Rusty Mufflers!

Well the first one is cookin up in the oven.

Turns out this Black Velvet stuff is totally flat, no matter how many coats I would put on. So I need some gloss black high temp paint to go over it. I went to Advance Auto Parts, and they only had flat colors there. I asked the guy there if they had gloss, and he said "What do you mean glossy high temperature paint?"

"WHAT THE HELL ELSE COULD I MEAN BUDDY?!"

Anyway, this project is almost done, but I need some glossy frickin high temp paint to finish it off! And I know it exists because I spent half the day yesterday stripping it off.

I will keep you guys informed! And please let me know if you are aware of a good quality SHINY high temp black paint I can get!

 

Maybe a hi-temp clear right over the flat black would give the shine you are after. It might look pretty cool, since it would add depth.

 

If they say it will work, then give it a go.

 

Well I cured the paint in the oven!

Luckily mom is out of town for the weekend, otherwise we never would have gotten away with this!


Bake at 400 degrees until impenetrable black finish is attained!


Dinner's ready guys!!!!!!!!


I'm back at my apartment now, so no more work for this weekend. My mission for the week is to find some gloss black paint to put over this stuff, and maybe find some new decals to put on the cans when I'm all done.

Next weekend's goal are:
1. Finish painting the mufflers
2. Get the old mufflers and common collector off without breaking anything
3. Sand blast and paint the collector
4. Put everything back together with the new pipes!

 

Well here's some good news: I emailed Cobra asking if they had some old F1 decals left over, and they said they'd mail me some for free! Awesome!!!!!!!!

Now I just need to sort out this paint issue...

 

sweet! can you post the address I would like some for my pipes as well. I can't wait to see what the black pipes look like. you've given me some ideas.

 

Yeah man it's customer.service@cobrausa.com

Dude with your flat black bike it would be easy for you to have your pipes match
Just get some of that POR-15 black velvet. It's like $15 for an 8 oz. can, but it goes a long, long, long way!

 

did you get your pipes installed? I would love to see a pic.

 

I haven't gotten anything done sice last weekend.

For one, I haven't gotten the VHT paint I want yet,
AND it's been 20 frickin degrees all week, so I can't get my bike over to my parent's garage to do any work!

Plus, next weekend I have drill (I'm in tha Army Reserve), so I can't get anything done then either!

So hopefully in two weekes it will warm up and I can get my project done :biggrin:

Oh yeah, and I got my decals from Cobra yesterday, they're not the red F1 stickers like I took off, they just say "Cobra Exhausts" on em but they were free so what the hell

 

Update!!!

I got my bike over to the parents' house and it's frickin beautiful outside, so it's time to get some work done!

Yesterday I sprayed the pipes with the VHT brake paint and it looks pretty good.

Next I'm gonna take the old exhaust system off and start fixing everything up!

Expect some awesome pictures later today :biggrin:

 

Ok I got a bunch of stuff done this weekend!

On friday I sprayed the mufflers with the VHT brake paint like I said before



I put on three coats, and it looks pretty good!



That was about all I did on Friday...


On Saturday morning I started by taking off the old mufflers, the collector, and the front headers.



Next I sandblasted the collector and headers and painted them with the same POR-15 Black Velvet that I was using before



This collector is way bigger and heavier than I thought! And it took forever to sandblast it too



Here it is after some paint



I put a coat of paint on that stuff, baked it, put on another coat, and baked it again, and that was it for that. It turned out pretty good!


Anyway, while all that paint was drying and baking, I took some other stuff apart and cleaned out a bunch of gunk from everywhere.

The exhaust gaskets were pretty fused into the engine, so it took a while to get them out as well



Anyway, I spent lots and lots of time cleaning out years worth of chain lube that had flung off all over the place.


Then today, I put the exhaust all back on the bike!



Here's one of the mufflers



Here are the nice looking headers



And here you can see the collector



I weighed the old and new mufflers out of curiosity, and the stock ones are about 7.5 lbs a piece, where the F1's are only about 3.4 lbs each. Pretty nice! I wish I could get rid of that beastly collector though. But whatever.

I took it for a spin afterwards and it seems to run pretty good. I don't think power has increased or decreased as far as I can tell, but it does sound cooler. I thought it was going to be super loud, but it's not really very much louder than stock. BUT when I downshift while braking it makes all kinds of burbly little backfire noises, which is cool.

I did notice that a clicking noise that was there before seems louder now. I posted that in a separate topic though, so hopefully someone can help me out with that.

Anyway, so far I think these mufflers are pretty sweet. They're quite a bit smaller and lighter than stock, which is good. I thought the stock pipes seemed way bigger than they needed to be.

 

They turned out nice, and it doesn't sound like you need to touch the carbs. And with them being lighter the bike is faster!

Doug

 

Yeah I like how it turned out, especially considering I only spent about 30 bucks on paint and 5 bucks on gaskets... beats the heck out of having someone powder coat everything.

I will let you guys know if that brake caliper paint burns off of the mufflers though. Hopefully it will hold up!

For the record, this is what paint I used:
POR-15 Black Velvet - Flat black, supposedly good for up to 1500 degrees F, I got it from some guy's ebay store
VHT Brake Caliper Pint - I got gloss black, part #SP-734. This stuff is supposed to go up to 900 degrees. We'll see about that. They also have clear which may have been a good idea to go over with. Oh well. I got it from Summit Racing, through Amazon.com.