Toggle sidebar

Gauging interest in Decatted head pipes

Bluebowtie

Bluebowtie

New member
May 27, 2014
451
0
0
I have a opportunity to buy 8 head pipes with the cat still in. Any one interested I'm buying one after I gut the cat?

I have not bought them yet. I'm purely gauging interest at this point.


Sent from the mobile leash
 
Yes I would be interested if the price is decent I was thinking of doing a decatted head pipe myself over this off season was going to buy a stock head pipe off of e-bay and decat it myself
 
Gauging interest in Decatted head pipes

Blue: you have your work cut out if you do it. I did mine and i would buy the $125 one on ebay next time. I had about 2.5 hrs start to finish in it.
 
I bought mine off e-bay, the $125 was cheaper than the amount of time it would have taken me to do it myself..this way I still have my stock one w/ the cat in case I ever want to sell the bike
 
Great idea. I de catted a couple of months ago using the gutting method. It was a MAJOR PIA to say the least. Took me about 3 hours and I was exhausted afterwards. If I had to do it again, I will buy a de catted header. I will never do that again, that's for sure.
 
Bluebowtie said:
What makes it such a PITA?

Sent from the mobile leash
Click to expand...

The adhesive HD uses to bond it to the housing is like a weld and the Cat itself is pretty fragile and breaks off easily. It's a time consuming effort, I took a shortcut- I bought catless headpipe instead.
 
I've got all kinds of time on my hands. That happens when you work nights.


Sent from the mobile leash
 
The de-catted head pipe and a re-tune may add about 5 hp to a 2014 bike tuned with slip-on mufflers and high flow air cleaner.

Here's some good info from Utah H-D: utahharleytech.com

Start at the bottom (stock) and go up the page.
 
I just gutted my cats the old fashion way....with a hammer drill, a spade bit and a 26 inch pry bar....took me about 3 hours total time and it came out pretty good. I didn't clean all the crud off the inside though, about 99 % of it. I figure whats left on the inside won't hurt anything. I bought a spare oem header off ebay for $35 and decatted that and I will gut the other and sell it to someone too lazy to decat their own. I still have the stock pipes and it did make it a few decibels louder but I still need to get some descent slip-on's. I'm thinking of Street Cannons as I hear some good reports from other members on them.
 
There seems to be no shortage of take off stock pipes in my area and I've got the equipment to gut these pretty easy (grinders, tig welder, etc). How much of a hp/tq gain is there from using an aftermarket header vs a decatted stocker? Say, Vance & Hines power duals? Would the stocker be suitable for a Stage 1 setup or is it still too restrictive?

Thanks in advance!
 
There seems to be no shortage of take off stock pipes in my area and I've got the equipment to gut these pretty easy (grinders, tig welder, etc). How much of a hp/tq gain is there from using an aftermarket header vs a decatted stocker? Say, Vance & Hines power duals? Would the stocker be suitable for a Stage 1 setup or is it still too restrictive?

Thanks in advance!
 
There is a big difference between the de-catted stock pipe and say the power duals for performance. The de-cat will help with stock exhaust to flow better and reduce heat and yes you can do the stage 1 even with the cat still there.
 
TomA said:
There is a big difference between the de-catted stock pipe and say the power duals for performance. The de-cat will help with stock exhaust to flow better and reduce heat and yes you can do the stage 1 even with the cat still there.
Click to expand...

I Agree with Tom,
As I understand it There are three main factors that affect exhaust systems; sonic pulse waves that travel through the pipe, thermal pulse waves of hot gases, and exhaust gas velocity which ideally is 300 fpm. Harley engineers have this figured out for optimum performance according to the amount of air/fuel intake. The catalyst assembly is honeycomb in nature and is geared to flow with this combination. While removing the catalyst will reduce heat I doubt there is much performance gain from the big chamber that remains. On the other hand a well designed catalyst free head pipe and complimentary mufflers that have been engineered to preserve the balance of the three factors will produce additional power over stock when combined with the proper intake assembly and camshaft.
It's important to remember that the new age muscle cars sporting 600 to 700 HP all run cat systems and are EPA compliant.
So IMHO a good tuned system is a much better investment than just the de-cat.
If heat removal is the goal the inexpensive de-cat will work just fine but there will not be much in performance gain especially with free flowing mufflers that will drop the exhaust velocity below 300fpm

Just my ramble,
Blues
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


Forum statistics

Threads
7,970
Messages
69,208
Members
15,056
Latest member
Clive Miller

Share this page

Share this page
Top Bottom
Back