It seems that many new bikes are fitted with a flapper valve in the exhaust these days, Ducati being one. If you look back through the posts you will find that I took the exhaust valve motor out of my 848 and fitted a little box to fool the ECU into thinking that it was still fitted. Well I have another little box the same.
This picture shows the oil filter from a previous post but the exhaust valve gubbins is in the same area. The valve itself is under the triangular cover to the rear of the green circle, it is held on with three bolts. Just under the front of the green circle, the cable that runs to the motor, which is in the lower front of the fairing. is just showing,
First thing that I did was to take a short video of the motor with the bike running to see when it was closing the valve.
This actually proves nothing apart from the fact that it is working. In my view anything that is making a restriction in an exhaust system for no known reason is a waste of time, and does nothing for efficiency.
The motor and cable has been totally removed along with the brackets. This saves a bit of weight, not that I’ll ever notice while riding, and gets rid of that ugly cable hanging down. The valve itself is still in the exhaust but is wirelocked in the open position.
Time will tell if the modification has any effect on the way the bike runs, or on economy. It is very easy to reinstall everything if needed.
All that I need now is a spare exhaust box to see how easy it will be to cut open, remove the catalytic converter, and weld closed again. That is one modification that I know from experience makes the machine more economical and boosts mid range torque.
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