Exhaust blues

[zen_kick]

Right header on my 2004 Ballabio was emitting jaunty little puffs of exhaust yesterday morning. Stock system all around. Closer inspection shows about a 2" crack wrapping around the outside. Am just approaching 11k miles. Good thing warranty covers else I'd have to sell a child to buy some upgrades...

[Greg Field]

My right header cracked last week in exactly the way Brian's did. My friend Kevin welded it up. I sure hope it holds . . .

[Guest frankdugo]

Agreed, too bad the riding season is so short. Brian is fixing to be colder than a well diggers ass

in janurary

[badmotogoozer]

Both mine split last summer - right around the pipe in a spiral. Welded them up and they were fine this summer, just a little uglier.

 

I've had the Stucci cross on for years and was sure to tweak things on install so there was no stress on the pipes when tightened up. I think it is just shitty materials/welds on the stock bits more than anything. Both cracks started at the point where the stock weld ends/meets underneath the pipe. I heard both crack on the same day within blocks of each other. Heavy traffic and she got hot - Ting! Ting! Started sputtering too.

[Darius]

This forum is a great help. I have been trying to figure out why my LM started running rougher (especially at 4000 RPM as described in the original post) after I washed it while cold and went for a ride afterward. I assumed something electrical got wet and checked all the usual suspects to no avail. After reading this I looked and, sure enough, my right header is cracked! My bike has only about 6K miles and I am hard pressed to imagine washing while cold then riding did this - probably more of a coincidence.

 

I remembered seeing some heavy duty "crack proof" headers and after some searching found this link at GuzziTech in case anyone is interested.

 

http://www.guzzitech.com/store/GT-R-Hdrs.html

 

My 2003 has the cross over pipe in front so I will probably go the welding route and see how that works for now.

[vuzzi]

Can you put pipes without front crossover on a >2003 bike that has a front crossover? Or do you need to remap the CPU or anything like that?

[Guest ratchethack]

Can you put pipes without front crossover on a >2003 bike that has a front crossover? Or do you need to remap the CPU or anything like that?

No remap needed, and no perceptible change on the dyno after eliminating the front crossover, according to Todd Eagan at GuzziTech, who's probably logged as much or more direct experience with Guzzi dyno testing as anyone outside of Mandello, as a Rep for Dynojet.

 

My Pal with a '04 LM verified this by eliminating his front crossover by welding up the "spigots" on the OE headers. The only change on the road was the absence of frustration from years of hearing the banging of the loose crossover on the alternator cover.