucky..  It brings a tear to my eye when i see fellow visionaries reach their goals...  ;D  I can only hope to one day turn into a "dirty old man" like you one day..



hahaha...  


Blake (all in good fun)

[Silver_Bullet]

Hey Blake,
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the length of the collector (junction where pipes come together) makes a difference in the powerband-short collector for bottom end, long collector for high end power (could have it backwards, been a long time since messing with this stuff).  If you're getting too much turbulence at higher rpm's, that could be the shape and flow coming from two pipes to one, that could cause the gurgling.  How to fix it is another thing, wish I could help there.

Mark

[Blake]

Hey,

Once i get the pictures up of the collector later today (ill try to do that first thing when i get home.. well.. after i go mail out a tank..)..  from what im feeling i can bet that thats correct- short for low end, etc.  but once you see the picture.. youll see what im saying about it being pretty abrupt... i tried to make it as "good" as possible..but this being my first time..  i had to screw up at least once to figure things out... Lucky i believe.. or was it Rick...  (sorry...memories not workin well today).. but he mentioned that if you angled the front headers right, it would be possible to have them both run down the right side.   thought i tried that before and couldnt get it to work..but it must work some how.. i think if i can use the stock headers.. it would help the flow a lot.. keeping them seperate for the factory legnth and then also the fact that at the end they would be running almost parallel would make the job of transitioning from the two headers to one pipe easier..


but i promise ill get pictures up today of the front header.  You'll understand what im saying when you see the pictures...
Also if i can pull it off today.. im going to mount the new turn signals and take pictures of those too..  Finally! RUNNING LIGHTS!




Blake

[rick_nowak]

all other things being equal, a longer junction area gives better power everywhere.  think of this in terms of traffic flow on a expressway interchange.  if the merge lanes are long and wide the traffic merges together more easily than if the lanes are narrow and the approach is abrupt.  factories do not use really long collectors for reasons of space and cost.  in this pipe size a smooth effective collector would be about 5-6" long with one end being the two incoming round pipes side by side, a transition cone 5-6" long and a round pipe at the end with the same cross-sectional area as the two incoming pipes.
also, a sort of septum(like that piece between your nostrels) should run down the collector dividing the two incoming pipes about 1/3 of the way.  i have described the ideal.  usually space considerations make the realization of the ideal hard to do in practice.  you just have to do the best you can with the space you have to work with.  both entry pipes need to be exactly the same length, no more than 1/8" difference!  that's why on a really well developed header system on a car you see the bundle of snakes.  the pipe with the shortest path to the collector will have bends in it to lengthen the pipe.