A quick review.
As XBR owners know the original exhaust clamps from Honda are no longer available new and they weren't that great in the first place! The mild steel clamps quicky rusted even if you painted them and even worse the collets quietly rotted away out of sight and often made the top of the pipe rot too.
However you can now buy a nice shiny stainless steel clamp set from Sandy Bike Spares / Black Widow exhausts - they of the stainless XBR Downpipes and exhausts reviewed elsewhere - for £37 posted so I bought a set to replace the grotty looking ones presently residing on my own XBR ready for the upcoming MOT to get it back on the road (
).
OK so what you get ( the day after you order! - quick delivery) is a pair of nicely machined stainless steel clamps - slightly thinner than the Honda ones - Now these are very good though there were a couple of very slight machining marks on the faces - nothing remotely bad, you can't see them when fitted but if you want 'show' finish they would polish out easily enough.
You also get 4 half collets made of ..er .. brass/ bronze alloy stuff?....nicely made and it won't rust. Slightly thicker than the Honda collets but overall the thickness of the set is the same so it fits the exhaust stubs fine.
Fitting - OK here I ran into a slight problem. Having prised the old rotten collets out of the old clamps, on offering up the new clamp I found the hole in the clamp was just a little too small to fit over the flange on the top of the downpipe...Bugger!. It was only about 1-1.5mm too small and 20 minutes with a round file and the Dremel soon sorted it. Now my pipes are genuine Honda replacement pipes from David Silver and it may be they are slightly different to the original originals that were fitted at the factory.
It isn't a major problem for most folks, but just something to be aware of. After this, everything else dropped into place and fitted perfectly.
Once fitted they look great! Well worth the money and the bonus that they are basically fit and forget as there is nothing to rot away which should extend the life of the downpipes.
I have sent some feedback to Sandy Bike Spares to make them aware of the problem so hopefully future ones should fit straight on. Don't let it put you off, it's well worth the bit of hassle.
