Motorcycle Safety & Driveability: aftermarket exhaust, pipe, modify

Question

Bike I own a 2002 Suzuki Intruder LC 1500 and would like to install aftermarket exhast. Is it as simple as just getting the new exhaust taking off the old and replacing it or are there any sort of adjustments and or parts required to ensure maximum performance that I could do myself?

Answer
You should find an online Intruder discussion group and find out what experiences other people have had, certainly. But I can give you some general advice:

Changing out the pipe changes the way the engine converts fuel to power. Ideally, any change in the exhaust should be accompanied by a change in the carbs and/or air box. This is best done by a tuner with equipment to measure the power output and tweak variables to get it up to maximum performance.

However, if the 1500 is fuel-injected, the computer does a pretty good job of accommodating the change in backpressure, and you can probably get away with just replacing the pipe. Still, ideally, a new FI map should be used based on the pipe and power output, but I think the effect would be unnoticable either way.

Pat