Sato Racing Exhaust
August 2003
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I had the
opportunity to try out some new exhaust cans on the 919. I had never had
any problems with my Two Brother Racing cans, but having a chance to get a new
toy for the 919, not to mention the reputation of Sato exhaust systems, I couldn't resist. The parts included
straps to mount the cans to the bike, rubber strips to protect the cans from the
can straps, compression straps for attaching the Sato down pipes to the stock
Honda "Y" pipe, aluminum brackets to bolt the cans to the frame, and of course
the bolts themselves.
The
Satos came well packaged. The cans are titanium and the end caps and down
pipes are stainless steel. Sato is well known
for their quality and attention to detail, and I must say it shows in their
product. Everything is included to bolt the cans to the bike. The
installation instructions leave a little something to be desired, so get some
help from a buddy if you've never installed a set of slip on exhaust cans on
your 919. If you've installed any slip on
exhaust system on a 919 before, then you should have no problems. For
detailed instructions on how to install this exhaust system visit
THIS LINK at
www.919.org.
Basically
you just remove the seat and tail section. Then remove your stock exhaust.
All of this should be pretty obvious. You'll need some hex head sockets
for the tail section, so make sure you have those. The biggest piece of
advice I can give is to loosely bolt everything to the bike and get the Sato
cans leveled up and centered before tightening anything up. This will save
you a lot of time bolting and unbolting the cans to get them even. One of
the things I like the best about the Sato system is that the can retaining
straps bolt to the 919s frame in the same location as the stock exhaust.
This makes the mounting system very secure.
The second
thing I liked about this Sato system is that the down pipes are welded to the
cans. This make them a one piece installation and eliminates the chance
for leaks at the down pipes. The welds are extremely clean and finished.
The entire installation took me about 30 minutes including pictures.
Firing up the bike a smile just stretched
across my face. The tubes are a tad larger on the Satos than on the Two
Brothers system I had. This makes for a deeper rumble at idle. Crank
on the throttle and they really sing. Taking them for a test ride, I could
swear I feel more power in the mid rpm ranges, but this could just be mental as
the sound is really something. I'll have to follow up with a Dyno run to
compare to the TBR Dyno run I did before.
One oddity I've found with this exhaust is that the exhaust smell issue I've had from this bike is greatly reduced. This surprised me as I still had the exhaust smell problem with the TBR exhaust I had previously. For some reason with these Sato cans, the exhaust smell is barely even noticeable. An added bonus.