More than one way to gut a cat
 

Well I woke up Saturday morning thinking about what I'm going to do on the hawk today. I planed on taking an early morning ride so I do the usual check list...checking oil, chain, ect. I waxed the chain and while checking the oil I noticed a good bit of rust forming on the exhaust pipe. So I might as well pull it off and repaint it. While I had it off I looked in the pipe. The welds were pretty decent and clean. I had a piece of wire and slid it in the pipe and of course hit the cat. So I figure might as well get the hack saw and cut it open to see what inside. How the hell these motors run with that plug up pipe is a miracle. Took out the drill with a 1/2" bit and started working away at it. That corrugated what ever they used was packed tight in there. After about 30 minutes of working on it I finally got it all out. I broke out the trusty old MIG Welder and welded back up then repainted it. I stuck the pipe back on and took her for a long ride. Man what a difference in power and throttle response. Who needs a $140 exhaust system when you can get the same results for free. I know Jerry's a cheap bastard. :lmao: Hell just look at my cost for my upgrades so far in my sig. I was going to weld a bung on there to put an O2 sensor so I can hook my air/fuel ratio gauge but ran out of shield gas before I finished welding up the exhaust as you can see from the crappy weld. But no leaks. It feels like its running lean now. I'll rejet it after I get the gauge hooked up so I can jet it right.
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What weld? Should there be a pic? We want the pic!

3rd picture

I just put one of those $129 mufflers on my bike. Then we got dumped with 6" of snow so I wont know what it will do until some snow melts but it sure looks good on my bike. Congrats on gutting your cat. I cant wait to feel the new power myself. I was going to gut my cat buy Iam just learning how to use my tig and I chickened out lol.

The welding is easy but the metal on these exhaust is real soft. I had to set it on the lowest setting to weld. Then it started spattering and realized I was out of shield gas. I figured the worst thing that could happen is i would have to buy a new exhaust system lol. A cold front came through this morning and now it's cold and raining.

Iam wondering if you cleaned up the weld inside the pipe where it meets the engine? Every weld Ive seen on that part of the pipe closed up the pipe alot.

It's was clean. Must of had a more experience Welder working on mine. At least a 15 year old kid. :lmao: I should of taken a picture. I took out my little grinder expecting to have to grind it down but was a clean weld job.

Good deal. You couldn't fit a quarter through mine.

Nice Job Jerry! :tup:

Jerry, No shame in being cheap at all, I mean, look at the motorcycles we all choose to buy. :D One of the first things I did was pull the exhaust on my Hawk and replace it with the racing pipe MotoCheez recommends. I actually had all the upgrade parts for it before I even had the bike! Conventional wisdom said that I should have broken the bike in and ridden it a bit to get a feel for the upgrades, but I was too impatient for all that. Once I had the bike assembled, I started it stock and ran it up the street once to warm the oil, then I pulled it back in the shop and drained the fish-glue, pulled the exhaust, spark plug, carb, and other odds and sods, and went to work! I'm in Tampa finishing up a few jobs down here, then it's back home for a few days before I have to go to Tuscaloosa, AL for a week. After the new year, I should have a few weeks of local work. That means I can put in a few rides and finish up some work on the Rebel. I'm just a few miles shy of the 500 mile mark on the Hawk, so I'm going to do another oil change, clean the screen, and build a magnetic drain plug for it. I have some craft magnets I picked up for that project. I'm thinking it should be as easy as drilling out the shank of the drain plug and using some high temperature metal epoxy to stick one of the magnets in the end. I'll post on that when I make it happen.

Thanks.

Nice work, Jerry! I'm pretty Scottish, so I don't wanna pay for a muffler either. I've modified a few, and I've also cut a cat out like you did. I figure these bikes can't outflow a well-modded muffler, so that's my preference. All that said, I did score a nice XR250R muffler for cheap on eBay, and I welded that to the midpipe of my Lifan. The only reason I did that is to satisfy the Rangers.

very nice work!!!
i think ill do mine this week!!

Thanks for all the compliments. I wanted to get some ride time in yesterday. To bad the weather didn't cooperate. I went out yesterday morning and it was a warm 72 degrees. I went inside to get some breakfast and get my helmet and within an hour the temp had drop 25 degrees along with cold a_ rain and wind. :doh: By 5pm it was down to 38. Needless to say I did ride lol. I know you guys up north are freezing and these temps would be a blessing to you. You all keep warm up there.

I just epoxied one of those small rare earth magnets to the head of the drain plug. It's about a 1/4" dia. but super strong. The whole drain plug is a magnet now. I can still use a socket over it.