Pipe replacement and jetting question

Hi All

I had my commuter bike (2K VFR) stolen over thanksgiving, and now I need to get my old '87 back on the road. And money is tight, so I'm hoping to get some advice on how to do it fairly cheaply without being stupid about it.

Here's the story- the 87 in question was modified by PO with Two Brothers 4-1 exhaust and re-jetted and tuned. It was towed a year and 1/2 ago by some idiot who apparently bounced it off the truck- which bent the front and rear fairing stays, and the right passenger peg tore a hole in the Two Brothers slip-on. (if you are wondering, the city "paid" me blue book for it- something like 1,200 bucks for a previously PRISTINE '87... yes, still bitter over that). But I got to keep it, and it has sat in my garage for over a year.

The recent theft made me REALLY regret not mothballing her properly, but oh well. I just pulled the tank to clean, tossed the gas, new fuel filter, refreshed the K&N air filter, Seafoam'd the crap out of the carbs and she's running strong! As the Seafoam smoked out, I realized the pipes are leaking at almost every seam.

What are my reasonably priced options on the exhaust? I know it is pretty finely tuned system, but I'm kinda clueless on the nuances of the exhaust and re-jetting/tuning. With the current jets, does it have to be a Two Brother's replacement pipe? Other cheaper options? If I go back to stock exhaust (I actually have a stock '87 viffer that I can pull parts from), would I need to put the original jets back in? I have them, but I don't relish taking the carbs off unless I really have to. I'm somewhat handy, but I've read the posts on cleaning carbs here and got scared. I don't want to hamstring the performance, but I don't want to spend crazy $$ either. Someplace in between is good. Any advice welcome, thanks!!!

~Chris

 

Unless the exhaust is completely shot I'd say pull it and get a welder to touch it up. There are no reasonably priced options out there unless someone is willing to part with a Yosh, a Hindle or Two Bros. Putting the stock exhaust back on will require a return to stock jetting and meger performance for sure. No way around it. You can always keep your eyes on E bay or the classifieds here for one until then.

 

I just took the carbs off a VF500 and it really isn't that difficult. (Cleaning them is really straightforward too. as long as you are methodical). The key seems to be how hard/soft your inlet rubbers are. Mine were OK and the carbs came off easy, but I have a parts bike too and the carbs on that were welded on! I ended up cutting the inlet rubbers off. You can still get the inlet rubbers if yours are hard so maybe give it a go and return the carbs to the stock jets.

 

Agreed.... With little else available, you should take it and get it fixed. As far as the slip-on is concerned it doesn't matter. The jetting was for the pipes, the slip-on doesn't matter. I have an FMF slip-on installed on my 87.

 

Beg to differ regarding the exhaust can. The amount of back pressure determined by the end can will affect your exhaust flow regardless of the pipes themselves. On a fuel injected bike it may not be all bad but on a carburated bike most certainly. I could not run my current jetting without a competition baffle in the muffler.

 

I stated that because the bike has already been jetted for the set-up. Going from slip-on to slip-on shouldn't effect the jetting enough if even at all. Most of them are going to handle sound dampening differently but have a straight pipe design.

 

Your are correct so long as the exhaust flow (baffling) resembles the original. Sound deadening may be another matter. Yosh had at least a couple of options when it came to baffling on their systems back then. The Zyclone had a restrictive tip within the can keeping both noise and power output down unlike the Comp. baffle which I have now.