Complete Exhaust Replacement - 6th Gen - IN PROGRESS

Well things are finally coming together for my exhaust mods after about 8 months of searching, saving, and buying. I'm going to be doing a full exhaust replacement for my 6th gen to free up some power and that sweet V4 sound. I'm hoping that this will serve as a guide for many searching for information, how to, etc. Pictures and updates will be added once the project gets underway next week. I've got some normal maintenance that I'll be doing in the process that I'll throw in here as well.

It should be noted that I do experience the harsh on/off throttle response at low RPM like most people complain about. I also have the surging issues between 4000-6000 RPM when trying to hold a steady speed and my VTEC transition is quite harsh in the lower gears. We will see what all of these mods do for these issues when it is all said and done. I will be posting pre-mod and post mod dyno graphs as well. Hopefully I will have a pre-mod, pre-tune, and post-tune graph just to see what effect the Power Commander will do for us.

Here is the list of stuff that will be going on:

Anyone doing more than a slip on would be crazy to not replace the headers on the 6th gen to get rid of the cat, especially as cheap as headers are for the VFR. I chose to go with a set of used 1998 VFR headers that I scored off of EBay for $185 shipped to my door. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them before I sent them off to be ceramic coated. I was able to get them ceramic coated inside and out for $140. Since the stock exhaust from the 5th gen isn't stainless steel this should keep them from rusting out. Maybe I should went for the Delkevics... but time will tell and I will probably be happy with the EBay ones.



Ah, the infamous Laser Xtreme exhaust. I've been hooked on it since day one and was kinda thinking about going with Staintunes after the big stink that Toe had to go through over his. I scored the last set in the USA from Annitori Distributing for $714 to my door. They have assured me that if there are any problems with them out of the box I can return them with no questions asked so long as they are not damaged from me. They aren't too far from me and have a pretty good reputation. I'm crossing my fingers that all is well and they just slide right on.



New exhaust gaskets are in order for the project. I ordered 6 of the crush gaskets for the headers in case I screw a few of them up in fitting them. I'd hate to have to stop the project for a $2 part. Thanks for the recommendation here NCB. For reference, the copper crush gaskets are the same for all 98-09 VFR's. I also ordered new gaskets for the slipjoints on the rear downpipes and for the slipjoint where the collector meets the midpipe. Turns out I didn't need the gasket for the collector/midpipe slipjoint and could have save $20 here. I ordered them from my local Honda dealer for $65.

The PAIR valves seem to be one of the reasons for surging and most have eliminated them for this reason, weight savings, and free space on the bike. I'm doing it for all of the above. I ordered my PAIR valve block-off's from A&A Performance for $50 to my door. They are of great quality and are almost everything you need to remove the PAIR valves from your bike. You'll also have to find a way to plug the hole in the airbox after removing the PAIR system. I'll figure this out in the process of doing things.



In order to get the most out of all of this I have a Power Commander III. I contemplated the PC 5 but decided to just go with the PC 3. I won't be using all the extra stuff the 5 offers. Indianapolis Ducati gave me a package deal with this for dyno time. I'm getting an extra dyno run before mods to see where I sit and then a tune once I'm all done. Total for the PC3 and dyno was $525.



O2 eliminators are necessary since the catalytic converter is now gone. I went the DIY way with 330ohm 1/4W resistors from Radio Shack. $1 gets me a 5 pack instead of the $40 for the O2 eliminators from DynoJet that are the same thing.

(PIC PLACEHOLDER FOR LATER)

Finally I will be wrapping the exhaust from the midpipe to the mufflers. I ordered a kit from Summit Racing that has two 50' rolls of 2" wrap, a bunch of ties, and header paint for $90 to my door. This was cheaper than buying the ties and wrap individually, and I'm sure to find a use for the header paint for something else. I don't like the shiny look of things on my black bike and will be blacking almost everything out over time on the VFR so the wrap is in black.



Toe Cutter has had some issues with his Lasers getting hot and melting his boots. Since he is such a cool guy, He's fabbed up a pair of heatshields and one of them is on the way to my door. A little reflective heat tape and it should mount right up. Toe fabbed and shipped for free since he's a great guy. I insisted on paying and he's insisting on repaying him by buying him a beer. I owe a lot of you northern Cali guys beers so I'm gonna have to get my ass out there to repay you all.



While I'm at it, I will be throwing some fresh oil in and a new filter. I will also be pulling the snorkel and flapper out of the airbox, getting rid of the evap system, and putting new chain and sprockets on. At 21k miles or so, my stock chain is done for and sprockets are getting close. NorCalBoy soild me his slightly used (under 1k miles) DID chain, Vortex F5 rear sprocket, and steel front sprocket for $120 to my door. Those are new enough for me and should keep me going for a while.

If time allows, I'm also going to be putting new fluid in my forks. As far as I know, it is still the original fluid in there from when the bike came off the showroom floor. I've got new sealing washers for the bottom of the forks and I'm hoping to reuse my seals/wipers for the year. I was hoping to do something to the forks this year but it isn't going to happen. I don't have the loot to do so and I haven't decided if I want to go the Racetech direction, Traxxion Dynamics direction, or RC-51 direction either. Something tells me I will have Ohlins forks by the time it is all said and done.



If all goes well and as planned, I won't have but a few bucks in misc. parts and cleaners over the mod process as I think I have everything covered. The grand total for exhaust mods covered here comes out to $1765 and is a few hundred cheaper that what I was figuring....which is nice.


ADDITIONAL PURCHASES: Simple green, carb cleaner, misc assortment of vacuum plugs, 2" hose clamp, 6' of 1/8th" vacuum line. Simple green and carb cleaner were to help clean the bike up. Vacuum plugs were needed to plug one of the vents in the tank and the hole in the airbox for the pair valves. The hose clamp is to attach the stop for the center stand on the old headers.

I've also had to order a set of used header downpipes for 98/99 VFR stock headers. The ones that came with my headers were apparently from a 6th gen despite the headers clearly being from a 5th gen. This has slowed down the install as there is very little left that I can do. The Lasers cannot go on till the headers are fully in place, I can't change the oil till I can fire the engine up and get it warm, and I can't sync the starter valves until I can run the engine and have everything in place. I will update with more tomorrow after I run a vent for the tank, install the O2 eliminators, and plug the holes in the airbox necessary.

 

Well things are finally underway. I started off the morning by stopping at the dyno to get a pre-mod chart of where I stand. We threw her on the dyno and I was pulling just under 96HP. They said that their dyno tends to run about 3HP low but I agree with the 96HP I'm getting.

PLACEHOLDER FOR DYNO GRAPH LATER

Once we got things underway it started off pretty smooth. All the bodywork came off and then the stock exhaust. The clamp bolts broke where the rear downpipes meet the rest of the headers but I'm not concerned. This is kinda common on exhaust bolts and I've got new ones for the 98 headers anyway. Two of the front studs also came out when taking the old headers off but thats ok as they will go right back in.

Once everything came off I decided to do some cleaning. I kinda neglected the cleaning towards the end of last year and last weekend I put 100 miles on in some serious rain with 20MPH winds. The bike wasn't pretty and things were really nasty around the swingarm area. I went ahead and took care of the rear for now and will take care of the front later. I already had the old headers off when I decided to clean things up and didn't want things getting into the engine. The rear was more protected from overspray so a few rags stuffed in the engine took care of all that. Two hours of simple green later, the rear is nice and shiny again. The front will be taken care of after I can bake the coating on the headers. They have to fire up to cure the coating before they can withstand any cleaners or chemicals. Once the exhaust is done and its baked, I'll let things cool down so that the bike looks like I care about it.

The new headers started going on without a hitch. Rear downpipes were a little difficult to get things lined up due space restraints but we managed. We then got the front on and tightened things down to the engine.





This is where I've ran into my first problem. The clamps do not tighten down on the rear downpipes. There is about 2mm-3mm of space that it doesn't clamp down on even when the clamp is tightened all the way. What I think has happened here is that I got screwed. The rear downpipes appear to be identical to the 6th gen rear downpipes. I think I got sold a set of 98 headers with 6th gen downpipes. I'm still trying to track this information down and see what I can do about it.



This is where I stand at the moment. I got disappointed last night after seeing this and called it quits for the night. I've managed to track down a couple of sets of downpipes that should work but none are local. I'm trying to find a set local that I can pick up today and am going to check some cycle salvage yards to see what I can do. I'm kinda in a bind as I have to wait for the headers to be on all of the way before I continue with the exhaust. I will still go ahead later and get all the other mods done in the process so that once I procure the correct downpipes I can finish up quickly. I guess this just gives me more time to clean everything up and get my forks done as well.

Pair valve removal is completed now as well. I removed the entire pair system including hoses, solenoid, and reed valves then used the block off plates.

Pic of before removing the hoses and solenoid:



Pic of after removing the hoses and solenoid:



Front of engine before the block off plate:



Front of engine after the block off plate:



Rear of engine before removing the block off plate:



Rear of engine after removing the block off plate:



Looks like there is a little more space all around under the tank. The instructions by A&A say to remove the oil coiler but I didn't have to. I just had to unmount the horn so that I had room to turn a ratchet in there. Seemed a lot easier this way.

Power Commander is now installed and the evap can is gone as well.

The Power Commander install was a snap, literally. All you have to do is route the cable where you want it to go and plug it in between the connector to the throttle body. Then you connect the ground wire directly to the battery and secure the Power Commander via the supplied velcro.

In place:



Routing and ground cable:



Connector:



The evap can was pretty easy to remove as well. There are only two bolts holding it on and you can remove those to drop it. There are three lines going to the evap can. One line goes to the gas tank and one goes to the evap solenoid. I plugged the one going to the tank as there is another available for venting it. Another just vents to open air and can be removed as well. The third goes to the evap solenoid. I chose to remove the solenoid as well so I plugged the line coming off the throttle body and removed the rest. Lots and lots of space is now free for oil changes!

Before removing:



Before removing:



After removing:



After removing:



I will be posting some more pics in here soon. I didn't have a chance to get them all off my friends camera and need him to email them to me. I've got the exhaust installed and all looks well.

Airbox has been modded with the flapper and snorkel removed and I plugged the hole where the flapper solenoid was so that I don't have air exiting the box. On the rear of it is the vacuum plug I used for where the PAIR valve hose used to connect. And yes, I have my first carbon fiber bling bling on my bike now :-D.

(RESERVED FOR PIC OF AIRBOX)

(RESERVED FOR PIC OF AIRBOX)

I got the rear headers installed then procedded to install the Lasers. They went on super fast but I do have some minor alignment issues to address I don't have any obscure problems like Toe had with his, just don't think I have it all sitting at the proper angles and such.

(RESERVED FOR PIC OF EXHAUST)

(RESERVED FOR PIC OF EXHAUST)

(RESERVED FOR PIC OF EXHAUST)

(RESERVED FOR PIC OF EXHAUST)

I went and had my new chain and sprockets put on that I received from NCB. Then brought her back to my friends to get the oil changed and sync the starter valves. I forgot to take some pictures of the starter valves but they were way out of sync with cylinder 1 being about 20 cm different on the guage from cylinder 4 and the other two were somewhere in between. I adjusted cylinders 2 and 3 first as they were closest and easy to do. I had to readjust the idle a few times as things went along. I should not here that I noticed the engine sounded like a kid with asthma from the time I started and there was no change at this point. I started adjusting cylinder 1 and once I got within about 5 cm difference of cylinder 4, the engine started purring like a kitten. The best I could get everything was within 2mm of each other and I think that is quite well compared to where I started. With as far off as things were and my bike only having 22.5k miles on it, I wonder why Honda hasn't listed this as part of the maintenance schedule.

After this I put everything back together and started to pack up for home. Still have some work to complete and will update here as I complete things.

 

Reserved for work to be completed..

 

Initial thoughts after most is said and done:

After waiting for several days, my new rear pipes finally showed up yesterday morning. I scrambled to get as much as I could get done yesterday as I could so that I could get home. I still have a little bit of tweaking to do to the new pipes, wrap them, put on a few heatshields, and get it dyno'd.

I can't believe what a difference all of this has made to the bike. It is like an entirely new engine dropped in the bike. Before I synched the starter valves I even noticed a difference. My vtec transition is basically gone, there is no more surging, and the abrupt on/off throttle response when slightly twisting the throttle is very very smooth. At this point I am still running the zero map that comes with the power commander. Since I'm still running the zero map, I have a feeling that much of these results could be achieved by simply removing the pair valves, evap canister, and O2 sensors. All of that can be done for under 30 bucks.

I put about 110 miles on the bike since I finished things up and am going to let the exhaust settle in a little bit more before I go and tweak things some more. Once I get everything buttoned up, I'm gonna get my dyno appointment rescheduled.

 

Progress Tease!!!

 

Reserved for praise and a thank you...

 

:drool: sounds like a righteous project man :thumbsup:

 

There would also be a Penske 8970 going on had I done my taxes sooner. Unfortunately I was a tad lazy this year and it popped on EBay before I was ready.

I'm also going to be synchronizing the starter valves in this process too.

 

preemptive congratulatory post!
also, sub'd

 

Updated post with pictures and some progess. Not so much of a tease anymore

 

Freaking Meatloaf, Now I know why you cannot affort to pay me..................

 

Heh, I've been slowly putting money aside for this project and refused to touch it for anything except this project. Even other parts for the bike weren't allowed to dip into this fund.

 

What about forgetting the whole downpipe/muffler/lazer exhaust and just putting mufflers down there where the headers end?? Since that Lazer exhaust is a collectors item now, you can sell it and have it pay for all this work you're doing

Looks great so far man, hopefully you get the exhaust issue sorted soon!

 

You have no idea how much I would like to just run straight pipes on this thing. I fired it up just for a minute last night with the mufflers off of it and it sounded so mean coming straight out of the cat. It really wasn't loud either. It just had that small block V8 sound that needed a mild touch of refinement to be a sound of pure bliss. Probably a little bit of tuning would have taken the harshness out of it.

 

Looks great, can't wait to see and hear it in person!

 

Pair valves are done now. Pictures have been posted.

 

Great pics, thanks!

 

Super deadly! :hump: *tip of the hat*

 

Evap can is gone and the Power Commander is in place. Still have lots to do but I would say I'm halfway done with parts and such. I've got some parts on the way for the header problem and am hoping that will take care of my problems. I'd really like to see someone shoot me a PM concerning 5th gen headers on a 6th gen that knows a little bit. Doesn't look like I will get a dyno tune this week unless things ship fast.

 

mic the diameter of your old downtubes and your new ones.......also compare the exhaust gaskets.....