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Today was a very special, albeit sad day. Fred, a very active member in the Dutch VFR Club Nederland had passed away following a mc accident before Easter. He never woke up from the coma. A seasoned, methiculous, ever friendly 66yr old rider is gone. It was the family's wish to give him a fitting farewell from the hobby he'd enjoyed so passionately. So some 170 bikes lined the steet, engines idling, helmets by the front wheel. As the hearse passed each bike, full throtle was given and engine subesquently shut down. Thus a wave of the sound he loved accompanied him on his last journey. As quoted during the service: "life after death is uncertain, life before death IS certain, so he lived life as much as he could..." Ride In Peace Fred

I just finished the final install of the header, it's midnight here in Denver but I went ahead and rolled the bike outdoors to run it. The install is a success, no leaks, sounds great. I let the bike idle up to about 170 degrees on the temp gauge then shut it down and pushed it back into its parking spot in my garage. In the end I decided to use the 41mm copper gaskets from Delkevic. They are just a little less than twice as fat as the 42mm copper gaskets that Delkevic sells. Because they are fatter I knew that during the installation "crush" they would probably end up spreading inward to about the same inner diameter as the original Honda OEM gaskets. I didn't like how much the OEM gasket protruded into the exhaust flow and wanted my install to be better than that, so I decided to experiment a little. I purchased 8 of the 41mm copper gaskets directly from Delkevic at their location in Littleton, CO. Got to meet and chat with Matt (at Delkevic), he was very friendly and helpful. I modified the 41mm gaskets by "pre-pinching" them inward, only by a little bit around the outside perimeter and then by as much as possible around the inner perimeter. I did this so that when the crush of the install occurred the gasket would have a smaller starting point from which to spread. The results were pretty good. I practiced installing a couple of my "pre-pinched" 41mm copper gaskets on the front cylinders and after the crush they ended up with an inner diameter that was noticeably wider than the original Honda gaskets (although they do protrude slightly above the inner edges of the exhaust ports). So I'm satisfied, the modified 41mm gaskets provide a very good, generous footing for the end of the header to bed into and their inner diameter is better (wider) than the OEM gaskets. Good enough for me. On to other maintenance items...