Pics?
You might give him a shout and see if he'll make it right. My guess is he will?
Just got my muffler back from Randy. I would agree with everyone that he is a great guy. Super friendly and knowledgeable. Haven't gotten my bike back together yet but one thing that irks me is that the welds are absolutely horrible. Very messy with spackle everywhere. I dont know if he has an apprentice or what but nothing of that low quality should ever leave a shop.
Pics?
You might give him a shout and see if he'll make it right. My guess is he will?
Ive no experience with the pipe itself, and its cool somebody out there does the work. I just see it as a cheap, lazy, poor way to gain nothing more than noise. I tore my stock one apart to do the mod, decided what a piece of junk and tossed it.
That's kind of the point of the pipe. For $200 bucks, you are going to be hard pressed to find a pipe that is just as loud.
I recently got mine back and experienced something similar. The welds aren't bad but the splatter was excessive. The splatter comes off easily with a chisel. I suggest you take a chisel and carve it off, then sand. I'd also suggest you sand the whole thing down and apply gloss engine enamel. The Muff shows below the chin faring so it looks a lot better shiny, plus it's easier to clean..
On the note of "gaining nothing more than noise" I disagree entirely. Rand Bypasses the exhaust valve, this dropped the back pressure and made it rev WAAAY faster. After tuning and putting on a K&N it defiantly helped the performance.
Yea its just a gutted pipe. If you dont have access to a welder and want a cheap loud pipe this is the way to go. If you can get anyone willing to split open the can, gut it out, and weld it shut for you for less than his price go for it. He is very misleading when he says he has baffles specifically tuned for the race map. I think its an outright lie after looking inside it. He is a nice guy but am still wondering how everyone likes him so much after he can mislead everyone that much. I dont say much about it because people usually get upset with me.
I want to like the guy because he will spend time and chat with you on the phone about buells and help you out in that regard. He is usually willing to chop the cheese grater off from what Ive heard. But the facts are that he lied about the baffles/ tuned aspect of it, I had pieces break off the inside from poor welds that he just told me to remove (which i had to do by cutting it apart), and i had to repaint it right after pulling it out of the box because he packaged it too soon and the peanuts stuck to the paint. I usually encourage people to choose a different option if they can afford it.
x2 on engine enamel paint
Mine is coming tomorrow, and I am really hoping not to be disappointed. I saw so many great reviews on his work, and he really sounds like a good guy on the phone. Have you all tried to talk to him about your issues with his work?
Tommy - Yes I called him when the pieces broke inside. He said they dont do anything except make it a little quieter and proceeded to tell me to get them out the tail pipes with pliers. I knew his pipe wasnt tuned with baffles and this was further confirmation. I tried to tell him they dont fit and he was trying to assure me they did, so I said eff it and cut it apart myself and welded it back together. He said its because I live in michigan and the inside of mine was too rusty too weld. 1 its covered in carbon on the inside with minimal surface rust, 2 you are supposed to brush/grind to bare metal before welding anyway. I was able to weld it just fine. At the time i sent the pipe i didnt have access to a welder. If you are curious you can google inside of hawk exhaust to see what he does. I posted the pics when I had it cut apart to fix it.
Im curious what he has told other people regarding the baffles and if the pipe was specifically tuned for the race map or not.
That's why I did my own ,i'm lucky I have a welder
All I know is I've had my Hawk for 2 years and 8,000 miles now and while the welds and splatter aren't too impressive i've been very happy with it. Constantly getting compliments about how it sounds. Was going to go with a D&D since they're local to me but said F that when they wouldn't let me come pick it up and wanted to charge me $45 to ship it 4 miles to my house.