Harley-Davidson XR1200 Pipe Comparison

Terry Vance and Byron Hines are two legendary racers that teamed up to form Vance & Hines Racing and have been offering performance products to the motorcycle market since 1979. No strangers to the Harley market, V&H came up with their own style with the Widow XR 2-into-1-into-2 Power Chamber system, which is very similar to the collector in a 2-into-1. They offer this system in black coated mild steel as we tested and also in stainless steel. The Widow XR system was the heaviest at 29 pounds (part of which was attributed to the beefy rear mounting plate), although the stainless version is reported to be lighter, 15 1/2 pounds according to V&H. Like the Remus, V&H could have moved the front O2 bung slightly to ease installation. The Vance & Hines turned out to be the best value in the bunch, offering good power increases with one of the best overall power curves, at a very modest price, the lowest tested.

Termignoni is an Italian company that is very well known for its sport bike racing exhausts since 1969. World Moto GP Champions like Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner have relied on Termignoni exhaust on the their championship winning bikes. The Termignoni is the exhaust of choice for the Italian and Spanish XR1200 racing series. The US distributor for Termi sent us the 2-into-1 system and since the 2-into-1-into-2 uses the same headpipes; we were able to borrow the two-muffler system from Kevin at Advanced Kawasaki in Garden Grove, CA. Those headpipes are quite interesting as they use a tapered Stainless tubing to increase the pipe diameter, vs. the step design that some US manufacturers use. The 2-into-1 was the lightest by far at just under 12 pounds plus it eliminates both the rear bracket and the one under engine for a total savings over stock of a whopping 27 pounds! The dual muffler version weighed 6 pounds more, still lighter than most! The muffler is carbon fiber as are the small heat shields. All in all pretty trick and exotic stuff, but it does come at the highest price of this group. Like the Remus the sound was more Ducati like than traditional Harley.