Hi you all!!!

Are the catalyzed headers so restrictives with the air flow of the exhausts?

Should I change them on a RKC 2012 to get good power, sound and less heat?

Or I can just change mufflers, air filter and tune?

Thanks!!!

 

I think the cat in the headers are a big part of the heat and they are also restrictive. I think I read it on this forum somewhere. "It plugs up the pipe like a tampon for an elephant". If you do a package like FullSac and others advertise, you get a pretty good price that fixes all of the issues at once.

 

There are threads about this approximately every 3 days.

On a bike with mild bolt-ons, it reduces sound slightly and does generate extra heat. A tune can lower the cat temp without removal. Cutting out the cat from the stock head pipe is worth nothing for peak power, but swapping to an x-pipe like what you can get from Fullsac, Fuel Moto, or Vance & Hines will improve power slightly. It isn't that significant, though.

 

The HD cats are exceptionally free flowing. Not like car cats made with thick honeycombed ceramic material. They are very thin coated corrugated metal that take up less than 10% of the container volume.

You will not notice the difference. Removing them will eliminate the very high temp that they function with. That is reason enough to remove them. Unless you love gold and blue pipes and mufflers.

 

Yep, what he said. They don't restrict the flow that much, but restrick sound and generate a ton of heat for the bike and the riders.

 

while I agree with you that they don't have a big effect on flowI will say they do take up a lot more then 10% of the container volume. I cut one and removed the cat material and I would estimate it was closer to 50% which still left plenty of flow. look up the header pipe and you can see exactly what the stuff looks like. When you cut the section in two you can hold it up to the light and you can see it looks like about 1/2 material 1/2 free space.

 

Question all the posts here you want, but believe they generate LOTS of HEAT! Mine's gone and the heat was just one of the benefits of removing the CAT.

 

With the CAT removed they let the exhaust flow less restrictive & the sound difference is significantly better at least with aftermarket slip ons. I'm running the V&H Hi Flows & so is my brother & my 08 with NO-CAT is significantly louder than my brothers RG with the same mufflers. That alone tells me it is restrictive....

 

Love my cat!

 

Get rid of the cat---then a good tune and the bike will run much cooler.