Modifying the modified exhaust.

So the other day it was super windy for a couple of days. I drove the baja on those days and coming home was not very fun. I had to shift down to 3rd at times just to keep up enough speed on the freeway. That's not very fun, especially when everyone is usually going 10 to 20 miles over the speed limit. I decided enough was enough. If you read my blog you know that I found some exhaust pipes off a victory motorcycle and adapted them so they would work on my baja. I was looking to quiet it down and to give the engine some back pressure in hopes that it would run stronger. What happened was I lost some power on the lower end and a lot of power at higher RPM's. The pipes ended up being really quiet though. Actually they were too quiet for my liking so I decided I needed to do some modifications. I went on some Victory forums and found that they were modifying the stock exhaust by either drilling out the inner baffle with a 1 inch hole saw or drilling 6 to 8 holes in the backing plate of the muffler. Most of them complained about messing up their controllers and needing their bikes to be re tuned because of the computer that controls them. I wasn't worried about a stupid computer so I decided to implement both of the modifications and see where that would get me.

So here you can see down the main pipe of the exhaust. This is where you drill out the baffle, It is about 18 inches down the tube. I rigged up some extensions and drilled out both pipes with a 1 inch hole saw.

I next drilled out 8 holes in the backing plate of the mufflers. I made a template so they would be uniform and not look like crap. I drilled them out to a final size of 19/64ths because that's the biggest drill that I had handy at the time. I painted the back plates with some high temp satin black paint for looks and took it for a test spin.

So here it is all the final product. They became a little bit louder but they really aren't that bad. I was surprised by the pleasant sound they have now but at the same time I'm not embarrassed to drive by my neighbors early in the morning. I was even more surprised by the performance increase I gained by doing this. It is a night and day difference. I have lots of power gains through all RPM's and I can go 85 MPH on the freeway again if I need to. I might not suggest doing this to your brand new Victory motorcycle but I highly suggest doing it to your bug that might for some reason have victory exhaust on it.

On a side note, my license plate either vibrated off my bug or was stolen. It may have been blown off by all the wind, who knows. Anyways if you see a plate on the side of the road, check to see if it's mine. They are due this month so I guess instead of registering it online, I will have to go visit my friends at the DMV. Joy, Joy for me.