Muffler mod

[Greg Cothern]

Any mods you do to the flow rate of the muffler will cause the carb tuning to change.  I personally would not run them without endplates, but that is my preference. 
If I were to do it all over again I would drill the actual baffle plate that is about 15" up inside the muffler housing (you can see a chrome rivet on the muffler housing about halfway, that is the actual baffle plate) instead of the resonator bulb attached to the endplate.

[TLRam1]

If I were to do it all over again I would drill the actual baffle plate that is about 15" up inside the muffler housing (you can see a chrome rivet on the muffler housing about halfway, that is the actual baffle plate) instead of the resonator bulb attached to the endplate.

Can you elaborate why you do this instead? You would leave the end-plate in tact as is and drill the baffle plate, correct? Would you modify the endplate at all?

[thegoochking]

Yes please elaborate i am also a little confused on the process u are speaking of. Maybe i could do it as i still haven't gotten around to pulling the end plates off of mine yet. What are the benefits of doing it the way you are speaking of and how would we go about doing this.

[Greg Cothern]

I have yet to accomplish this particular mod, but believe it would give a good result.  I would personally leave the endplate completely stock, but still have to pull it to gain access to the baffle plate, which is about a foot away inside hehehe.

I believe with a drill bit extension one could drill the baffle plate out.  I have reached it with a long 1/2" extension and gave it a good wack!!!  IT is in there!  LoL, but a drill bit would take care of it.

[thegoochking]

Back to my tachometer issue, its working fine now hasnt gone out on me. Came back on out of nowhere but i cant get it bellow 2k. Even with the engine turned off the needle drops just bellow 2k. I even adjusted the idle screw to the point where she almost shut off on me and it still stays at 2k. Whats wrong?

[TLRam1]

Defective tach, bad ground - poor connection. I have not dealt with this problem, I would eliminate the issues stated previous before I look for a tach. If you disconnect the tach it should be at Zero, if it doesn't drop down to Zero you might be able to disassemble the tach and see what ails it.

[thegoochking]

Hey guys i am trying to remove the end plates and the round tube like pat that i am attaching my vice rips to just bend when i wack it it isnt comming loose help! haha

[thegoochking]

Forget it, mission accomplished i got them off, it sounds nice and mean now. WOOOHOOO mod 1 complete, what should i do next haha.

[TLRam1]

Ride and enjoy!!!! 

[thegoochking]

Took a butload of work to get those suckers off. I prety much destroyed them to get them out lol. Has to use a flat head screw driver and hammer it into the edges to loosen it up enough to pull them out. Withought doing that they wouldnt budge. i took it arround the block to try and blow out any extra little frafments that were in there and it seems smooter then it was before i finnished the mod. Before i finnished i just had holes drilled thru most of the rivets but not all and she seemed to ride rough. Seems to ride smooth now, maybe that was causing my problem. But i finnish one good thing and now my tach is out again lol. I cant figure out where it plugs in to tighten the connection up. Seems as if all the banging and drilling loosened the connection on me again. Anyone know where it connects to?

[roboto65]

Alot of the connections are in the headlight but not sure about the tach !!!!

[kwale86]

I went through an ordeal with my tach so I know a lot about the workings of it & let me say, it was confusing.  There are 2 wires that operate the tachometer. A common ground that is used for various instruments, lights, indicators, etc.  The other wire comes from the ignition module.  My problems started when I got the bike.  It had been laid over and the tach and speedometer was missing.  I ordered a used tach and speedometer from Ebay.   When I finally got the time to get them installed, I got it all back together and everything worked but the tach.  I took it all apart and traced wires and tightened connections.  I was getting a voltage reading from the wire that was coming from the ignition module to the tach and it was changing with RPMs so i thought that was alright.  I came to conclusion that I must have gotten a defective tachometer.  Oh by the way I tested the tachometer by attaching it to a 12 volt battery momentarily and the needle jumped.  I was very confused at that point but still thought I had a defective tach so I gave up for the time being as the bike was still rideable without the tach.  So some more time went by as I rode with a defective tach and I came upon a fellow MOOT member that was parting out a bike and his tach was known to be working when he removed it from the bike.  I got it from him and when I installed it on the bike I got the same results as the other tach.  I was pretty upset at that point and almost gave up altogether.  I couldn't believe that I had gotten 2 defective tachometers so I decided to try something else.  I got the ignition module from the guy that was parting the bike out.  I installed it on my Magna and VOILA! my tach was working.  
If you have any questions about this feel free to ask.  It has been over a year since I worked on this so I don't remember all of the details but I can tell you these few things:  The wiring coming from the tach and all of the instruments is connected under the small plastic cover on the right side of the bike just ahead of the gas tank.  There are a lot of wires under there but once you get them pulled out they are pretty easy to trace.  everything on the front of the bike uses the same ground wire and it splits off at several locations.  The ignition module is underneath the battery box.  it has one big plug at the bottom.  If you can figure out which wire feeds the tachometer, you can test for continuity between the plug and the tach.  There are few things that can go wrong with the tach but for me at least, it was hard to troubleshoot.  You can have a burned out tachometer, a bad ground, a loose connection between ICM and tach, or a bad ICM.  Good luck and hope this helps.
Kale Tifft
MOOT # 475
99 Magna

[thegoochking]

It goes out and comes back on out of nowhere while im riding at higher speeds. It was working till today when i finnished the muffler mod. I guess all the banging and shaking nocked something loose. I dont know. How much is a new ignition module.

[lragan]

It is certainly possible that you need a new ignition control module, but it seems unlikely that it would be intermittent.  A more likely culprit, in my mind at least, is a connection somewhere.  I would try unplugging the ICM and plugging it back in -- maybe a few times, even, to scrape through any layer of corrosion that may have accumulated on the contacts.  IF the contacts are such that you can carefully clean them, I would try that too.

It is also possible, but unlikely, that you have a break in the wire that makes connection when it is pushed or bent just so, but doesn't in other positions.

In any case, if it were mine, I would invesitgate these other possible causes, which are cheaper to fix, before replacing either the tach or the ICM.

[thegoochking]

Thanks Iragan i will do that.