DC To Colonial Beach VA

[Blake]

So today was the inaugural ride on the ?race exhaust? I got from Rick G.  Last night I had the thing mounted around 10pm, and I started it up for all of 10 seconds.  So not much happened.  The actual mounting would have taken all of 5 minutes, but being me, I couldn?t leave things alone.  I wanted to make sure the exhaust was secure so I fabbed up a bracket for the left side exhaust and bolted that to the rear passenger footpeg bolt.  I could use one on the right side too, but since the only thing holding the left side on was the exhaust port allen bolts, I thought that to be priority number one.  

Now for a description, the front pipe comes right out the exhaust (1? pipes) and goes into a stock rear cylinder Y pipe, and from there uses 1.5? pipe and routes directly under the middle of the engine, and a muffler directs the gasses out and left right after the foot peg bracket.  As you can see from the picture, I had to take the footpegs off.  Actually, I didn?t HAVE too.  The left passenger footpeg BARELY touches the muffler when its down, and not knowing how hot the mufflers get I didn?t want to take a chance with melting them.  So for now theyre off.  The rear cylinder exhaust pipe connects to the stock Y pipe and runs the curves of the right footpeg bracket, goes directly up for a few inches, and then back, exiting through another bracket.  (seeing it in person the way the pipes flow and the exact place the muffler is at looks pretty good.)

Starting the bike up and letting it idle, or even riding at low speeds, you can tell the carbs need to be rejetted to allow for the extra flow being allowed through, and as soon as the AFR meter gets in (supposed to be sometime this week), I can get to it.  Also, Monday im going to go order some universal K&N individual pod filters and say bye bye to the dreaded airbox.  Don?t worry, im going to keep the airbox for now, so I can put everything back to stock, and a couple of other scenerios and jet, so I can share the information with the rest of you:

Stock exhaust / stock airbox
Custom made exhaust / stock airbox
Stock exhaust / k&n pods
Custom made exhaust / k&N pods..

I figure overall, and in the long run, it would be most beneficial to everyone else if I take a few hours (haha..more like days) and see if I can get the vision properly jetted, and we all make a note of it.  Just to try and help you guys out.  Anyway? now to the ride.

Around 10am this morning I headed outside eager to start the bike up, but as I was at the door I decided why not go for a ride. My dad (yup, im just a college kid at home for the summer) decided we were going to take a long trip down to colonial beach, VA (we?re near DC) so about 1.5 hours give or take.

Before we headed out though I wanted to go around the block to make sure everything was running fine.  I checked the air in my ?new? Avons (2 months ago, but maybe have 100 miles on them, bikes been sitting past month or so) and everything was fine.  Went around the block, got on the main road and wow.. I was loving it.  With the avons and the new exhaust, all I can really describe it as is floating on ice.  The bike definitely pulled a little better (needs to be rejetted) and just ran nice and smoothly the entire way up.  Didn?t seem like it was working hard to get up there, but was gliding.  I don?t know..hard to describe.  From our house we jumped on route 1 (follows next to 95 the entire way north and south for all you non easterners) and headed south where we instantly hit traffic.  About an hour later and 20 miles, we took a break.  Traffic seemed to immediately lighten up so we got back on, and headed about 10 miles more south and jumped on RT 3.  a REAL nice 4 lane divided road that was pretty empty, and ran through lots of open spaces, farms, and just pretty country.  The bike ran wonderfully the entire way.  And amazingly ran REALLY cool.  Now I have the airdam taken off (a dumb piece of plastic I thought) and also my radiator grill, and doing 60mph in 5th gear on a 85 degree day, the need literally was about 2 needle widths to the left of straight up.  Less than half! And it was running GREAT!.

After 3 we jumped onto a smaller road, 208 I believe it was, that took us to colonial beach va.  Colonial beach is a SMALL town with a beach maybe as long as 2 football fields, and is usually pretty dead except for holiday weekends.  Being it was around 2pm we stopped and got a couple of ice cream cones, looked at the local scenery in bikinis, and then headed back as it started to look like it would rain soon.

We took the same roads back, and the bike ran great all the way, we stopped around Stafford, to fuel up, and then hopped on 95 wanting to avoid the rt 1 traffic.  Now up until this point I had my ear plugs in, and with the plugs in it was a nice ride.  I decided to take them out for the ride on 95 and I can tell you Rick wasn?t lying when he told me this exhaust was LOUD.  Wow.. I was about 2 steps from getting a headache by the time I got back home.  But, the thing was, the right side muffler wasn?t too back since its behind you, but it was the left side that was driving my crazy as the exit is almost right below you.  Whenever you would accelerate youd hear everything from the left side.  Just different from the normal equal sounds of the stock exhaust.

But all in all, a nice relaxed ride, doing usually around 60-75 when there was light traffic.  

No for a little more on the bike.  As you can see the exhaust configuration, the sounds I love.  The usual sound of harley on steroids could describe it, but its more like the Arnold swartzenager of the harley sounds.  Its great.  When you accelerate full throttle you definitely can hear those two cylinders thumping and shooting to the moon.  But the best sound is when your going a good speed (usually I was going 40-60.) and completely let off the throttle and engine brake.  I kid you not when I say I swear it sounds like a nice American V8 rumble.  ;D  hehe.. that?s the only thing I can describe it as.  But all in all, a great riding day.


Thanks to rick I can now take some measurements of this exhaust and use those to build another one off of my spare engine and can keep you guys updated on that project...  Thanks a lot Rick!