Many of you know that the first thing you do when you get a bike is to customize it in some way, shape, or form. To some degree this is simple, usually starting with a few chrome doo-dads, lens covers and flash accessories. One of the most changed parts however, will usually be the pipes. Everyone who has heard a bone-stock Harley-Davidson Motorcycle knows they sound lame. I understand they have to meet with EPA regulations and all, but I want to hear that thump that resonates in your gut when that throttle is twisted to the stops. It’s a sad day when you're sitting at a stoplight and a Harley clone Yamaha pulls up and sounds louder, deeper, and more distinct.
I am not one to leave my bikes alone. Much to my wife’s dismay, I just have to change something. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with an overly creative mechanical or artistic mind, so most of my changes are elementary bullshit.
In December of 2002, I bought a brand spanking new 100th anniversary Fatboy from H-D. She was perfect and I swore I was never going to change a thing about her. Gunmetal Blue Pearl paint and a matching helmet would set me as close to “custom” as I ever wanted to go. Well, that lasted about two weeks. I began modifying her every chance I got, with new, and usually, worse outcomes. I took off the front FL tins and even put rubber accordian style boots on the front end for a while. I ran with and without a front fender. I changed the bars to 16-inch apehangers and ran the wires on the outside of the bars. I ran the wires on the inside of the bars. I cut off the front turn signals. I chromed the FL Tins and put them back on. I even rattle can spray painted her black. Out of all the changes I made to the bike, I actually made one good choice: I changed the pipes.
The Rattle-can Fatboy.
The one constant I always heard was, “God your pipes sound great.” I have to admit, I had a sense of pride about that. Even with handprints and runs in my sloppy paint, wires hanging everywhere, and a dirt bike front end, I knew it sounded good.
Well, that all changed.
That Classic Styled Springer. Looking back she looks slow just sitting there.
After I came back from Sturgis ’05, I traded the Fatboy on a Softail Springer Classic. From the dealership this bike looked classic and pristine, almost jewel-like. The P&A guy did his homework when setting up this bike and I loved it…for a while.
Unfortunately, the Springer line requires maintenance at half the intervals of all the other models. The dealership required a 500 mile check-up and one every 2500 after that. For the regular stiffs like me, we just shriek at the idea of having to take the bike to the dealership every 2500 miles and shelling out at least 350 duckies. For some, that may be once a year, but for me that's every two and a half months. If I applied that money to my payment, I could pay the bike off in 15 rather than thirty years!
The Springer in original form. Those are the pipes and air cleaner it came with, remember that.
The dealer gave me the first service, and I am new to Springers, so I took it in after 10 days with 580 miles on her. The next thing I remember is getting the phone call from the dealer saying the bike was wrecked during the final test drive. My heart sank when I went to the dealership and saw the damage to my baby. The good news was they were going to fix it, and I would get a rental in the meantime. The bad news was I had to wait almost three months to ride her again!
Needless to say, it was jacked up.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, and yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, life goes on and all that bullshit. Once I got her back, I was scared to do anything to her. Partially because I didn’t want to mess up the classic look, and partially because I wanted to make sure everything would stay tip-top since she survived 7 grand worth of damage. I didn’t want to have a problem with her and then hear the dealership tell me it’s not covered under warranty, because I changed out the turn signal lenses. You know what I mean? So, I basically left her alone. I even added a crash bar, bigger bags and just rode her.
This is how she stayed for nearly 8 months. I guess it would be a nice looking bike for me when I’m 60!
Now the comments didn’t get to me at first, just because I was in the puppy-love stage of new bike ownership. But after a while, I started to hear the comments.
“That bike looks cool, but it sounds so lame.”
“Hey, a giant sewing machine.”
“Why don’t you quit putting around and drive ASSHOLE!”
You see, with the new, quieter sound, I had also toned down my riding. I found myself regularly turning my 20 minute ride from work into a two-hour cruise through the backroads. I was just enjoying the shit out of my bike. Then IT happened.
Three weeks before my run to Sturgis in ’06, my best friend Mike had a big bore kit put into his Electra Glide. Normally that wouldn’t affect me, but he also had his pipes changed out and now everyone began ooing and aahing over his bike. I never realized I was so vain, and just tried to shrug it off. What got me really thinking however, was when we rode.
You see, on the Fatboy, wide-open, I could hit 117 mph. That’s pretty good considering I was packed down coming from Sturgis and running the apes. I felt even stronger about the Springer. I mean, all the research says the Harley motor runs better, pulls harder, and is more efficient with the mufflers on it. My bike had the “special tuned” old –style fishtip mufflers and a free flowing air cleaner, so I figure she would do just as good as the Fatboy. The main difference would be that at least I could hear this bike’s motor instead of the pipes like I had before. Man I was WRONG!!!
On the way up to Sturgis, when Mike would routinely leave me in the dust, I opened her to the stops and locked the throttle. The absolute best I could get was 110 mph, with the wind to my back, going slightly downhill. The slowest was in fifth gear after I passed 100. The bike took FOREVER to get past 105 and still longer to ease up each mile per hour after that. Truthfully, the bike felt like it was choked and I was not happy about it. I tried to shrug it off dismissing it to the fact that stock Harley’s are usually dogs anyway.
My right tailpipe’s muffler had started to show two ½ inch burn marks at the entry and exit point of the muffler. It didn’t look too bad, and I assumed it would polish out. While I was in Sturgis, I tried to see the dealer, but it was a three day wait, so I said, “Fuck it, it’s under warranty.” What an idiot!
While on the trip home, I noticed the bikes whole muffler was changing from a chrome to a brass colored hue. I also opened her up on the freeway and was now only getting 90 mph FULL OUT! This is bullshit, and something’s gotta be wrong, so back to the dealership I head.
Now mind you, I bought this bike exactly as it was sitting at this time. I didn’t change the mufflers, or the air cleaner, or anything. I damn sure didn’t wreck it and was really expecting to walk in, hand them my keys, and have them call me a couple of hours later with a replaced right muffler , fresh polish, and a smile. Instead, I got the whole,” Harley doesn’t warranty cosmetic burning of the pipes,” and “You should have put a Dynojet Fuel commander on there.”
Hey! WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Needless to say, I counted to ten somewhere along the cadence of 1..7..10..and exploded! I drove the bike home and was surprised not to have died or gotten pulled over because I don’t think I went slower than the now top-speed of 90 mph. I walked into the garage and immediately pulled the mufflers off the bike. I took her out for a spin and I noticed a couple of things right off the bat.
While it’s good to think outside the box, I never could convince myself this look was good. The performance was even worse.
One..it was definitely louder and more-Harley-like, but it didn’t sound good.
Two- it had ZERO bottom end.
Three-it backfired constantly and I could smell the aroma of gas.
Well aint this great! Fuck it, if H-D won’t stand behind it, there’s no holds barred on me changing whatever the fuck I want now. So, in pure poor-man’s, uneducated, quest for change and individualism, I began taking off EVERYTHING I thought should go.
I removed the bags, the sissy bar, the passenger seat, the passenger pegs, the crash bar, changed the handlebars to drag bars, removed the rear fender, removed the cowbell horn and replaced it with the nostalgic version I had up front, and even removed the emblems and trim from the gas tank. Basically I removed everything I did not like and turned my old “grandpa-style” bike into my version what a Night train should look like. I had to ride her and see what she could do.
Nice legs, huh?
First of all, she still had No BOTTOM END. Now with the stock pipes, I could never get her to burn out or really break the tire from the pavement without the front tire sliding. It had the want-to, just not the means. This bike with the open pipes definitely had more mid to upper range, which was expected, but I topped her out at 112 mph. 112? You gotta be kidding me! I removed all that shit and all I get is 112. 2 lousy fucking mph?
(The 90 mph was due to the catalytic converter melting in my stock system causing me engine’s exhaust to become trapped, that’s why it had gotten progressively worse. The dipshit that put those pipes on my bike, used the ones for ’06 instead of ’05 and I had cats and didn’t know it. Assholes!)
I was so dejected when I went home, I just laid on my bed and prayed. Yeah, my bike sounded louder, and yes it was faster, but it looked like shit. Between the front fender being gone and the chopped pipes, it looked like a recently wrecked bike that I was just riding till the new parts came in. I didn’t know what I was going to do. New pipes are expensive and so is the fucking Fuel Commander. I have two kids, a wife, truck note, mortgage, and two Harley notes. I have strapped myself so thin with toys and bullshit, I literally couldn’t afford the oil for an oil change at this point. That’s when the miracle happened.
El Bandito called me up and asked if I would be willing to try some new pipes on my bike. He didn’t know much about them other than they were black and would fit a Softail. I couldn’t believe my ears. All I had to do was put them on and write a tech and a review. If I didn’t like them, just send them back.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Hell yeah I want those puppies! Send them now. He hung up the phone laughing and saying something about owing him ten articles a year for the rest of my life. I don’t know, but I couldn’t wait for those pipes to come.
Picture from Hookerpipes.com
In the meantime, I began looking at the pipes Hooker offers. You can check them out at Hookerpipes.com. Here is what they have written on their website about the black pipes I would be getting which are called Darksides Troublemakers.
AVAILABLE JUNE 2006. Scallop Cut Black Ceramic Drag Pipes for 96+ cubic inch engines. Hooker Darksides are for those who have gone rat/raw or that just want to look a little more stealthy. These anti–bling pipes are coated in high temp black ceramic coating, a formula long–ago perfected by the aerospace industry. The matte black finish will always look good and stay easy to clean with its semismooth surface texture. Darksides are available in Hooker's Softail Troublemakers and short–staggered Softail Rebels. Slam on a set of Hooker's chrome, black or silver anodized billet tips to finish them off with some added contrast. Switch over to the Darkside
Not a bad sounding deal, if you ask me. I couldn’t wait to see these things on my bike as I knew it would fit the whole blacked out theme perfectly. Three days later, I received a box from UPS at around 6 at night.
I immediately went to the garage and opened it up to find two of the meanest pipes I had ever seen. In the box were the pipes, brackets, and all the hardware necessary to bolt these bad boys to my bike. I started immediately.
My new toys.
Now changing out pipes can be a very simple operation that even the most novice mechanic can perform. I happen to have moron blood running through my veins, so I was extra cautious about the whole operation.
I started by removing the old pipes, supporting bracketry which attached to the swingarm, and passenger Footpegs. The left pipe attached to the Footpegs, so I had to remove it to get it off. Once it was off, I decided they both should just stay off. By now it was getting dark outside, and my garage lighting isn’t the best. So instead of hurrying and possibly screwing up, which is in my nature, I packed it in for the night and watched a Spongebob Marathon with my kids.
I inspected the studs on the heads for burs or stripped threading. They were tip top. This is where I stopped for the night.
I woke the next morning and couldn’t wait to rush the wife and kids off to school and work. I had my own work to do. The first thing I did was wheel the bike into the driveway as it was a beautiful day.
The floorboard had to go as well as loosening the floorboard bracket.
I then re-read all the instructions and warnings from Hooker and got the tools necessary for the job:
¼ drive ratchet
5/16 nut driver
¼ U-Joint
Masking tape
½ and 9/16 combination wrenches
Blankets or clean cardboard and shop rags.
Like I said, replacing pipes can be very easy, so I will not bore you with every time I farted or blew a snot rocket during the installation. I will just hit the areas where I had possible problems.
This all sounded simple enough. I stared by placing the mounting bracket to the bottom pipe and attempting to place it on the bike. The bottom pipe was hitting the floorboard bracket. I had already removed the floorboard thinking I would have enough room, but the bracket was still in the way. I just loosened the tree bolts that hold it to the frame and gave myself some “slack”
Once the bottom pipe was in place, I attempted to place the top pipe onto the rear head while simultaneously lining it up with the mounting bracket. Well the toolbox was blocking the angle, so off she goes. I will later try to remount the box on the left side of the bike.
Once everything was in place and still loose, I just tightened up the head bolts first and the bracket bolts last.
I re-installed the floorboard and re-tightened its mounting bracket. Overall, this was a very simple a clean operation that took less than two hours from start to finish, including removal of old pipes to cleaning of the tools. I finished by wiping the pipes off with rubbing alcohol, just in case there were fingerprints, and double checked everything’s tightness.
Now came the start up.
The pipes roar to life immediately and I knew these were the pipes for the bike. With a very deep rumble that awoke the daredevil in me, I restrained myself and while the bike warmed up I cleaned my tools and grabbed my riding gear.
Pulling out of the driveway, I immediately felt the low end torque that had been missing. I quelled the desire for a burnout and pulled out of the neighborhood in a very controlled and courteous manner. Once I got on the road, I decided to take FM 1960 over to Dayton, where I could catch old highway 90 back to the beltway. This would give me a good 60 miles to warm everything up. I definitely had more thrust when I twisted the throttle and the pipes sound was unmistakably American. I bet the smile was on my face the whole trip.
Once I got home, I rechecked the torque on everything and ate lunch before heading out for the test ride from Hell.
Taking the same route, I dropped the clutch out of the gate and was pleased to hear the proper melting of my back tire. While accelerating, I concentrated on the road straight ahead as my tail end sounded like a rocket ship and swerved hard to the left. This bike has definitely got more power.
While on the road I tried mid gear roll-ons to test the acceleration and power. I was used to hearing the engine work and seeing the speed slowly creep up when I would attempt a high gear roll on. Now the sound only got better from the pipes and the acceleration was incredible. The 40 to 80 mph range was really fun when it comes to acceleration. Almost a jerk your eyes type of power! The top end was my next test and I was not disappointed.
There is a 10 mile stretch on old Highway 90 that is notorious for racers. Cops love to hide there, but never during the daytime. This would be my testing ground.
I slowed to around 40 mph and dropped the bike into second gear. When I released the clutch my tire squealed with delight as my front end came dangerously lose to leaving the ground. I accelerated through the gears concentrating only on the sound of the engine and trying to time my gearing. I ignored the speedometer as I didn’t want to be distracted and I was still weary of the law taking a nap somewhere.
I am sure some of the results are built up in my head, but this bike felt like it finally came to life. As I switched from 4th to 5th gear, I could feel the bike hit its “sweet zone.” This is where the bike feels as pure as it’s going to get and the motor and tranny are working at their peak performance. I looked down shortly after switching to fifth and was surprised to see I was fast approaching 115 mph! I still had throttle left. I kept the coals to it for a little while longer to surpass my best speed even on the Fatboy when I hit 118 MPH! I slowed down to the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. All the way home I received stares and nods of approval. I am not sure if it was the bike, or just me, but I definitely garnered everyone’s attention on the road.
I tested her again this weekend against my buddy’s bike. He was riding his big-bored Electra Glide, packed down, with a passenger, and I was riding bare bones. We decided on a couple of tests; one was a drag race, the other a high gear roll on.
In Galveston, Lone Star Rally ’06. Had many, many inquiring about the pipes.
The drag race I had him initially, but that’s because his front tire came off the ground. Somewhere around 3500 rpm’s his bike comes alive and steadily pulls away. The high speed roll-on was similar, but less dramatic. I held my own until we were past 115 mph. his bike must be able to get just past 120 while I don’t think I can reach that mark yet.
His bike may be faster, but everyone comments that mine sounds better. Just wait till I get the heads and cams done.
My gas mileage improved from 39 mpg to 41 since I changed the pipes. Instead of getting it re-mapped every time I make a change, Bandit is having me install a Terry Components Terminal Velocity II Fuel Management System to the bike. According to the advertising, “The only map you will ever need is a road map.” We will see. I plan to get that installed next week and maybe get a dyno run so we can compare the results of a stock Softail’s 60 hp against a stripped down one with Hooker Headers and The Terry Components Fuel System. I am hoping to top at least 75 hp, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
If you are looking for a radical set of pipes that not only sound but perform well, check out Hooker headers. You won’t be disappointed. I believe the latest price for the pipes is just under 600 bones. Until next time…Ride Hard! You know I will.
