After a lot of thought about making a custom exhaust system for my Ducati single, I decided that it was too awkward and expensive, so I ordered a stainless header and silencer from Keihan in England: http://www.keihan.co.uk/
This may be of interest to owners of Commandos, classic Italians or BMWs who might like stainless replacement exhausts, so I thought I would post a few pics.
Keihan were reluctant to make an entire custom system but they said that they could make a Conti silencer to my measurements, within a certain range of lengths, pipe inlet diameters, etc, which they did. The header pipe is an off-the-shelf part but needed to be re-bent as it did not match the original pipe. They said if I returned it, they would modify it to my measurements and at no extra cost. This is the result.
The silencer had to be short enough to allow access to the wheel spindle and to clear the bottom of the rear shock, and it could not foul the gearshift or the centre stand, and had to have enough ground clearance. The angle of tilt is roughly the same as the angle of inclination of the cylinder.
I still had to make an additional bracket to mount the silencer to the frame, but that is because the bracket, like the silencer itself, is for the vee twins and not the singles and my bike is slightly modified as well. It is therefore my problem, not theirs. I will make a better bracket in due course. The exhaust looks to be good quality and Keihan were obliging and good to deal with. The sound is exactly the same as the original Conti - a good, healthy bark. It hasn't been run for very long, so it will be interesting to see how the pipe colours over time.
Dave
This may be of interest to owners of Commandos, classic Italians or BMWs who might like stainless replacement exhausts, so I thought I would post a few pics.
Keihan were reluctant to make an entire custom system but they said that they could make a Conti silencer to my measurements, within a certain range of lengths, pipe inlet diameters, etc, which they did. The header pipe is an off-the-shelf part but needed to be re-bent as it did not match the original pipe. They said if I returned it, they would modify it to my measurements and at no extra cost. This is the result.
The silencer had to be short enough to allow access to the wheel spindle and to clear the bottom of the rear shock, and it could not foul the gearshift or the centre stand, and had to have enough ground clearance. The angle of tilt is roughly the same as the angle of inclination of the cylinder.
I still had to make an additional bracket to mount the silencer to the frame, but that is because the bracket, like the silencer itself, is for the vee twins and not the singles and my bike is slightly modified as well. It is therefore my problem, not theirs. I will make a better bracket in due course. The exhaust looks to be good quality and Keihan were obliging and good to deal with. The sound is exactly the same as the original Conti - a good, healthy bark. It hasn't been run for very long, so it will be interesting to see how the pipe colours over time.
Dave
