Delkevic Headers - the Long Way Round

A few details I left out from last night. The Delkevic is a nice pipe, it seems to be made well, welds are clean, the insides from what I could see did not seem to have been cleaned up before welding; several strands of metal weaving from the inside strainer-like plates (sound wave dispersion ?) were sticking up and removed thru the O2 sensor holes. I doubt this will affect the airflow. The other thing is the fit - the front head pipes had to be slightly forced/bent into the ports, so the jigging may be off in manufacturing. Then, the lower rear pipes had to be wiggled/forced onto the rear headers but then slipped up firmly. The front header rings pulled the whole system snug and when all bolts were tightened, the system was rigid.
I think they're a good deal for the money, but not the highest quality in terms of fitment.
Note also that the right rear pipe (last picture previous post), sits *in* the lower portion, whereas the left pipe sits up higher - limitation of design execution. They could've made the left pipe fit into the receiver pipe better <shrug> FIDO.

With everything in place I started tightening all the header nuts evenly in two stages; 7 ft-lbs, then 9 ft-lbs (spec). Then tightened up the rear header joints. I also decided to dress up the joint bolts with nicely finished SS Allen button head bolts.


BTW, I find my local ACE hardware store has THE BEST SELECTION of metric hardware anywhere - SS, hardened, small and large diameter, allen, they buy from Hillman and it's mostly a matter of the store buying what they think will sell. Saved me a ton of time and money.

Some completed shots:


If it looks like the pipes stick out forward more than the stock ones, I would agree and when it came time to fit the fairings, they were pretty close to the pipes:

It might be a problem on a hot day sitting in traffic ... we'll see.

Finally the centerstand bumper. You probably all know what the stock one looks like, so when I fitted a new one onto the Delkevic rear bracket, the center stand was angled down - that won't do. Take those ribs offa there! and the stand rests perfectly level, off the chain and out of the way.


Caveat: Before I put the rest of the parts on, I pulled it outside and fired it up in February for the sole purpose of checking for exhaust leaks - none found made me happy!

This weekend I'll fire it up and record a sound clip to compare to the one I did prior to the upgrade. I'm running a Remus Ti can.

Hope everyone is ready to ride, I'm itchin' !

Cheers!

 

Very nice!!

Thanks for documenting it all and taking all the pics. Looks good.

 

+1
And I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Ace Hardware. The one just a couple blocks from my house has just about any kind of fastener I could want.

 

Great thread I was just wondering what the difference is between jet coating and exhaust wrap is and why you chose the coating. Looks like that will be my winter project next winter.

 

I think exhaust wrap looks "cobby" - which is OK if that's what you want, but I also think it brings along problems of water retention and metal degradation over time,
as well as taking up more room in tight spaces. I ride this bike in rainstorms and dirt roads, so wrap wasn't really on my choices list.
I did use it on my racebike several years ago, it's good stuff. I almost expect that some of the ceramic coating will get road-blasted off on the underside, <shrug>
it's not going to perceptibly change the performance.

 

Some final thoughts: I took a quick ride last night ~45ºF and it ran sounded beautiful. SOTP says the 5K feels a little stronger w/o the cat and O2's in there, but it's really meaningless w/o hard evidence, plus everything works well at 45º - Lots of cold air being shoved into the motor! Here's a completed pic:

which confirms that you actually see very little of the exhaust.

Here's a couple of before and after sound clips:
Before:
[video]http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/7csl7/media/Exhaust%20vids/IMG_0533_zps4ffbe0b0.mp4.html[/video]
After:
[video]http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/7csl7/media/Exhaust%20vids/IMG_0691_zps3c9751c4.mp4.html[/video]

The Del sounds a bit deeper and overrides the gear whine just a bit more.

I wonder how Primo is doing with his MOTAD's ?

Cheers!

 

Okay, so I'm a slacker. No pictures yet - I know - I suck! but I thought I would give an update on the Motad header install on my 2000. I wish I had documented mine like Scott but I am not all that patient. So here is the deal. Removal was a piece of cake except the bolts on the rear cylinders are a bit tricky to get to. PB Blaster the night before and everything came right off. So, I decided on the Motad to wrap just the rear section - the small pipes and the lower ones. I tend to get a hot shin in the summer months and hope this will help.

I ditched the center stand. I have a rear stand from my last Ducati and just needed to buy the correct size pin so this was a no brainer. I only really use the center stand in the garage anyway. The new header lined up better than I expected. i attached the short pipes in the back first, leaving them loose and then the fronts on the header - also loose. I used a floor jack under the header to lift until the short pipes were seated fully into the rear header pipes. I borrowed an inch lb torque wrench from my local Auto Zone and torqued all the header bolts to 9 ft lbs in a few stages. Then i tightened the header to rear pipe clamps. It all went fairly smoothly. The biggest issue I had was lining up the single bolt for my high Staintune with the rear foot peg. I had to completely loosen the foot peg bracket and tweak them all in. Not a big deal. I have not had the bike out yet as I installed a gear indicator, changed my oil and now need to reassemble the bodywork but I will say that it appears quite a bit louder with the new header. No leaks so I am a happy guy. I will try and snap a pic or two of the finished product. Sorry for lack of photos.

Primo

 

Did you get the weight of the motad pipes ?