A few weeks ago, I went riding with a bud up on the canyon. I figured this would be a good chance to compare bikes from a performance stand point. The only difference are the pipes and ignition. We both have stock porting.
Both are RD350s. Mine has spec ii classics with HPI and his has points and DG pipes. Both motors have stock porting but my cylinders are cheap ebay ones I bought which I believe are made in Taiwan. I just chamfered the ports and fitted new pistons and rings. We both have foam UNIs filters jetted correctly.
It would appear that my bike could accelerate alot faster from out of a turn and on a straight. the advance curve from the CDI and the lighter rotor with the combination of the better pipes was a huge boost in performance.
If any of you are thinking of upgrading to boost performance then you can't go wrong with better ignition and spec ii pipes; or similar. It's money well spent.
oh 100%
I wouldn't run dgs on anything these days.
Good information, thanks.
Just doing the DG mod made a big improvement over stock DG's. They aren't optimal in any way, though they are an easy bolt on improvement. You guys pointed out that DG's are super expensive now, but I paid $250 for mine. A nice upgrade for the price even in stock form. I haven't gotten my HPI on yet, too many projects, but I doubt it will yield the improvement even the stock DG's did. The HPI on sale was more expensive.
I was hoping to buy a set of pipes from Garret but that no longer appears to be an option... So the modded DG's it is.
if they were 2-250 it would eb a consideration for a basic bike.. but now, no way.
I agree. The price is ridiculous. You can just spend the extra to get a proper set of pipes. The amount of time I have in modding mine was fairly substantial.
I got some really beat up DG's that were from the 70's or early 80's basically free.
I made new rear cones and rotated them for better fit, installed stingers that were mostly inside the last cone and added some tyga silencers. The bike came with a brand new set of DG's and the modded ones were way better. Well worth the effort.
I should have done more research , jumped the gun DGs ..
Are you going racing? If not, the DG's will be fine. A 45 year old motorcycle is not going to be particularly fast in any terms even if they are sweet, exciting, and cool as fuck. Just enjoy the thing. If you find yourself on the track, buy better pipes.
i mean, they work. ive run a few sets of 'coolhead' modded dgs like above and they do well, for sure. (had them on the ninja/rd actually & the yellow monoshock bike) but again, id only run them now if they were still under 300 bucks new. Ive run some unmodded dgs as well, and def better than stock pipes performance wise, no doubt.
BUT, money spent now on new pipes id never pay for dgs when the price is close to better designed units currently available.
Yeah, the cost benefit analysis no longer favors the DG's. They are just too expensive. I just looked and they are going for $650. Crazy.
Had a couple of sets of DG pipes and they are lighter and better than stock, but mine came on a project bike, so they were the right price. :whistle:
This was purely an observation on my part and no I am not going racing. My opinion is that with updated technology as Gary's pipes have gone thru several iterations, research has been implemented into his pipes to make a better riding experience. It's like an evolution of technology. i would also like to add that the HPI with less rotating mass on the crank helps compared to stock ignition. The CDI advance curve that I am sure is embedded software burned into a microcontroller is typical with alot of modern ignition systems. This is quite a step up from points ignition. No, it is not fast by modern standards and everyone here knows that but it enhances the riding experience with these improvements.
^ hpi & specIIf1s are what i have on the lightweight, and it pulls to the moon and revs very, very quick. (also is chuck q ported and running 34mm varbs w v force reeds), its pretty nasty for what it is, but compared to older pipes, (dg/j&r/pipelyne) there isn't much comparison, they dont make the power up high. the cdi made a big difference, for sure.
Whats the DG mod?
cliff
On the old site there was a link to the mod. Not sure if that still exists.
Basically, you cut the included muffler off and that exposes the end of the cone. The cone isn't finished, the opening is too large and doesn't meet the perforated tube. So you close that cone off to the right ID, then you fit a proper stinger. I didn't follow the Mod tek to a T, we did our own calcs and came up with some numbers and went from there. I did an inverted stinger and wanted to keep the powerband wide so I went a bit safe on all the numbers. It is very rideable, tractor-like for a 2t. 103mph is the best she has done, but I live in the city and nice ridable power band is required going stop light to stop light. It's also rather hilly in Pittsburgh, an engine that relies on the pipe too much can be problematic on a 8% grade with three stop signs.
its here:
https://www.2strokeworld.net/forum/index.php?topic=774.msg5726#msg5726