Life Expectency of OEM Exhaust?

[DFragn]

I found a full jigger of rust flakes in each rear baffle when I did the Ragner cut. That's some low grade stainless steel Honda used! It cleaned out too easily with a magnet though.
I would venture to guess the front baffles would be in better condition and of course the headers even better. But the can, who knows!

Wonder what the average life expectancy is of these exhausts? They are getting a little long in the tooth...

[Earl in Pensacola]

I'm still running the OEM's on my '97 which is at 221K and still going.  The only thing I've done is cut off the "piggies" flush.

[Daniel Meyer]

If you ride often (multi-weekly at least) they last longer...which is pretty much forever.

[Tropic traveler]

LH stock exhaust developed an annoying internal rattle at around 65,000 miles & 10 years of age. Did my own glasspack mod using the stock header pipe & enough sections of the stock "can" to retain the stock shields & tips, if I wanted to use them.
35,000+ on the homemade glasspacks with no problemos.

[petevenne]

Ahhh.. A Bondo cow I saw one othese in Newport VT years ago... Not so big must of been a Bondo calf..

[98valk]

latest EPA requlations require the exhaust components to last 100k, reason that most exhaust are now made out of CRES usually type 304.
The valkyrie exhaust is CRES

[9Ball]

got a brand new (6 miles) set in the attic as a backup.  Bought it 5 or 6 years ago when the getting was good and cheap.  With so many cutting up their exhausts it's going to get tough to find an unmolested set...

I should be good for another 20 years or so....

[Garland]

I just put a like-new set on yesterday. My 11 year old set still looks good, but I had the Mark T glasspacks done when new, and more recently the silencers. It is kind of nice to have that original quiet back again. I was very disappointed with that sound (or lack of it) when new, but as I have gotten older I find I like it now. It even smelled like new when cooling down in the garage!

I will probably just store my other pipes just in case, but for now I am loving the stockers!

[dakota450]

I agree about the quieter stock pipes.  I had a set of drilled, piggies cut pipes on mine and just recently bought an unmolested set of stock pipes.  Much better.  My kid has a 98 with stock pipes, the pipes I bought came off of an 03 and apparently were only used for 800 miles or so.  They looked brand new.  I do have one question.  did Honda change the pipe volume output from 98 to 03?  While these 03 pipes are quieter than my cut up and drilled ones, my boys 98 stock pipes are a good bit quieter than these 03's.  I am running a K&N filter and he is running OEM.  I wonder if that is where the extra volume is coming from.