Friday I had some time to explore reworking the exhaust system on the Rat Turd. My searches on craigslist for a used header had turned up empty. It seems there are a lot of used headers out there but they were all "just sold".
A new header is still available for this 31 year old bike and they aren't very expensive. I could have one shipped to my door in 2 days. That's not gonna happen. Rats don't get new headers. If it's a part I can't make on my own then I'll buy it but if it's just a matter of bending, cutting, grinding and welding some steel then It gets done here in my lair. The problem I had is that no matter how much beer I drank I just couldn't piece it together in my head. This is what the stock exhaust looked like.
I went to bed that night thinking about how to make this a 4 into 1 exhaust with parts I had and how to route it without blocking the oil filter and drain plug. When I woke up I had and idea I wanted to try. Sure enough everything just started to click.
Next I would need to build a collector. After a little head scratching I decided to rip a piece of tube length wise and hammer the two halves into something that would form the outer sides of the collector.
After adding a couple flat plates to the top and bottom I welded everything together. I left a 2 1/2" opening for a pipe that will run to the muffler.
Here is the finished header. It turned out ok and should carry the "rat bike" theme. It looks like it may even flow better than the stock pipes. Vroom vroom!
So there you have it. Stay tuned for updates on the rest of the exhaust system.
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