GSX-R1000 pipe on a kat 600?

[Eat Dirt]

Is it a hard job to install one of these square titanium exhaulst pipes from a new GSXR1000 onto a 03 katana 600? At a first glance the bracket near the seat seems to be pretty much the same. Wonder how hard a job this would be.
I hear that these pipes are often replaced adn that they can be found used for fairly cheap. Has anyone purchased one and done this? Please share the process of installing it. I find the pipe in the 03 Kat quite ugly and boring. If I could find one for fairly cheap and such an addition to be possible I would consider it.

[HS2020]

Is it possible? Anything is possible with time and money. You would need to know the Inner Diamter of your header pipe and the outer diameter of the 1000 canister. If you can get them to mount up and not leak then you will be good to go. Try using the search button and look in the mechanics forum to help you along your journey.

[Dan Dubeau]

Hey you stole my Idea I though I was the ONLY one who liked the look of those exhausts.

Sure it's possible, It would probably be a complete custom job though as I doubt theres any mid pipe from any application that would work. Take it to a muffler shop and they would be able to bend up a midpipe for ya in no time. Just make sure you work out your mounting position first.

[Eat Dirt]

Hey you stole my Idea I though I was the ONLY one who liked the look of those exhausts.

When i first saw them I thought they were fugly. Then I recalled how truly fugly the Katana's is. Any idea how much a used one would go for? This may be more work than I first thought but if it won't affect the performance of the bike then it would be something I'd like to experiment with, assuming it won't cost too much.

[paradoxmd]

i would definitely try a muffler shop once you get what you need.

[Anonymous]

ok your gonna have to make an adapter that you can clamp the 2 parts toghter because of 2 reasons 1 titanium is hard to cut. 2 titanium is hard to weld and most exahust shops arent set up for it cause the if they try it the welds could possibly look like ass if the guy doesnt know how to weld titanium

[The CyberPoet]

I'd think it would be bad for performance in general, because it would present a baffle-tuned exhaust can designed for a much larger cylinder size and different exhaust runner lengths. Of course, you could jet up to match with some trial and error -- but would you really want to? Hmmmm... planning on coring out the catalytic converter in it too?

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[guy2600]

I'd photochop one on and see how it looks first, don't think it would look to good but hey you never know. +1 on what sinfulkat says..

[Eat Dirt]

I'd think it would be bad for performance in general, because it would present a baffle-tuned exhaust can designed for a much larger cylinder size and different exhaust runner lengths. Of course, you could jet up to match with some trial and error -- but would you really want to? Hmmmm... planning on coring out the catalytic converter in it too?

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

The idea sounded better when I was under the impression no performance would be lost and/or jetting resetting to be required. The Katana lacks enough low end power as is, don't need any more loss in that sector (else i'd have to push it). And I truly dread playing with jetting. If in fact the above is the case then I won't be pursuing the idea. Too bad too, would be neat to have that bad-ass pipe on my bike.

Then again as far as trying to make the bike look better my priority should lie with repairing and repainting the side fairings due to the previous owner's mishap.

Thanks for the feedback. Another one for the back burner.

[Eat Dirt]

Pipe on katana - UPDATE

Well, not wanting to give up easily on the idea of adding one of the cool Titanium GSXR1000 pipe on the Kat I asked someone that seems to know quite a bit about the mechanics of tuning bikes. He went through a great extent explaining all the reasons why this is a bad idea. I thought i shared in case someone else isn't convinced that this is a bad idea. Please note he reafirms what has already been said here.


from newsgroup alt.motorcycle.sportbikes

Eat Dirt wrote:

> Do you agree that adding such a pipe to the tuna
> to require a certain amount of trial and error on the jetting?

Yes, re-jetting carburetors does take a certain amount of trial and
error, plus the experimenter needs to understand how the Mikuni jet
numbering system works as well as understanding CV carburetors. I've
written about that at least 100 times, so you can google for "round
jet" and "transition ports" and find it.

> What about the actual fitting of the pipe?

You'd need to know what the spacing is from center to center of the
exhaust ports. Since the two engines are from completely different
families, the 1000 pipe might not fit your Tuna at all.

> But I'd only consider this if the process is simple and it won't take away
> any more power. What do you think?

Do you *really* want to know?

Changing from a system designed for the street to a 4-into-1 designed
for track usage
generally results in a loss of midrange torque, especially if you're
dumb enough to remove the stock airbox which is a tuned cavity that
supplies a very low pressure pulse of air to the intake of the carbs
over a wide frequency range. Look up "Helmholz Resonator" (or Helmholtz
Resonator) to see how that four hole guitar box works...

And then there is the tuned length of the header pipes to the
collector. Since the 1000 is a larger displacement engine, the pipe may
tune at a lower RPM than the Tuna's pipe.The volume of the header pipes
may be all wrong, too.

Somebody once posted this interesting information. It seems that the
inventor of the telephone was also interested in acoustics and the
physics of sound.

"According to A.Graham Bell's book, if you have a 4-1 pipe, the
distance from
exhaust valve to the end of the headers in inches is 850 * ED / RPM
where ED is 180 plus the number of degrees before bottom dead center
that the
exhaust valve opens. The diameter is chosen so that the volume of the
headers
is 2.25 times the capacity of one cylinder."

The exhaust valve may be opening something like 63 to 69 degrees before
bottom dead center as the piston is descending on the power stroke.
Most people probably think that's silly, that the power stroke should
last until
the piston reaches bottom dead center. That's wrong, the engine can't
afford to waste energy with the piston coasting to a stop on combustion
gasses that have used up all their energy. And the engine can't afford
to waste
energy pumping dead exhaust gasses out the exhaust valve on the exhaust
stroke.

So the exhaust cycle starts way early. It uses that last bit of
pressure to rapidly blow out the exhaust gasses and start a wave of
pressure going down the header pipe. This sucks the last little bit of
dead gasses out of the cylinder.

But most people tend to believe that four-stroke engines religiously
follow the Otto Cycle. They think that the intake stroke can't start
until the piston reaches top dead center on the exhaust stroke and they
believe that the intake valve will open after top dead center as the
piston starts going back down again. That's wrong.

Actually, the inlet valve may start opening anywhere from 30 to 45
degrees before top dead center on the exhaust stroke. People also tend
to believe that the exhaust valve will be closed when the intake valve
opens. They are wrong too.

Actually the exhaust valve may still be open 25 degrees after top dead
center as the piston is going down on its intake stroke. The period
when both valves are open is called the "overlap" period and it helps
the engine to pull a fresh charge of fuel/air mixture into the cylinder
IF the exhaust pipe length and volume is in tune with the motions of
the piston.

Notice, that's a big IF...

Exhaust cam lobes are ground so they open the exhaust valve rather more
quickly than they close the valve.
This is a good thing for the production of a sudden burst of energy
into the exhaust header. Only one cylinder is
on the exhaust stroke, and the wave of pressure travels rapidly down
that pipe to the collector. When the wave of pressure reaches the
collector, it is "fooled" by the sudden increase in volume, and a wave
of pressure is reflected back up all four header pipes. the wave then
echoes back down the pipe again.

If the first bounce of the pressure wave is lucky, it finds an open
exhaust valve and helps suck fresh mixture into the cylinder through
the intake valve which is also open during the overlap period.

The arrival and departure of this pressure wave may be beneficial or
detrimental to charging the cylinder which at the beginning of its
intake stroke. If the returning pressure wave arrives at between 5000
and 7000 to 8000 RPM, it can flow right through the open exhaust valve,
through the cylinder and out the open intake valve through the
carburetor.

That's not what you want. You don't want the wave *pushing* air
backwards through the carb, You want it *sucking* air through the carb
in the right diestion.

A carburetor is a dumb device. It has no idea which way air is flowing
through it. It will suck fuel out of the float bowl with the air going
backwards. Then, when the pressure wave reverses, the air passes
through the carb in the right direction and picks up a second shot of
fuel. If you read your spark plugs they look like the engine is getting
too much fuel, but it's not producing the power level you want during
the flat spot RPM range.

Below 5000 RPM, there's no problem. Above 7000 RPM there's no problem.
But right there in that 2000 or 3000 RPM wide mid-range, you get the
dreaded flat spot that is so frustrating to amateur tuners. Re-jetting
will NOT fix the flat spot. A jet kit will NOT fix the flat spot.
Keeping the stock air box will help the flat spot. Advancing the
ignition timing 5 degrees will help the flat spot.

The flat spot is caused because the motions of the pistons and valves
are not "in synch" with the pressure waves
echoing back and forth in the exhaust header between 5000 and 7000 to
8000 RPM.

If the exhaust header is mismatched to the cam timing and the volume of
the cylinders, you could run into a tuning nightmare.

But you'd still have the bragging rights of saying, "Look! I have a
titanium header on my Tuna! Ain't that trick?"

You won't tell anybody that you can't figure out what the problem is
when the engine falls on its face in the dread flat spot...

[SweetLou]

I was thinking about the same thing, but getting Duals. One on each side

[Waltari]

Using an image of a GSXR as a overlay for scaling this is what it would look like on the kat You would over course need to have the midpipe cut and rewelded ata lower angle to make it all line up as the gsxr angle is much steeper

[AHF]

I think that fits the bike really well! I'd like to see it at different angles though...get to work Waltari.

[guy2600]

Dude I was totally sceptical but that actually looks good!

[Ritchey79]

NO NO NO..... Screw all that.... Put a 2006 R6 powervalve exhaust on that biatch! Now we're talking
On a serious note, that book by A.G. Bell (fourstroke tuning I'm guessing he's refering to), in fact any book from A.G. Bell (two-stroke tuning is my favorite) is reguarded as THE BIBLE in most 2 wheeled circles, get it on amazon.com and read it if you wanna learn some serious tuning and logic. Just don't try to follow his math, I'm an engineer and it makes my head spin.