monstar

Well decided to weld the pipes. Let me tell you, I'm not a welder, far from it. Straight material I'm not too bad but tight radius stuff is harder than I expected. Looks like snot so no pics! Seriously, going to clean them up a little but honestly no one will see them anyway. As long as it holds up I'm satisfied.

I just need to clean the metal before I spray the clear on. Right now the metal is rust free with some silicone spray but I'll be cleaning that off, applying some rust dissolver, wiping down with alchohol and baking in the oven to evaporate any hidden liquid and contaminants. As was suggested by dannoxyz, some brand of naval jelly will remove any hidden rust and prep the surface for the "paint" It's a little confusing, they have dissolver and neutralizer. The neutralizer is pretty much a primer that neutralizes the rust so it can be painted but it also contains polymers that I don'

I was careful to not use at full strength and diluted in water bucket. The parts sticking out of the top are rusting as expected but I'm taking them out and wire wheeling them first, then scotch brite with silicone spray, then wipe down and applying silicone spray. I have a couple days until I get the clear coat so I'll see if any rust appears. I used to have naval jelly/aluminum jelly a long long time ago and have had no luck finding locally recently. May have to order some.

Thanks for the advice. I totally understand mild steel will rust pretty quickly with moisture and heat cycles left untreated. I just wanted to give the high temp clear coat over bare metal a try. I'm just not a big fan of painted headers. If it works then I'm happy if not oh well... just not sure I have the patience to make SS primaries. Just want to be done with the exhaust and move on to other stuff.

Although my primary pipes weren't junk yard rusted there is quite a bit of surface rust that's been cooked in. Tried wire wheeling on the bench grinder and some scotch bright wheels but it takes awhile and with just ok results. Trying a youtube trick with extra strength toilet bowl cleaner with Hcl acid to hopefully eat the majority of that away. I'm letting them soak in a bucket and will check every couple hours to see if there's progess. I'll most likely spend a couple hours doing most by hand but worth a try, right?

Great! Well in that case, more photos. Just took the primaries off to clean the 20 years of black cooked on junk and hopefully brighten them up to match the stainless. I think I'm going to try the high temp clear. If it doesn't work out I'll either wrap the primaries or do a standard header paint.

Sorry if I'm posting too much without major progress. Really had to stop myself from doing the finish welding until I get some angle material to weld onto the collector to support the whole system in place. 304 stainless has a tendency to distort when welded so want to make sure things are securely in place and straight/parallel/perpendicular. Finding the right settings to weld stainless has been a challenge. I went with .023 wire and have to run a lot or wire feed speed to keep up with the arc. Learning on the job! Good times 😕 meanwhile, altering my subframe for the a

Yeah I wanted to show off my trick chinese starter motor that leaks oil! I know everyone is jealous.

Oh, my bad, I just looked at the link and they must have just added this to their catalog. They didn't have these "racing step kit" when I bought mine. Looks almost exactly what I have but I didn't pay that much. Also, when they say carbon heal guards I think they mean plastic sprayed to look like carbon. Not a huge deal, the rearsets seem to be very nice... haven't tested mine yet.

The tyga vfr rearsets still sit pretty low and don't remember if they are any different than stock positioning. I have a set of Tyga rearsets on my vfr but they are not for a vfr. I can't remember off the top of my head which bike they are intended but I combed through their website to find a set that had the same bolt pattern but you do need to space them out a bit to clear the swingarm. (They are up and back quite a bit than factory footrests)

Here's some of the bike off the stand with belly pan on. Tons of room in there now!

The majority of the fitting and tacking is done for now. Next will be adding the dual exits to that last collector. Alot of grinding before welding those in place. Then it'll be the link pipes to the mufflers. Getting closer and I'm pretty happy so far. I've taken my time and have been lucky with a few fitments but the little patience I maintained has payed off. Not looking forward to final welds... really hard to weld tight radius pipe. Probably be doing alot of clean up grinding and sanding to look decent. Rear section: Front section:

The front primaries go into a collector directly under the oil pan. From there, one 1.5" pipe merges into the secondary "collector-split" along side the rear 1.5" pipe. It's not pictured here since that is the last portion I need to fabricate and the other parts need to be tacked into position in order to get it to fit just right. It's basically identical to the TBR system I have as far as the front and the back don't merge until the end but much more compact and tighter to the underside of the bike. The main difference is having the front and rear pipes exiting parallel and in the center. Thi

Got my wire, tank coming today, gas next week. Most difficult fitment is pretty close and can't wait to tack it all. I know I said I was going the simple 4-2 route but I had the extra collector and decided to do something more interesting, complicated and trick. Sure it'll weigh a little more but the way I've designed it I can switch it up with not too much hassle. I just realized that one of the main reasons for making the exhaust was to get the bodywork an inch or two higher from the ground! Now it's just what I want and I can't just buy it (or can't afford to buy it)

Update: Tacked the rear header pipes from the head down to the opening in the swingarm. It's tight with the shock but have around 1/4-1/2" of room all the way around. It's not that pretty right now and cheated a little to get it to work. I used a combination of factory pipes that I sectioned down and frankensteined together. Started to piece together the slip on portion. Welded up a crude bracket to center the final merge collecter (this will "y" out to the left and right pipes&mufflers). It's bolted to the dog bone/frame mount. This wa