Hawk 250 - Performance Exhaust - some notes

[ChrisWNY]

Just finished installing a performance exhaust on my Hawk (photos included). I followed Motocheez's how-to, drilled the holes out on that flange to 1/2" (was a real nightmare because that metal is very hard to drill), and it STILL didn't quite fit over those bolts on the head. I ended up cutting the edge of one side of the flange in order to bolt it to the head. That took over an hour alone because of how long it took to drill out one of the sides. Fitting the exhaust on the rest of the way was relatively easy...just slip the rear portion of the exhaust over the front part and secure it to the existing hole already in the frame.



For the muffler, I didn't want it hanging as low as what I have seen others do - I drilled another small hole in the frame and bolted the muffler bracket directly to the frame so it's nice and tight. I wrapped fiberglass cloth pipe tape around the pipe that passes underneath the airbox to prevent burning the airbox. I may just remove the airbox and go with a cone-style air filter bolted directly to the carb at some point in the future. For now this seems to work.


If I were to do this mod again, I'd probably cut both the stock/OEM and the performance exhaust pipes, remove the flanges and swap them, then have the performance pipe welded back together. That would've made the job MUCH easier.



Overall there's a noticeable gain in horsepower and top speed with the new exhaust installed - the Hawk isn't really louder, it just sounds BETTER. After riding a few miles, there's already a lot of bluing at the front of the pipe...it gets hot up there.