Aftermarket exhausts, something that most riders will fit to their
bike at some stage. I am no different and when the time came, I spent a
lot of time researching what was on offer for the now aging Honda
Blackbird.
I did research a number of manufacturers, mostly British, but
Delkevic seemed to have a number of options for the Blackbird that some
manufacturers didn’t have, so I gave them a call.
I was put in touch with sales coordinator, Steven Lloyd, who gave me a
number of different options from stainless steel through to carbon
fibre sleeved silencers. One of the aims of replacing the standard cans
was to reduce weight and tidy up the back end. Also, because of the use
that the Blackbird gets, I wanted something that would take a few knocks
and still look good when cleaned up. Because of this and the advice
given by Steven, I opted for the 350mm long, stainless steel oval
exhausts – one of their biggest selling products and placed the order.
The following day the exhausts arrived by courier in two well packed
boxes, one box for the silencers and one for the link pipes, hangers and
clamps. There was also a nice touch of a pair of downpipe to linkpipe
gaskets but I’m not sure if this is normally included in the kit, so
check with Delkevic first.
So far, first impressions were very good. The cans looked every bit
as good as anything else on offer from other providers, I particularly
liked the badging on the cans, not your usual bloody great big sticker
that shouts look at me officer! The badging looks like an etched logo
and suits the cans nicely, understated but classy. The end pipes are
turned instead of rolled tubing and the welding is very neat and tidy,
more like machine welding. A small point here, although the welding is
neat, the weld and immediate surrounding metal is discoloured from the
heat and could do with some polishing to tidy it up a little. The road
legal baffles are already in place, so no messing about there.
