Motorcycle Exhaust Fabrication?

With cars, you can get a muffler for $15-$100, some mandrel bent tubing for another $100 or so, and make yourself a nice header/cat back exhaust. So what's the deal with bikes? Most mufflers are hideously expensive, despite just being glasspacks. How come I can get a 2" glass pack for $15, but anything smaller (bike sized) becomes $150+? I can find suitable tubing/bends in "header kits" but when it comes to the muffler, am I stuck biting the bullet and dishing out cash for a Yoshimura/Termignoni/FMF/whatever? Please tell me there's some secret GRM-friendly site for this stuff that my Google-fu is too weak to find.

Back in the 1970s, the dad of one of my friends had a R75/5 BMW. He was a farmer and rode the thing on gravel roads all the time, so the exhaust rotted out pretty quickly. He went down to Tractor Supply, bought two tractor mufflers and welded them on. Didn't look very good, but they worked great.

I have actually caught myself staring at the tractor mufflers in Tractor Supply, daydreaming about what they might be good for... still, maybe something a bit sleeker is in order.

JC Whitney has some "universal chrome plated replacement mufflers" for motorcycles. Not sure they are what you are looking for, but If you can find something you like you're golden.

look for muffler packing from some place like BikeBandit and build your own muffler too? There's not much to the last slip-on style muffler I took apart. Perforated tube with packing around it and a sheet of thin steel covering the end caps?

Cone Engineering sells all the bits to roll your own muffler, honestly the only specialty type parts you need are the perforated tube in a motorcycle size and the endcaps, the outside of the can you can use large diameter exhaust tubing for if you don't mind the weight over a thinner sheetmetal can, just rivet it to the endcaps if you want to make the muffler repackable.

what about a factory takeoff from a higher performance bike?

carbon wrote: what about a factory takeoff from a higher performance bike?

DINGDINGDING! Low-mileage stock motorcycle mufflers from someone upgrading is fairly cheap. If quiet is what you are after, look for something stock off a higher-end bike. Get an idea of the rough dimensions you need and start shopping.