[pauljo]

I removed the silencer from the Remus, and went for a ride this morning.
Oh-my-god this thing is LOUD!! I have twin Remus Gran Prix cannisters on my 1000cc V-Strom - and they have no optional silencers. The Scooter is louder. Of course, I have that big XXL Clearview windscreen which I think amplifies the sound some.

The Remus exhaust does produce a deep, authoritative, somewhat mellow exhaust note - not as harsh as the straight pipe Harley sound. But I may be producing a few more decibels of it than I like.

I rode up to the dealership. A salesperson met me at the door. "Sir, that Burgman sounded rather interesting going by." Come take a look, I said. Next thing I know I've got the service manager, the accessories manager, the sales manager, and three or four other employees out looking at the scooter. "Could you start it again?" Why sure - rumble, rumble, rumble.

The exhaust note is now audible at any speed. It's not too bad if I am cruising at a steady speed - but twist the throttle and it bellows. I did most of my ride this morning in manual mode - it just seemed right. If you're going to sound like a wolf in sheep's clothing - might as well go all the way. Crack the throttle when riding under an overpass on the freeway, and the sound reverberates off of the overpass walls. Not for the timid, this unsilenced Burgman.

Power seemed about the same - it will push you back in the seat doing manual shifts at full throttle. I think you get about 98% of the performance gain with the silencer installed. However, I think adding a properly mapped Power Commander (to change the Fuel Injection settings) should produce some noticeable additional power with the silencer out.

The silencer wasn't very easy to get out, even though it is supposed to be removeable. I had to drill out the retaining rivet first. Then I tried gripping the silencer with a pair of vice grips to pull it out. It would come out about one inch and hang up solidly. No amount of tugging would get it past that point. I called MaxMoto, and they said I should be able to easily pull it out with my hands. Yeah, right. So I removed the muffler from the pipe, stuck a piece of broom handle in from the back side of the muffler, and whacked it with a rubber mallet a few times. That worked.

The silencer doesn't appear to be too hi-tech. I'm thinking that I can probably modify it to allow a bit more sound, and reinstall it. I might try that at some point.

 

[Kenny]

Sounds like a great mod! I've been thinking about getting a different exhaust to make it sound better... but it looks like the power gain is more of a plus...


Kenny

 

[pauljo]

Well, I soon tired of the loud unsilenced exhaust. I was so loud that I was kind of embarrassed whenever I had to roll on some throttle around town or to pass a car. And when I found my ears ringing after a 25 mile ride, I knew I couldn't tolerate it for a really long ride.

So, I put the silencer in a vice, got my reciprical saw, and chopped off the back 3 inches. The back end of the silencer was crimped inward, limiting the flow of exhaust through it - there are four holes in the front of the silencer tube, which allow exhaust to come back into the tube and exit the muffler. Also, there was a lot of fresh circular scoring of the metal in that last two or three inches, which showed me that the difficulty in pulling the silencer out was from that last several inches binding on the inside of the muffler.

I reinstalled the modified silencer using the screw kit that MaxMoto had sent me. It was now easy to install & remove the shortened silencer by hand - and there would be a less restricted flow of exhaust gasses through the silencer.

Went for a ride. Excellent! The sound is a bit sportier than with the full silencer, but not too much louder - well within socially responsible limits.
Power seemed unaffected. I like it.

 

[sleibo24]

exhaust for 650 burger

Were did you get yours from?

 

[pauljo]

Re: exhaust for 650 burger

Were did you get yours from?

MaxMoto - they are the USA distributor for Remus.

415-355-1400
[email protected]

 

[lycheed]

Paul,

Thanks for the updates. You've come to the same conclusion that I had come to after hearing race piped TMaxs and SilverWings bellowing and moaning on overtakes and traffic light takes offs over here - that noise is just simply too loud and doesn't match the character of the 650. I think being the sensible end of touring, it shouldn't be too imposing on the environment as one rides it though the countryside, but a slight amount more bass over the original pipe over 5rpm may be nice.

I'm sticking wiht my stock pipe for now, as one thing they do provide is protection for the machine in the event of an off - I found this out to the injury of my wallet in January when I dropped my x11 at low speed. Almost all the right hand side of the bike was damaged, and the oval Akrapovic muffler was not all that scuffed. The standard bazoka stainless steel pipes would have taken a lot of that scuffing themselves and saved the rear subframe, radiator, seat plastics, etc...

I quite like the bass not at take-off of the standard pipe, however. Between 2-4,500rpm it makes a nice deep and below sound. That will have to do for now. I'll get my sound injection from the race piped RC45 and Akrapovic piped x11 - sounds that stir the soul.

How does the VStorm sound? How is the bike in general?

Lycheed

 

[pauljo]

Lycheed,

After trimming the back 3 inches off of the silencer and reinstalling it, the sound is nice on the Burgman. A little louder than stock, and more character, but not at all intrusive. I'm pretty happy with it.

The V-Strom sounds wonderful. The Remus Gran Prix cannisters produce a very authoritative sound. It is a mellow sound - not harsh. The V-Strom is a very good motorcycle. I did upgrade the windscreen and the seat, and if I keep it, I will eventually put in progressive fork springs. The front suspension is too stiff, so you don't really get the benefit of the long travel with the stock springs. Other than that, my only gripe is the chain drive. I've ridden shafties for 20 years, and don't enjoy going back to chain maintenance.

I enjoy riding the Burgman 650 more these days. But that is to the credit of the Burgman - and not due to any deficiency of the V-Strom.

I want to do a couple of longer tours this Summer on both the Burgman and the V-Strom. That experience may tell me if I should keep the V-Strom.

 

[Roger Buente]

I put the Remus Carbon Fiber on mine last week. I was a little concerned about the cutting but it all came out ok. The pipe looks great in carbon fiber. It seems to be tilted slightly from the verticle but everything is on in it's right place. I would probably like a little more sound. Is the baffle set anything more than a a screw with a nut when you drill out the rivet. Is it something you could just get at a hardware store, or is it something special that maxi needs to send. I can't tell much difference on the power but it looks great and sounds better.

 

[pauljo]

MaxMoto will send you the screw & washer kit if you request it. You need to be careful when you drill out the rivet that you don't overdo the hole size and destroy the screw threads. I started small, and worked up in drill size - it came out & the threads were OK. MaxMoto also advised me to put locktite blue on the screw to prevent it from vibrating out.

Getting the baffle out wasn't easy - I've written an account somewhere in the forum - you may want to locate it and read it. My exhaust was WAY too loud with the baffle out. But I was able to modify the baffle to produce a comfortable sound level - I also covered that in the writeup.

If I had it to do over, I think I'd just leave the silencer alone. It was more of a project than I thought it would be.

I think if you run through the gears in manual mode, you should feel some more power. By if you get real throttle happy, you will probably see gas mileage drop. I got only 42 mpg on one tank, where I was doing manual mode a lot, max accelleration runs, and a couple of top speed attempts. I'm now trying to behave... which should get the mpg back up.

Unfortunately my 650 is resting until I get my new rear tire. But it has given me a chance to get some riding time in on the V-Strom.

 

[lycheed]

Paul, by the way, how many miles did you get from your rear tyre?

I'm wondering whether it will be able to rival the Reflex for longevity at 9300miles, but I suppose that's due to 25bhp massaging the rubber as opposed to 59bhp, not to mention 45ftlbs of torque pulling the thing out of bends. One reason why I stopped long touring on the x11 was that the 160-odd bhp used to shread tyres in a matter of months - I used to get a max of 2000miles from tyres, and found myself changing tyres every 3 months. Not good for the bank balance, as you can imagine. So, I'm really hoping that the 650 provides 5-8k mileage out of a set of tyres.

Do you think that the new muffler (and full power mannual shifting and top speed runs) will effect the wear rate?

 

[pauljo]

I have 5100 miles on the original rear tire. It is down to the wear bar at one grove. I could maybe squeeze another couple of hundred miles out of it, but I don't like to take chances with tires. The front tire still looks very good.

The scooter tires are significantly smaller in diameter than a motorcycle tire, so they have to spin faster than a motorcycle tire at any given road speed. That in itself, will cause them to wear faster. The Burgman 650 not only has twice as much horsepower as the Reflex - it also is much heavier. It weighs more than my 1000cc V-Strom. Hard acceleration and high speeds will definitely aggravate wear. Tire pressure, and the road surface temperature also come into play (a hotter tire will wear a bit faster because the compound gets softer). Hard braking will also contribute to tire wear. Riding straight up (vs curves) will cause a tire to wear faster in the middle - which is part of my problem living in the mid-west. Riding with a passenger, or carrying extra weight have an effect. Back on the East coast where I previously lived, the roads are crowned, so they cause the front tire to groove. I'm not seeing that happening on either cycle yet, riding in the Mid-West. There are a lot of variables. Even pushing the oversized windscreen (which is a big air brake) will cause more rear tire wear. For comparison, the rear tire on my V-Strom has to handle almost twice the horsepower, and has more miles on it (about 5800), but it is still good for awhile.

I weigh 225. I ride solo most of the time. I like to accelerate briskly (but not typically full out). I ride a lot of miles on country 2-lanes where I can cruise at 65 - 70 mph. There are curvy roads to be found out here, but you have to ride straight up a lot of the time. I don't run maximum tire pressure. I have have various oversized windscreens on the 650 - currently a Clearview XXL. I could adjust my riding habits to get better tire wear, and better fuel mileage, but I am not obsessed with that.

Bottom line. It is entirely understandable if one rider gets 4500 miles out of a rear tire and another rider gets 6000 miles or more out of the same tire.

 

[lycheed]

Paul, I agree with your points. My asking about use effecting wear rate was more a tongue in check reference to your comments on top speed runs, manual changing, and racing unsilenced mufflers, than a real question, but in your answer it's evident that I have met another Jedi :wink:

Interestingly, many of the members of the x11 club in the UK use BT020 and get 9000 miles out of their tyres all those speed cameras and straight roads ensuring the behave. The Reflex tyres rally can't be compared to the 650s. They are actually much softer than the 650s, and warm up immedeately as they are designed for city use. Due to the fact that they largely only, have stop start use as well as rain touring, they do pretty well to get 9k miles out of them. Good enough to absolutely piss on my 996 riding friend on roads we boht know very well - nothing goes downhill as fast as this.

I'm currently at 2400 miles on the 650, and I think I can expect about double again from them. I only ride the thing two-up with 20kg of luggage under the seat at weekends, which means that I don't use the highway - bikes with passengers are not permittd to use the highway over here. I usually get up at 5am and use normal roads at an average speed of 30 mph for aout an hour before breaking into mountain roads, where the speed varies between 25mph and 85mph - but where you are always on the edges of the tyre. We cover about 350 miles per weekend on mountain passes. So, use is the same as the x11. These tyres have a similar feeling to the old BT57s that my x11 was supplied with in 2001 - good grip, stable, and decent wear. On these tyres the 650 has embarrassed VTR1000 riders, CBR6 riders, Bandit 1200 riders, as well as an RS250 rider last weekend. This is a seriously competant package and I'm satisfied with my purchase.

By the way, if you are interested, on the 11 I use BT012ss typically, and and now trying out BT014. So far, the 014 is not as fast turning as the 012ss (predicatably) but it warms up fast, keeps warm when you stop to take in the view, and grips extremely well in road conditions. The move from 012ss to 014 is due to the fact that the 012ss were being eaten at a rate tha wasn't friendly to my bank balance. I have an RC45, Relfex and 650 to feed, too - not to mention the car... The 45 is on Pilot Power at the moment.

I'm off out to Nagano (Japanese Alps) camping with the girlfriend after work tonight for two nights. We should arrive at around 11pm - even though the route will encompass tight 30mph winding mountain raods where you sometimes find bolders or wandering stags at night, the lights are goo enough as standard to take all this in your stride. My x11 has HID fitted, but the width of the beam of light doesn't rival the 650.

Have a good weekend, brother.
Lycheed

 

[pauljo]

Filled up the Burgman 650 with gas today. Got 45.75 mpg on the last tank. A little less than the 46 -47 mpg I was getting before installing the Remus & modifying the silencer.

But on my 75 mile ride this morning, I was enjoying the sound a lot. Not loud enough to bother anyone, but cool sounding. You can just barely hear a drone from the exhaust when cruising at constant speed, but crack the throttle and she snarls a bit. You can tell what the engine is doing a lot better.

On the down side, I looked up at the display on the pump while I was filling the tank. $2.05 a gallon for 87 octane. In Omaha, Nebraska.
But our state's Attourney General says he can find no evidence of price gouging by retailers... Yesterday morning I paid $1.85 in Omaha.

Then again, last weekend I stopped at a convenience store for a bottle of water. They charged me $1.49 for a 16 oz bottle of drinking water! That would equal $11.92 per gallon! For purified water.

Hey, I'm sure glad this scooter doesn't run on purified water....