More than one way to gut a cat

[JerryHawk250]

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. 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.