Re: Best Exhaust Ever! Halfway Installed...
It is indeed Skooter's Jardine! I took a quick little video with my phone but for some reason it didn't record the sound.
I can still post it if you want, it has a walkaround of the exhaust. Here are some pictures in the meantime.
When I was figuring out how to mount it I took the stock exhaust off, along with the cat pipe. Mocked the Jardine in place, but found that the Honda pipe didn't work (duh!). However, it was roughly the right shape, just too short at the bend. I really wanted to use the Jardine pipe if possible because of the way the muffler mounts to it with springs. If I had used some other pipe I would have to get someone to weld little hoops onto the new pipe, making sure they were in just the right spots, and also the pipe is a slip fit into the muffler so I didn't want to risk having it loose and leaking there.
Since the honda pipe was somewhat close I was able to cut it before the bend and hook it to the existing cat pipe. However, the Jardine pipe is a good 1-2mm larger diameter than the stock stuff, so it was a little loose. I copied Jardine's method of mounting it and made some relief cuts and then clamped it onto the pipe with the T-bolt clamp they included with some high-temp RTV in there. So far it seems ok but there is a little leak from one of the relief cuts. If any problems come up I plan on getting a little step pipe like the exhaust shops use as a shim to take up that 1mm gap and make a tighter fit.
Here is what the Jardine pipe ended up as:
You can see how they had the cuts on the original ones as well to allow for clamping. In this picture my cuts were pretty small as I didn't have the cat pipe with me and didn't want to make them too large and go over the flange making leaks. When I put it on I ended up making them larger.
Something I still need to do is get a new bracket welded onto the cat pipe. It is made to be bolted to a hanger coming off the frame but I had to twist the pipe a little to properly meet up with the new pipe, and this made the bracket crooked so it won't currently bolt in. I will probably use some generic hanger temporarily then get a real bracket welded on when I replace the cat pipe with Arrow's.
To mount the muffler Jardine supplies a large padded clamp that bolts to something on the subframe of the Honda. Since we don't have that something I had to figure out how to make it work. When I took the stock exhaust off there was a little plate that bolted to the subframe underneath the passenger seat. It was just two bolt holes with a gap in between them. Since this held the stock muffler on I don't need it anymore. I took that off, cut a little off the side of the very top of the Jardine clamp so that it fit through the gap, and bent the tabs over so they lie flat over the now vacant bolt holes. Tonight I am going to do a little cutting and what are now holes on the clamp will become slots which I can bolt to the subframe using the bolts that used to hold the stock muffler on.
It is probably hard to understand what the heck I am talking about from my crappy descriptions, so here is a picture. You can see the tabs I am talking about at the furthest point back on the subframe. They aren't bolted down yet in this picture.
Here it is from the side with the clamp on, grab bars off.
And here is with grab bars on, clamp on.
You can see here where it is clamped to the cat pipe. It is a little close to the shock but it doesn't hit, and it is also not yet hung back to the right side bracket. I will need to cut up my underseat area to fit it back in here since the pipe goes more through the middle than the right side like the FZ6 one did. I will be able to keep my tools and regi/insurance paperwork under there still though. The only thing I will be losing will be my caliper lock that I never use anyway. I will have to figure out where to put the power commander once I get it though.
Yes, my garage is very very messy.:ban:
I agree though, I wish the gaps were not there, but I knew they would be going into it.
