08-29-2014, 06:00 AM
I read the website and was filled with guilt and shame. After hundreds, if not thousands of man-hours of meticulous tuning by Honda's engineers to get the engine to run just so at each and every rev range, I went and yanked off the equally meticulously tuned exhaust system and replaced it with what amounts to a modern version of the old Cherry Bomb glass-pack. Sounds great, but somehow I don't think it's going to give the same results as the OEM can.
So I did the only thing I could do: I went out and put the OEM pipe back on. Took it for a couple of rides last night and this morning, and I have to say; I have a new appreciation for what they're talking about on the website. It is stunningly smooth at all times. It doesn't wind out the revs with the OEM can as quick as it does with the 2Bros, but it's close. I guess you could get it to surge etc. if you ran the bike at 1500 rpm in 3rd gear, but short of that it's an incredibly smooth FI system.
I have to wonder if anyone could still support the old "They come from the factory too lean to meet EPA requirements" crap after reading about the exhaustive (pun intended) work they did to tune the engine at every rev range? I think anybody saying that is just mouthing off what they've read somewhere else. Obviously meeting the EPA law is necessary, but does that justify, let alone require, jacking around with the FI maps on a stock CB? IMO, unless you've made extensive changes to the intake or exhaust systems it's a waste of money. In fact, even when I dramatically reduced the backpressure with the 2Bros exhaust the bike still ran quite well. That's definitely not been the case with any other bike I've similarly modified. If you didn't put in a PC or re-jet, a "free-flow" exhaust meant crappy performance at anything but WOT.
So I did the only thing I could do: I went out and put the OEM pipe back on. Took it for a couple of rides last night and this morning, and I have to say; I have a new appreciation for what they're talking about on the website. It is stunningly smooth at all times. It doesn't wind out the revs with the OEM can as quick as it does with the 2Bros, but it's close. I guess you could get it to surge etc. if you ran the bike at 1500 rpm in 3rd gear, but short of that it's an incredibly smooth FI system.
I have to wonder if anyone could still support the old "They come from the factory too lean to meet EPA requirements" crap after reading about the exhaustive (pun intended) work they did to tune the engine at every rev range? I think anybody saying that is just mouthing off what they've read somewhere else. Obviously meeting the EPA law is necessary, but does that justify, let alone require, jacking around with the FI maps on a stock CB? IMO, unless you've made extensive changes to the intake or exhaust systems it's a waste of money. In fact, even when I dramatically reduced the backpressure with the 2Bros exhaust the bike still ran quite well. That's definitely not been the case with any other bike I've similarly modified. If you didn't put in a PC or re-jet, a "free-flow" exhaust meant crappy performance at anything but WOT.