I hadn't planned on replacing this for a while - it looked OK - except the collector which is housed underneath the bike near the centre stand. It was rusty. The pipes were OK. The silencers were OK. The bike has done 38,500 miles.

Then a small hole appeared.

Honda Front pipe assembly costs is the region of £450. I searched around and found that Motad make a stainless steel pattern for about £270. You have to watch this though - no one probvides any pictures - and some pipes in magazines are not the stainless steel ones. Motad pipes do fit Honda Silencers, and they do have all of the welded heat shield mounting points in place.

The pipes come in three pieces:	Some Photos
Left pair - 2 into 1 Right pair - 2 into 1 Collector - 2 into 1

Motad do not provide gaskets for the silencer/collector joint. You need to keep your old ones (if you can get them out) or buy new Honda gaskets. About £17. You will also need the 4 port gaskets - these are copper rings. Patterns are available, but I ended up having to buy Honda pieces. There is no gasket between the front pipes and the collector.

Fitting

This took 2 whole days. It was not easy. Apart from the fact that the fairing has to come off, I expected the pipes to fit into place like Lego. But they didn't. The pipe fit into the collector is snug, and this presents a problem - it is almost impossible to manoevre this joint when everything is almost in place. It is impossible to put the collector on afterwards - the pipes did not quite line up on my bike. You cannot do this anyway without the rear wheel removed - so the bike has to be on the centre stand. But the centre stand gets in the way of installation if it is down !

I ended up fitting the left pipe. Loosely to the exhaust port, with the collector already in place. I used some Exhaust Jointing compound inside the collector - wetted with water to provide better lubrication. I couldn't use the original collector bolt - it had sheared when dismantling. In any case the old collector has a metal sleeve for the bolt. I sawed this off and used it inside the original rubber mounting point to provide a better fit for the new bolt.

I then fitted the right hand exhaust into the collector and rotated it into position, keeping an eye on the alignment with the exhaust port.

There was a considerable strain at all 4 junctions - at the engine and at the collector. So much so that the collector ended up about 2 inches too far to the right. I used a long bolt and drew it into position while jiggling the other connections. If the collector is not exactly seated, it prevents the centre stand from being retracted properly. If it has not been pushed onto the pipes far enough, it fouls the cross member on the centre stand.

With everything in place, it only remained to refit the silencers. This should have been easy, but the strain in all of the fittings had left the collector not quite horizontal - making it impossible to fit the silencer on one side. I had to remove the pipes and repeat the entire process - this time with the silencers loosley fitted inside their gaskets in the collector - just to hold the collector in the correct position. This turned out to be a much better way !

So the sequence ended up as:

• Fit collector to left hand pipe (with joint compound & water)
  

• Loose fit left hand pipe to exhaust port
  
• Loose fit left silencer to collector - support with rear mounting bolt but no nut
  
• Attach collector to mounting point with long bolt (and sleeve sawn off original collector)
  
• Loose fit right hand silencer - support with rear mounting bolt but no nut
  
• Manoevre right hand pipes into collector - align with exhaust ports
  
• Check collector is in place
  
• Check exhaust port gaskets are in place
  
• Start tightening port nuts and collector bolt (nb two torque settings for the exhaust ports)

Now - if you forgot to put the silencer clamps in place ..... (note that these can foul the centre stand if incorrectly positioned).

Motad Exhaust Fitted

The bike sounds much sweeter now. I had to re-balance the carburettors after fitting the exhaust. I haven't tried the bike yet - Its February 3 2002 and it has been blowing severe gales for the last couple of weeks. The Honda Pan European is brilliant in head winds. It is a barn door in cross winds. And I'm a coward - so its still in the garage !

Motad Exhaust Fitted