Mandello MIVV exhaust
For anyone interested, I bought a MIVV decat header set for the Mandello via Ebay – even including VAT/duty on import it was only just over half the price of a set of Agostini pipes.
The pipes are nicely made, are easily assembled and contain all the required parts other than the two exhaust gaskets, so I procured the gaskets from Gutsibits.
First problem was getting the standard front pipes off – the mount above the Cat uses a long bolt into an alloy bracket, in turn bolted to the back of the gearbox. The cat support bolt was corroded in and I had to use an impact driver to remove it – it came out with the first two threads of alloy welded onto the bolt. As the bolt isn’t needed with the new pipes, it wasn’t an issue, but I did remove the bracket from the gearbox and then run a tap through the mounting bolt hole to ensure the threads left were clean. The exhaust mounting bolt goes in far enough that I deemed it reusable.
For my own interest I weighed both the OE pipes/cat and the new MIVV decat headers:
OE = 6.3kg
Mivv = 2.4kg
The object of the exercise isn’t weight saving, but every kilo helps!
Not everyone loves the stock silencer and although it is heavy, actually I do like the look of it and it may be helpful to have the OE can on when I start needing MOT’s, only 6 months away now. That said, I have already taken a long drill to the internals from the front to ease gas flow, making it slightly more tuneful but not loud.
If you look into the front of the OE silencer as provided, it has a flat plate that the exhaust gasses hit at the end of the entrance tube, the gases then pass through small holes in the periphery of the tube to get into the main body of the silencer. That seemed awfully restrictive using fairly small holes to me and not ideal for a 1,000cc twin to breathe, so I have simply shortcut the process to allow more direct movement of the gases through into the silencer.
So, the MIVV pipes were pretty easy to mount up, the most time consuming and tedious part was putting the heat shields onto both downpipes and for me the jury is out on whether I’m keeping those or not. I’ve never really liked them.
Having fitted loosely, the header bolts were done up onto the new exhaust gaskets and the rear mounting bolt nipped up before fitting the silencer.
I have an Upmap to load a tune onto the bike, but have not yet done so. I did however have a quick run up the road this afternoon (Baltic!!) just to shake down everything as I’ve been doing a load of other work too. To me the most immediately notable difference was more pull – she seemed much happier to pull along, especially in e.g. 30 limit in a higher gear than felt comfortable previously. I would say the throttle response was snappier too.
All subjective at this point and I appreciate this modification will not be to everyone’s taste, but I am delighted to be rid of the great lump of a Cat under the sump and am sure I won’t miss the heat it generates next summer.
