Black Rineharts on Road Trip Report

[Seaking]

A few people were asking me how I like the new black ceramic Rinehart pipes on my bike after a week or so, so I have a good report to shed some light on how they sound, etc.

 

The pipes mentioned in http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=51473 sound quite nice. I'm able to get out of the neighbourhood quietly enough without setting off alarms or waking up babies.. They have a nice rumble, the have a nice bark when you drop the hammer. And they cruise very well.

 

My buddy and I did a 1300 mile trip to Mount Washington again, just for some video footage. We did the I95 doing highway speeds of 80+ mph (and we were being passed all the time.. wow) and some of the back roads from the I95 into NH and White Mountain range.. Very interesting results for performance and fuel mileage.

 

Doing highway speeds, the noise is loud enough you'd want to wear earplugs. I wear then when highway traveling anyway to protect against wind noise so this isn't a big deal for me. The more load on the engine at highway speeds, as in head winds or hill climbing for example, the louder they will be. But when you're cruising nicely with little or no load, the pipes have this nice hum to them.

 

As with most RSV, the faster you go, the more head winds you encounter, the worse your fuel mileage gets and compared to the trip we did in May-June with the other pipes, my highway mileage was about the same, very sucky lol. With speeds in the 80+ we got as bad as 35 mpg, which isn't bad considering, but averaged out around 38 mpg which is the norm for my bike.

 

But it's when we hit the back roads doing 40, 50 and 60 mph that the mileage got interesting.. With the Rineharts on the bike, the bike feels to have a lot more torque than ever before. Whereas at higher gears and lower revs, you can open the throttle a little more and feel it pull more instead of having to open the throttle a whole lot before feeling any pull but you've dumped so much fuel for so little gain, your mileage would suck. However with the Rineharts, it actually pulls with little throttle applied. Very nice. On the flats I could cruise 50 mph in 5th around 2500 rpm, and when encountering a slight incline, a little more throttle would climb the hill and settle down nicely. If you've done the back roads between Maine and NH you'll appreciate how much nicer this was not having to shift down and up all the time. Again to emphasize, this is without lugging or chugging the engine.. Nice.

 

The sound and noise level on the back roads is very tame and satisfying! A nice mellow deep tone which wasn't hard on the ears at all. I ride the back roads without ear plugs and the radio tunes coming out at volume 17.. typically at highway I would have it up to 21. When you climb hills and such, you get the barking of the pipes but it's not abrasive on the ears.

 

Bottom line for "this" rider: Love the sound, love the performance.. the price was right, they look great on this bike, they sound smooth and mellow and give that satisfying bark when you drop the hammer..

 

I love it when someone comments "Now THAT's what a Harley should sound like" not realizing it's a Yamaha, and I reply.. "yes, you're right, this IS what a Harley should sound like, thanks!".. and ride away.. hehe

 

(as a note, my buddy rode with my Larossa pipes on his bike and I could hear him behind me.. drowned out my tunes!! lol.. )

[OddStar]

Glad to hear that you've discovered what these pipes are about.

 

On the plus side, BUB stands behind them very well. My buddy's RK had the 'true duals' and he kept burning through the left down tube right after the exhaust port. Long story short, I called them and they acknowledged there was a problem with the clamping area, and sent a new pipe with upgraded mounts - no questions asked. Another friend had flaking on his black cones, and they replaced them also.

LUV that hummm... Now if they'd just make some fish-tails...but their engineer I talked to at the show said they decided not to go that route, and when pushed he got very techie on me.

[mrich12000]

Nice pipes. great site you have shown us. Going to order the hobs and tack for my new VStar 1300. Thanks..Michael..-

[Seaking]

Nice pipes. great site you have shown us. Going to order the hobs and tack for my new VStar 1300. Thanks..Michael..-

 

You're welcome, them being a Canuck Company, easy to deal with.. =)