Thinking about exhaust options

Paul Bryant said:

It looks like my pipes don't have heat shields but they do, they take the exact shape of the header.

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That is pretty slick Paul. Well Done.

Like they have said, the Viking exhaust has a good rumble but doesn't really thunder unless you really get on it. Keep in mind with a Rocket you really need to be out on the road to get on it hard because in town a short burst can put you in high double digit speeds.

They do give out some heat but it isn't like if your leg touches the piles you are going to insta-burn unless you take off the heat shields and wear shorts. I have a few thousand miles on the pipes so far and have never burned myself and they still look great.

The pipes do drop a lot of weight, I don't remember off of the top of my head but I think it is around 25lbs.

Here is my bike, the heat shield runs from the top of the pipes to pretty far back. Because the heat shields wrap the pipes half way, they don't look obvious. The little bumps on the pipes you can see are the screws which hold the shields.

I used my Viking exhaust to set a land speed record, race proven equipment. I have emailed and talked to Paul on the phone a couple of times and he is great to deal with. I 100% vouch for his product.

3VEL 1 said:

I've received the latest instructions from Peter for the Meerkat exhaust mod. I love that this keeps the stock look, and I feel like I could do the mod myself, as I am a competent TIG welder and fabricator. The only thing I don't like about this one is the fact that I am aware of the extra 25 pounds I would still be carrying around. Keep in mind that this is just a mental thing for me. I'm not a racer, and I doubt I would ever feel a performance difference by reducing the weight. I lie awake at night thinking about meaningless things sometimes.

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I debated on the weight factor as well, as on previous sport bikes the exhaust weight was a huge factor. I decided it's not that big a factor on this bike and the looks of the stock exhaust won out over other alternatives. I wasn't big on the meerkat method however. Not particularly free flowing for the work required (lots of contortions around the cuttouts).

After some experimenting, I ended up cutting the box in half down the center. Removed the CAT (weight) and a lot on internal baffling, but kept the nice flow path and radiused inlet and outlet pipes. Then I welded it back together. A little louder (2-3 db), much deeper, and a couple pounds lighter. Not sure which method is easier, but I'm glad I took this path.

Still LOVE the Viking full system, but it costs a bit more than I want to spend on a system that I'm sure works well, sounds better, but still doesn't look as good as stock (to my eye).

bcar00 said:

I debated on the weight factor as well, as on previous sport bikes the exhaust weight was a huge factor. I decided it's not that big a factor on this bike and the looks of the stock exhaust won out over other alternatives. I wasn't big on the meerkat method however. Not particularly free flowing for the work required (lots of contortions around the cuttouts).

After some experimenting, I ended up cutting the box in half down the center. Removed the CAT (weight) and a lot on internal baffling, but kept the nice flow path and radiused inlet and outlet pipes. Then I welded it back together. A little louder (2-3 db), much deeper, and a couple pounds lighter. Not sure which method is easier, but I'm glad I took this path.

Still LOVE the Viking full system, but it costs a bit more than I want to spend on a system that I'm sure works well, sounds better, but still doesn't look as good as stock (to my eye).

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Any chance you have video and/or photos of the process?

I'm wrestling with the same decision. Had a Termi on my Xdiavel but it needed it. The Rocket stock exhaust looks so good and the bike has so much power, I'm just not sure it needs replacing. I haven't taken delivery yet so I need to hear the sound of the stock exhaust to be fair.

Journeyman said:

Any chance you have video and/or photos of the process?

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Sorry, I'm horrible at pics and videos. I get mentally absorbed in the process and completely forget.

I started off cutting a 4x4in square out of the bottom, but wasn't able to get everything out that way. Took a couple pics then but no videos and they ended up being irrelevant. welded the square piece back on, installed it and decided it wasn't enough. Slightly louder and no better.

At that point I put the stock back on and just decided to cut the modified one in half as a last ditch effort. Didn't really expect better results, but I had nothing to lose. should have done this from the start.

Just cut in half on a band saw from the front to the back at a point where you're not disturbing the brackets. You cut right through the cat. Once it's two pieces, you have to do a couple passes with a cuttoff wheel on a grinder to get to the base of the cat on each side. There's a lot of bracing at the inlet side of the cat that can be removed to open up the path between the inlet and right side outlet tubes. I probably spent more time removing cat bracing than I needed to, but again, at this point this was more for grins and giggles than any expected result. Welding back together was easy. I was worried that if I didn't get the welding of the two halves perfect I wouldn't be able to get it back on the bike, but even with a little displacement, it went back on fine.

Not sure what part of this improved the sound so much over the 4in cutout method, but it did. Would it be easier or harder than Meerkat? No idea. Better sound? No idea. Just something about the Meerkat method (Horrible flow transitions and heavy piece of cat material left in place) that just bothers my engineer brain. So take all of this with a huge grain of salt, but I do think anyone with a band saw, welder and a bag of cutoff wheels can do this.

Definitely use good PPE (respirator and goggles) when going at the cat material. Of course the resulting bike is for closed course use only