Will be making my own exhausts

The exhausts on my new (to me) VZ800 are obnoxiously loud and I don't relish the conversations with the neighbours at 5am when I set off for work so my original plan was to get a cheap std exhaust 2nd hand and mod it to try to find that sweet spot between std and obnoxious. My revised plan though is to make my own. I plan to use the standard downpipes which appear to be stainless and make a set that will attach to these whilst still allowing the std cans to go on should the MOT require it or a future owner desire it. The first thing that surprised me is the std downpipes are just 1 1/8" diameter and all the beefy looking aspect is just smoke and mirrors from a heat shield. Secondly the balance pipe will have to be cut off and the holes welded up. The balance pipe runs from one downpipe to the other silencer rather than the other downpipe meaning it's removal is the easiest solution to my design. Thirdly the end plate for the std cans is just mild steel and rusty as hell. That's cheap of Suzuki to use mild in such an area.



The plan is to use a pair of these....



....which have a 2" bore, 16" body and are straight through, then weld a reducer down to 31.75 to one end which should nicely overlap and clamp to the downpipes. Shame they're only T304 stainless and not T316 marine grade but exhaust wrap is always an option if it rusts. Being a cruiser it already weighs the best part of a quarter tonne so I don't need to make an exhaust from paper thin titanium. Good old weldable stainless will do nicely. Into these I can then fit a baffle...



...at MOT time. If I get it right it will hit that sweet spot unbaffled and will be a simple job at MOT time. If I get it wrong I still have the option to slip the std silencers on albeit that will be somewhat more work than slotting baffles in. Stainless can be a complete PITA to work with as it cripples your tooling, drills especially but this should require almost no tooling other than the welder. There'll be just one hole each silencer for the baffles and I have some first rate drills now after making a stainless recumbent trike. Even good std shape drills are useless above 6mm. Piloted drills are needed for stainless.

If anyone has any advice or comment I'd love to hear it, particularly before I start the job.

On looking again I also need to add a lambda boss to one exhaust too.

The 2" straight through will be loud but the inserts will help some. The inner pipe size that Suzi uses is proper for best all around performance from the 400cc cylinders but we all like the looks of larger diameter. It would be better if you could find mufflers with a smaller core than 2" both for sound and lower rpm power. Removing the balance pipe also makes the bike a little louder and lose a little low to mid range power, but not enough a rider will notice.

It would also be an advantage if you could find longer mufflers, both for power and sound.

I have found it very interesting how different the sound is using different sized cores and lengths as well as inserts and experimenting is rather fun. I have that type of insert in a few of my bikes and one bike also has one of the straight through inserts that looks a bit like a cat converter with all the channels for the gas to flow through while breaking down the pressure wave.

Have fun and show pictures of how it works out.