• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

FMF Install-not so easy...alignment problem

Kenneth Webb

Kenneth Webb

Livin' It Up!
Tried to install my new FMF Q4 and mid-pipe just now, and so far it's a no-go. Maybe someone else has had the same problem.

Mid-pipe slipped onto the headers OK with minor help with a few taps, but the angle at the muffler end is way too high. The mid-pipe hits the engine case and the muffler will not slide on as it's way up from where it needs to be. Next step is to loosen the headers and try to rotate them up a bit to see if that will raise the front of the pipe and angle the muffler end down. It doesn't look like that's going to work, but I haven't tried yet. Also, the muffler will not slip on far enough to let the mounting bracket hole align with the frame mounting tab.

One more try at the headers and then I will have to consider cutting the mid-pipe and the stock mid-pipe to join at a better angle and then have the joint welded. Shouldn't have to be doing this!

The FMF is sure a lot lighter; 13.15 pounds less! It is going to work one way or the other but I am wondering if I got a mis-bent mid-pipe. Any thoughts?

I also discovered that my left hand lower sub-frame bolt was missing! It must have backed out on my recent long, 2200 mile, trip last month. I guess the right hand bolt was doing it all, and I never noticed any problems even with a full load in my saddle bags and duffel on my tail rack. Bolt had Loc Tite, too.
 
My OEM mid pipe rubbed the case too. It actually even rubbed the back of the starter. Now when I have it off and re-install it, I make sure where the slip on mounts to the sub, it's as high as it can be. That leaves a 3/16" of room between the mid pipe and case. I have the LV X3
 
It worked! Just loosened the headers a bit and the whole thing lined up just fine. I think there is about 1/4" clear to the case now. The mid-pipe bracket was a bit difficult, but it went together. Not loud at all at idle. Too late this evening to crack it open. I put it all together dry (no sealant) as the clearances seemed snug, but there is a bit of a leak between the muffler and the mid-pipe. I'll run it a while and see if the carbon seals it up. Now, to consider a fuel controller, but not now. Hopefully it will be close on the AF ratio, and that's what I've read from other members. I've got a little dual sport ride this weekend and look forward to it. It's with the local BMW club so I doubt there will be anything too extreme. It's 100 miles each way to the site, so I'll get a good read on the interstate performance at 70 and 75 mph. I may have to get the heat shield powdercoated though, in black.

On the weight: stock stuff weighed 21.5 lbs. FMF weighed 7.6! I can definitely feel the difference when tossing the bike back and forth. A light weight battery may also be in the offing if I can convince myself that it will be ok in the cold morning temps in Colorado and points north during the spring and fall. The more weight up high that can be removed the better!
 
Kenneth Webb said:
I've got a little dual sport ride this weekend and look forward to it. It's with the local BMW club so I doubt there will be anything too extreme. It's 100 miles each way to the site, so I'll get a good read on the interstate performance at 70 and 75 mph.
Click to expand...

I should have warned you on the fitment, very tight especially to get the mid-pipe bracket hole aligned. Rubber mallet and wood block is your friend. I didn't use any sealant either as my dry fit was so tight couldn't imagine the need and didn't want to try and take it apart. 10 months later and its still leak free.

Have fun on your ride. Actually my riding buddy Mike is the route planner so say hi. He'll either be on his X-Challenge or RT. Definitely nothing extreme but nice scenery, dirt/gravel/sandy county roads with maybe one water crossing thrown in. If not for the Beemer group he would be riding the EasTex 450 with me on Saturday. We take that 3 day ride and do it all in one day.

_
 
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