HEY GUYS!
Wanted to post an update to everyone who has been following this thread.
I had my X-Pipe, CFRs and TTS installed last week and have been able to put about 100 miles on her since the install. Here are my initial impressions:
Sound: BAD*SS!!!! When folks say there is not a muffler on the market that sounds like these..THEY ARE RIGHT! Insanely low exhaust note, nice deep and thick rumble at idle and mellow at cruising speeds. There is no "crack," or "snap" in the exhaust note at all, whether you are cruising, WOT or snapping the throttle. The note stays constantly low and throaty as hell. I won't say that these pipes are quiet but I will definitely say with the feedback I have read on here, I was expecting them to be much louder. For me, they are perfect! With the one club ride I was able to do this weekend, I had at least 6-7 people ask me what pipes I was running and where could they get them! Absolutely everyone had something great to say as to how they looked and sounded. I did find that I had to turn the radio up approx 2 bars, but that was it. These are the newest CFRs from Cary which have the new baffle design and fluted tips so I don't know how much if any different they are from the other ones.
Fit and Finish: Flawless from what I can see now. Time will tell if they hold up, but the finish on them now is awesome and all the welds look great. No problems with fitment to the bike or to the Fullsac x-pipe.
Performance: Obviously I have not dynoed the bike at this point, so all I can simply do is compare the performance between stock bike and post mods bike. Without question, I have lost noticeable torque across the RPM range. With the stock system, I had great power off the line all the way to 6th gear. While cruising in 6th, I could twist the throttle and this baby would hunker down and go. After adding the x-pipe and CFRs, I can certainly tell that "umph" is not there. I added the TTS which appears to be a great tuning device and loaded the MAP sent from Steve. The MAP absolutely made a difference as I road the bike with the mods both before and after I loaded the tune. I thought the motor was going to melt before I loaded the MAP from Steve! **On a quick side note I need to give Fullsac a plug here.... Steve's customer service is AMAZING! He took time out of his weekend to respond to a few emails I sent him asking about the VTUNE process. He was quick to respond and very helpful! It is so nice to do business with a company who really cares and takes time out for their customers.**
The heat from the right side has vastly improved as well. After loading the MAP, I could tell that some of the lost power was restored, but there is still a considerable amount of difference from the stock exhaust system. As people have stated, these CFRs are wide open. I believe that my power loses are all secondary to this design and loss of back pressure. I was hoping that this would not be the case as a few other members have expressed no real changes in their seat of the pants dyno after installing the CFRs.
With that, I have contacted Ben's V-Twin in Matthews who has a tuner who has worked with Doc and the TTS for some time. I am really hoping that we can get a great tune to match this exhaust set up in order to restore the noted losses. If not, I will be looking into adding some torque cones or some other back pressure solution. I was going to make some vtune runs to see if I could make any improvement on my own. However, I am still worried about the process and afraid to F something up! If I can get scheduled for a tune this week then I don't think I am going to mess with it, but if its going to be a while before I can get in the shop with the bike, I may take a chance and see what I can do.
I really want to be happy with the performance of this exhaust and hate to think that I have sunk a lot of money into aftermarket performance parts only to end up with a bike that performs more poorly than stock. Now don't get me wrong, the bike still runs very well and has some teeth. But, as I just stated, I don't want my bike to go down in the performance arena after sinking some decent change into her.
Overall I am pretty happy with this set up. I will be over the moon if I can restore the power lost!
If I can get some time this week, I will upload some pics and sound clips for everyone.