My Bike's Renagade Exhaust Warning these can take a while to load They're named strange because that is the way my digital camera auto-names them. If you want prints of these, you can send them to www.kodak.com electronically, or by web reference and they will print the file and send it to you for a small fee. Click on the thumbnails to see a larger form of the image. At long last, I put my Renegade Products semi-full underseat exhaust system on. Surprisingly easy, but because I'm not a very good wrench (and was ill prepared) it took the better part of a 3 day weekend, as well as a call to Ray Soto who lives locally and has done this, in addition I got a call from Jorge, from the Renegade shop in England (midnight my time no less, and I'm still working on the bike ;) that cleared up the last few issues. I put a more detailed set of instructions below with the installation pictures, which, if you are contemplating doing the work yourself you might want to know. I'll be taking some nicer, outdoor pictures soon until then the installation pics will have to do. Installation Info Things you will need: A service manual, if you don't already know how to disassemble and re-assemble the rear of the bike. You can find a free (older) copy online at http://www.sv650.org/sv_manuals.htm A rear work stand .. almost everything except the suspension links can be done with this for that you need: A floor jack or bike lift (a bottle jack probably won't do) I used a 3 ton Sears floor jack, because it has a nice large pressure surface, much easier to balance the bike on. Regular (clear) silicon sealent A metric nut, size 8 A replacement exhaust gasket (this is a crushable aluminum gasket so you probably shouldn't reuse the one that is there) A drill, and a bit assortment that includes a 1/4" bit capable of drilling through steel (I used a titanium bit set) you'll probably want a smaller bit too so you can drill a pilot hole. A hacksaw, and files, or a dremel (with plenty of cutting disks and your favorite small grinding bits) A torque wrench, good to about 60 ft-lbs various metric sockets and allen wrenches, including various extensions (you may need a 10" extension for the exhaust removal/install) Things that would be nice: A pair of vise grips (extremely useful for fussy things) A front stand so the bike balances easier on the floor jack Some black touch up paint Some self stick velcro As a point of background, I'm a software guy, and all my friends who know me probably think I'm capable of wrenching, but they rarely see me do it, for good reason, it takes me too long to figure out whats going on, and usually I don't consider it fun. In this case the former was true, but the fact that I was reasonably successful may surprise many. The disassembly can probably be done in any order, but I'm going to list them in the basic order that I used. Also you may want to read through everything first, as I'm a stream of consciousness writer, and sometimes I stick things inline out of order ;) I'm providing this webpage as a hint for others who may want additional help, but the final word on the correct mounting of this system is, and always will be Jorge's. Just ask him, he won't bite, but he may call you at odd hours ;) Take a look at the kit you get from Renegade, pretty nice, only thing is that there were no instructions because their computer had virii, and I didn't get anything via email till late in the process, even still, those pics helped a great deal. I'm going to assume that you have access to them in some form or another. Oh, and not to worry, Jorge is very responsive, although he much prefers calling to help (direct from England no less) as opposed to answering questions via email. On to the work or better known as Steve's Mechanical Adventure, First I took off the rear seat, rear handrail and front seat, standard stuff, this is even covered in the owners manual. However, even with the service manuals it was hard to figure out how to remove the rear cowlings. I ended up taking out the existing undertray first (and battery) before I figured out the trick. This is also when I took off the pillion pegs (as well as unbolting the exhaust from the pillion. To remove the rear cowling, you need to remove the light assembly first. The light assembly is tricky -- take the lens off, then inside the rear you'll see 3 bolt heads screwing down into the sub-frame. You'll want to take these off and then pull out the assembly. It'll be even easier if you uncouple all of the connectors first, and then remove the light sockets (a tangled twist and turn) its much easier to get to the bolts. On the underside of the black tail piece are 2 screws holding it into each cowling this is why you have to remove the light assembly to take them apart. When you remove the black tail piece, remember that the rubber grommets go through both the tail piece and the cowling this will be important when you re-assemble. The cowlings themselves are held on by 4 vertical bolts, and 2 screws with clips (in the middle) don't let the bolt shims from the front seat bolts fall out (they're pretty loose) they'd be a pain to find later (these are the ones in the grommet beneath the front seat rubber rests) Then they're both held on by a rubber push in grommet, be careful un-snaping it, I never managed to get the left cowling all of the way off because it seemed like such a chore to remove the lock, so I just kept swivelling it out of the way. After the back-end is all apart you can cut off the passenger hand rails. Supposidly you can do this with a hacksaw, but the one I had wasn't making very good progress, so I switched to my Dremel with cutting disks, surprisingly it worked very well, although getting the final cut, around the inside corners was hard, you can just work the rail till it snaps off and then smooth off the ragged edges. Just in case, I painted the freshly cut areas with the black touch up paint. Next I removed the original exhaust, not too bad, there was a bolt on the side and one underneath (that one doesn't have a removeable nut, thats why you'll need a metric #8 nut). Now I've been told that you could do the removal without taking off the front pipe, but that didn't appear to work for me, so I removed the front pipe too. Now Jorge says you can work the collector/exhaust free from the rear cylinder "spigot" without touching the allen head clamp, but he's way more experienced than I .. so I just stuck a 10" extension in through the left side black panel area and loosened it up good, then everything dropped right off. Next up was the one of the hardest parts, you want to remove the "dog bones" (called so because of their shape) and replace them with the new links. Jorge calls them Suspension Links, but the service manual calls them Rear Cushion Rods. This was my first point of of confusion. The new link is supposed to raise the back end to give enough clearance for the new exhaust. The fact that the new links were *shorter* than the old links and that I have no concept of bike geometry worried me. Luckily I found a fellow lister in the area, who was actually at work, to chat with me a bit. Much thanks to Ray Soto .. without him I might not have finished. So yes, the new links are shorter and they do raise/stiffen the back end. Its a nice ride now. First loosen the bolts that run through the dog-bones. Mine just spun, but Ray says "Vice grips are your friends" .. especially when working alone. Clamp the bolt head and loosen the nut on the other side (a good sized socket wrench helps too) Now you have to get the bike up on the jack, so that the rear is unsprung and floating. I had problems getting the bolts free .. Jorge says they just work loose for him by hand, but I had to punch them out .. with the help of vice grips on the dogbones themselves, they finally came loose. The roller bearings came out a bit, but I just pushed them back in. Getting the new links in was odd, the bolt side (left side of the bike) actually went in pretty easily, but the far side was off a bit. I put the front one on first and then had to lift the swing arm a bit to get the other side in. Trust me, banging on your bike, and moving the swingarm when its only supported by the floor jack and the front wheel is not a comforting experience. Anyway with the help of the trusty vice grips I was able to torque them down to the specs (56.5 ft-lbs I believe, got it out of the service manual). Finally, Jorge recommends setting the rear shock preload at 2 after this change, since the default suspension setting is supposed to be 2, I just left well enough alone. If you've mucked around with your rear shock or settings you may want to play around with it a bit. Finally it was time to start hanging part of the exhaust, I did this section first cuz I wanted to give the silicon a chance to cure. I siliconed the inside of both the front facing tube on the collector and the spigot connector (these would be be the slotted parts). Turns out that the new collector/distributor only bolts onto the underneath mount. But mine was off by a significant amount. Ray said he didn't even mount his, and it was solid when it was all on. Jorge assured me that mounting it, while tight, would still fit everything fine and line up correctly. So again with the vice grips I managed to get that bolt through it and the mount and tighten it down. Oddly, unbolted the front pipe fits perfectly, all the way into the pipe stop, but under tension the front pipe didn't go into the collector all the way to the stop, but at least I got the header bolts on evenly and tightly. Now the detail work begins. First, you'll want to drill a hole through each cowling so that it matches up with the new undertray hole (the one in the middle). This is deceiving because the way the undertail mounts is that the rear holes go *over* the cowling and screw clips (looking from underneath) but the rest of the undertray goes *under* the cowling lips. Jorge provides another pair of screws and clips, the clips go on the undertray and the holes you drill are for the screw to go up into the clips. I drilled one hole perfectly but on assembly the other needed to be dremeled out a bit to fit. Next up is the hanger holes in the sub-frame. Jorge explained where they went on the phone, but I confused him with my repeat, so you'll see 2 sets of holes in the pictures, I used the ones furthest from end. The key to this is to remember that you eventually want the hangers to hang at a 90-degree angle to the subframe, NOT vertically to the floor. And when they're at the normal angle (90 to the frame) the brackets will fit right through the slots where the hand rails came out of the cowling. The easiest way to line this up is to mount the undertray by the front (battery) bolts, and then push the end up near the subframe and hold the bracket against the slot at a 90 degree angle, mark and drill. The one thing I failed to do well (and wish I could do over, but I don't have the time) is that when I initially mounted the hangers, I didn't notice that one of them was a shade lower than the other, I think the hole on the sub frame was lower/higher both vertically and along the frame a bit. In any case, you have to reassemble the cowling and undertail before you can actually put your canisters into the hanger. Tighten the hangers up good so that they stay at the right angle. Then place the cowlings loosely on so that you can see where the hangers line up with the bungee rail openings. You'll probably have to dremel/or file a bit for it to fit. I ended up squaring off the rear holes so that I could also get to the primary bolt if necessary, besides its underneath, not like everyone is going to see it with the cans there. Don't tighen the small allen head bolts at the bottom of the hanger, these are the final tigheners after you slide the cans in. Now basically you re-assemble in reverse order, if you want to save yourself some trouble, mount the rear black tailpiece to the right cowl by using the rubber grommet, then you only have to tussle with the other one. The left on I put on the cowling first layed the rear tail over it, and then worked the grommet through from beneath. Next up is bolting the the tail light assembly back in, and, while you're at it put the lens cover on -- it'll fit if you tighten the undertray first, but its a scary "snap in" then. (yet another thing I'd do differently). Now you can tighten up the undertray and take pictures Finally, using a lot of soap, and elbow grease, you slide the cans in from the back, this took me quite a while, and it didn't help that bike would actually roll while on the rear stand. In any case, it helped to use a screwdriver to open the hanger at the little allen head bolt. Don't forget to silicon both ends of the pipe before mounting. I mounted the right can first, however, in retrospect, because the fit is so much tigher on the left, it would have been better to do that one first and work on making the right match better. Although the left was very tight, it did clear swing arm, I just had to bounce it a bit to verify just in case. The very last thing is mount the license plate frame on the new "ducati style" tail piece, the stock blinkers will fit (you have to drill mounting holes) but you probably don't want to use the plastic alignment holders (on the base of the bolt) if you ever want to put in aftermarket blinkers. This is one of the things I'm going to do right a way, as the stock blinkers are really, really heavy, and the tail piece bounces around a lot and flexes the undertail. For the same reason, I opted not to remount the stock license plate lights (you'll see holes right above the license plate frame). I hope to find after market lights that are smaller and lighter. (Lockhart-Phillips for the blinkers but still haven't found a good license plate light). Oh, and you'll have to cut away the electrical bundle sheathing so that you can get the signal connecters to the new positions through the drop down hole in the undertail. I also used self stick velcro to stop the electronics module from slding around, likewise I actually mounted my owners manual envelope as well as wire tied my tool kit to the subframe. The tank brace stays in my garage. You really don't want anything running around loose in the storage area because this undertail will allow them to slide all the way down to the battery area (under the front seat). The only issue that I really had with my kit was that either the spacers for the pillions (passenger foot pegs to the US) were too small, or the bolts were too long, cuz there was too much of a gap to be made up by the mounting brackets. It looks like it would take on the order of 6 or so washers to make up the difference but I'm expecting to chat with Jorge et al at Laguna, and should have a recommended solution soon, until then no passengers for me. Chatted with the gang at Laguna Seca and showed them my pillion and bolts, apparently it was a shipping mistake, because the SVS is a bit odd, and mounts from the rear (as opposed to through the front of the pillion) they had sent the wrong size bolts. Unfortunately they didn't have any there, so they told me to cut them down to the right length. This can be done with a hacksaw, but since I'm now a Dremel master, I put my cutting disks to work again. The one little trick is to thread a metric #8 nut onto the bolt so that after you're done cutting you can use the nut (and a wrench) to clean up (re-tap) the threads in case you bent anything or had some junk in there, much easier to do this by taking the (previously installed) nut off than to try putting a new nut on after cutting. After re-installing the pillions the left side fit is very tight, Jorge says its ok if they touch, if I'd put the pillions on before hanging the cans I probably could have aligned them so they didn't touch. How long did this take me? well I said I worked slow, it took 5-6 hrs just to do the rear disassembly, and a like amount of time pre-fiting the exhaust, and then another 4 hrs or so doing finish work (dremel/drill). Counting all of the trips to Home Depot it took the better part of 3 days, but there's nothing like a good reason to buy tools. Proud owner of a new floor jack (anyone want to buy a bottle jack?) new titanium drill bits, nifty torque wrench and a few spare tubes of various types of silicon (bought a few when I couldn't decide what to use, but Jorge said plain clear silicon, so now I have some high temp stuff sitting around) And oh yeah, did I mention, thanks to Ray Soto for curing the worry panics of mine both in email, and on the phone, the internet is a wonderful thing, as are the SV mailing lists and Renegade forums. Its a shame he was working on the weekend but it really made my day. Then there's Jorge, not only a trick kit, but for the phone hand holding, especially for explaining the undertail fitting at 1am in the morning my time, I'm sure I was really coherent ;) But thats dedication to quality work for you. Was it worth it? every d*mn penny, luckily I saved some $$ by joining ridersite.com before ordering the kit. But there's no explaining the sound, you'll just have to hear it in person as the wav files don't do it justice. The backend is just a bit taller now, not flat-footing for me, but still better than the 750ESD, and tight? boy is that back end responsive, now I'll have to do the front forks just to get them even. Yes, I would do it again.