Special Operations

Well some time ago my Jardine exhaust blew up spectacularly on a low ride where I was unable to attend to the loosened rivets.

The Drummer pipes have always been rated as some of the best in the business, but since I was having trouble supplying a stock exhaust being half way around the world, and the outright pipe was too expensive at $700 and also didn't support the stock chin cowl mounts it was not to be.

Next up on my list of options was Michael Oldfield at Special Ops who does mostly the same kind of thing as Kevin (Drummer) by making modifications to the stock exhaust to allow better breathing, and of course a much better sound.

Mike is the only stock modifier who is also willing to sell a pipe outright, without the need to send in you stock pipe, so this helped greatly. However he didn't have any stock of XB9 pipes, so I was put on his waiting list.

In the meanwhile I went and made a Wanted post on Buelletinboard just in case someone was keen on sponsoring me a stock XB9 pipe, which Odie could work into a Special Ops wonder. Problem is that Buelletinboard doesn't have a pop-up on private messages by default, and thus I completely missed the messages from SpdKls who was willing to hook me up with a stock exhaust which he would drop off with Odie on the weekend.

What a surprise then, when Odie lets me know that he'll be done with my pipe on the weekend, ready to ship the following week. A shock to the budget but a welcome surprise nonetheless, and while I was at it I got a K&N Filter shipped to Odie so he could ship me one package with all the goodies.

Two weeks later and the goods finally arrived on local shores, with customs not screwing me over as expected.

As you can see it looks exactly the same as the stock exhaust, just some what shorter with the outlet at the back, instead of at the side. A much better paintjob than the stock part as well, lets hope it lasts.

I much prefer this option, as the chin cowl mountings are the same, and thus don't require silly additional brackets to be fitted, as is the case with many of the other options available. Also it helps that it looks stock, because that means nobody will notice, and thus will be caught by surprise.

The sound is fantastic. Many people will cringe at the thought that it sounds more like a pissed off Harley than ever, but I quite like it. At the moment there's a lot of decel popping, which is pretty bad ass, but I think will need to be sorted out later.

The bike definitely pulls stronger, but maybe not as smoothly. I find myself in the higher gears much faster than I remember, and it seems like the bike revs up faster and more easily especially the higher ranges.

XoptimizedrsX has offered to help me out with some fuelling maps, and I'll definitely be taking him up on that offer once I have the cash to hook myself up with an ECMSpy cable. Hopefully that will sort out the minor fuelling issue midway through the rev range, and will result in a smoother and even more potent bike.

Oddly enough I've only done one tank of petrol since the pipe and filter were installed, and it saw lots of pretty hard riding, and lots of needless revving, yet tank range was only 5km less than my result. So in theory if I ride "nicely" the bike might even be more economical with mods, than without.

Problem is, with such a bad ass sound you just want to spank it all the time!