I'm trying to give the 695 a little "different" look without breaking my wallet by buying a new exhaust system. I was thinking of wrapping the cans in exhaust tape to give it that look. I know that the practical application is, as the name suggests, for exhaust headers but are there any drawbacks to wrapping the cans themselves? I'm curious if anybody has done this to their monster!
Can't imagine any drawback. The stock cans aren't going to be damaged in any way. I think it would look pretty cool. I would leave the endcaps uncovered and make sure you wrap the headers as well or it might look funny...
Wrap them so that the exposed edges of the wrap are toward the back of the bike, air will flow over it better and will reduce fraying in the long term. oh . . . and post pictures.
There was some mention a while back that wrapping headers and riding in the wet can make them deteriorate more quickly. I would suspect that this is less of an issue on the mufflers that don't get so hot but it may leave some marks if you remove the wrap later. Which kinda makes me wonder, what about polishing the aluminum jackets? Polishing aluminum is pretty easy.
Scott
I wrapped my header pipes. It looks pretty cool. It does fray in some spots over time. Some people coat the wrap in polyurthane or something like that to make it more durable. Maybe someone can chime in on that. Also, the black color wrap will fade over time and look grey. I currently have white wrap, which turns brown over time.
Also, if you later remove it, you will see some discoloration on the pipe. And, I suppose it could hasten rust, as wet wrap will hold moisture close to the metal.
Here is some pic after i wrapped up my cans with black thermo wrap and after i spray it with black silicon spray to keep the water from breaking in.Its been a year since i did this to my cans and headers and still holding pretty tight except the headers starting to peel off just now.
(http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i46/w7ck7d/my%20696/IMG_0206-1.jpg)
My next step is to ceramic coat the headers this winter when the bike is out of commisiion. [thumbsup]