Tell Me I'm Still OK in Production Please! But Tell Me the Truth :-)

[MiltonP]

I just called my tuner to check on the progress of derestricting my exhaust cans and he said they are ready to be installed tomorrow and dynotuning is on for Friday morning.  Sounds great so far BUT... he told me they had to weld a seam around the can sleeves to put them back together again.  It is hard to tell from the rulebook whether the addition of a weld seam is enough of a deviation from stock appearance to knock me out of production class so I am hoping for words of wisdom from Slim, Deb and the bike tech gang to make me feel  instead of  for the next two weeks!

Aside from the seam the exhaust supposedly still looks stock from the rear, i.e.... the endcap wasn't modded.

[Stan Back]

Didn't you just repair it when it fell off?  Can't you just grind a little to clean it up and spray with high-temp paint to make the repair look better?

[McRat]

That is what I call "leading with your chin".

Kinda risky asking competitors what's legal for your entry.  I found the answer to normally be NOTHING is legal. 

Personally I can't see anyone having a legit beetch about welding repair.

[MiltonP]

Since it is legal to mess with the internal baffles in production class, I assume the intent of the rule is to keep the the diameter/area of the outlet stock along with the overall dimensions of the header and can.  Yes, I do expect a variety of feedback such as this from the competitor viewpoint but I also expect a few techs will chip in with their perspective.  I tend to lean towards legal since no dimensions have been altered but will live with it if tech rules it must look like it did off the showroom floor.

[fredvance]

I know you have read the rule a zillion times, I have. Stock appearing, grind the welds real smooth, paint it black, keep the exit orfice stock siz and you should be ok.

[Cajun Kid]

Milt,,, "sometimes" asking the question is not the right course of action!!!!

It may have never come up,  but now it will,,,, If asked what the seam is doing there,,, "tell the truth",,, you gutted the cans and put them back together,,, stock size, stock appearance,,,, all OK.. I would have ground the welds down and painted,, but then again I am more about good looks than some others are  LOL



See you in a few weeks.

Charles

[Seldom Seen Slim]

Milton:

I don't have the answer.  I wish I did since I run a bike in Production class, too, and might be tempted to open up the cannisters if I knew that re-welding the seam would be allowed.  I haven't done so.

But I sure will be watching this topic to see if someone chimes in with an official comment.  I admit to having been a bit shy about asking the question -- for the reasons already stated.  Let's see what comes of this.

[Stainless1]

Milt... you will give us the real answer post race...
do you have before and after pictures...
do you have a set of stock cans just in case... or to run on the dyno to make sure you helped and not hurt the performance...
Good luck and have fun...

[MiltonP]

Should be on the dyno tonight or tomorow morning and I have a jet kit ready so we can mess it up even more  but it will be a bummer if it ends up worse than it started out.  We don't have a baseline run unfortunately.  I don't have spare stock cans and am not real enthusiastic about buying another set though Speedwerks feels confident they can be found at a salvage yard they know about. 

I don't have the rulebook on me but it is definitely one of those vague ones.  Something about viewing from the end or down the centerline had us debating a bit in the shop.  Bummer if the performance improvement is allowed, as several techs told me, but the only way to achieve it knocks you out for cosmetic reasons but I will comply.  Not sure grinding, sanding and painting cans is what was intended.  Anyways, I can always run T/O and pretend I have a record.   

[Freud]

Stainless, you hit it on the head.

"do you have a set of stock cans just in case... or to run on the dyno to make sure you helped and not hurt the performance..."

One of the last stories that CYCLE Magazine did was a comparison of about 10 after market exhaust systems.
1. All of them sounded different than stock.
2. All cost more than stock.
3. 70% of them made LESS power than stock.

I found that by removing the air cleaner from a 600cc Honda F2 I lost 37 MPH at Bonneville. It wouldn't even run well with the choke on.

These bikes have been well developed and sometimes tuning measures, that we are certain will help, actually cause problems. I'd dyno it with stock and gutted cans to see what really happened.

FREUD

[RansomT]

Of course this isn't official by any means, but here is a quote from 7.E.1

"The motorcycle must appear identical in all respects to the production model it represents, ......"


Actually, I am interested in knowing the outcome of the dyno.

[DahMurf]

Here's my unofficial thoughts on the subject. Unofficial because the bike is not sitting in front of me and no doubt a call like this will need discussion with more than one tech.

I agree with the must appear identical and putting efforts into making it appear identical to stock. We all know that people cut the cans open in production class to gut them but the point is that it shouldn't be blatantly obvious that it was done. My thoughts are if I walk up to your bike and there's a big weld sticking out that seems to not be stock and it causes me to say hey what's that, then you didn't do a good enough job with it. Now we can debate this all day long given the fact that certain stickers may be removed and body color/paint no longer needs to remain stock but my opinion is that changes like this shouldn't be obvious. My recommendation is to grind it down until it blends. Paint is good touch but I personally could overlook that in light of the fact that you can change body paint/color.

The other thing I generally try to consider with something like this is if what I am seeing provides the bike with an advantage over another competitor. In this case the weld its self does not provide an advantage and can possibly prove an aerodynamic disadvantage but the reason it is there does provide an advantage. With that in mind I think you need to make every effort possible to hide the fact that it was cut & rewelded.

Now keep in mind this is a classification issue and not a safety issue so it ultimately falls to impound and more importantly your fellow competitor & your conscience to police. You may not have anyone racing the same class but those that have run production and may run production that have put forth great effort to make performance enhancements and still appear stock will be the ones you need to contend with. Oh and pretty much any old racer that see's it & just says hey that ain't right has the right to call you on it. It's been done and will continue to be done.

Legally running production class takes the most effort, in my opinion, and in this case I believe you need to make every effort to conceal this modification. My bottom line recommendation, grind it smooth and if it's majorly discolored, paint it.

[RansomT]

Here's my unofficial thoughts on the subject. Unofficial because the bike is not sitting in front of me and no doubt a call like this will need discussion with more than one tech.

I agree with the must appear identical and putting efforts into making it appear identical to stock. We all know that people cut the cans open in production class to gut them but the point is that it shouldn't be blatantly obvious that it was done. My thoughts are if I walk up to your bike and there's a big weld sticking out that seems to not be stock and it causes me to say hey what's that, then you didn't do a good enough job with it. Now we can debate this all day long given the fact that certain stickers may be removed and body color/paint no longer needs to remain stock but my opinion is that changes like this shouldn't be obvious. My recommendation is to grind it down until it blends. Paint is good touch but I personally could overlook that in light of the fact that you can change body paint/color.

The other thing I generally try to consider with something like this is if what I am seeing provides the bike with an advantage over another competitor. In this case the weld its self does not provide an advantage and can possibly prove an aerodynamic disadvantage but the reason it is there does provide an advantage. With that in mind I think you need to make every effort possible to hide the fact that it was cut & rewelded.

Now keep in mind this is a classification issue and not a safety issue so it ultimately falls to impound and more importantly your fellow competitor & your conscience to police. You may not have anyone racing the same class but those that have run production and may run production that have put forth great effort to make performance enhancements and still appear stock will be the ones you need to contend with. Oh and pretty much any old racer that see's it & just says hey that ain't right has the right to call you on it. It's been done and will continue to be done.

Legally running production class takes the most effort, in my opinion, and in this case I believe you need to make every effort to conceal this modification. My bottom line recommendation, grind it smooth and if it's majorly discolored, paint it.

Well said!!

[Larry Forstall]

Cutting across the muffler is the easy way to open it but then you are left with the weld. More time consuming (read expensive) is to slit it lengthwise on the lower wheel side where it doesn't show. That said a good grind and paint job should get you through. Want the worse bike to do? A twin titanium muffler GSXR 1000. Deb's comments tell you all.  LSL

[MiltonP]

Deb, and the rest and the rest of the gang, thanks for the input.  I just took the cans to the shop that did the custom welding on my trailer since I figured they had much more experience grinding welds than Speedwerks.  They did a small section on the backside and the weld disappeared though the chrome has a bit of a brushed metal look.  I feel it should be much more 'in the spirit' of the rule now.  Speedwerks was used to opening cans to remove baffles but doesn't have to worry about the appearance for road racing.  By the way, the factory weld pattern for the bafffles prevented a lengthwise cut.  The cans would look better with those ground down as well and the finished brushed or painted but I will wait until I get feedback next weekend before making them look better than stock!