You've probably seen the name Steve Poole and his company, Poole's Pro Built (PPB), mentioned more than once in our magazine. Our staff has been working with the talented builder for a number of years now on various projects. With a background in building pro race cars, Steve honed his skills with years of research and developing stainless and mild-steel headers for various race teams. He also designed and built his own Harley drag bikes, chassis, and pipes. Steve has years of hands-on custom-fabricating and metalworking skills in his arsenal.
In other words, he's not just guessing. Steve Poole knows how to make power.Street or strip-there's a big difference. Bigger is not always better; you have to know the details to get the right numbers. Part of attaining that power is having the right exhaust on your bike. We asked Steve to explain to us exactly how he makes his high-performance exhaust pipes. He first prototyped his original pipe design back in 1996. That's right-10 years ago, Steve built a real tuned, stepped, two-into-one with a merge collector creating real horsepower on a V-Twin. This pipe was first seen on Mike Berg's motorcycle "The Minx."
The process began with Steve making a complete exhaust-system set from U-bends and straight pipe. He then sent the sample bends out to a CNC mandrel bender to make sets out of 14-gauge mild-steel material. He brought raw parts in and cut them to fit into the fixture he's built for the specific design. Steve machined the flanges, welded them on, and then welded the pipes together in his own fixture. With that process finished, he then took them out to be polished, chromed, or ceramic-coated. Even though this is a production pipe, each set of PPB pipes gets his personal attention.
He began by welding the flange...
He began by welding the flange retainer to the header pipe. With a few small tack-welds, he was able to check to see that everything was straight. He then finished welding the header pipe.
Steve cleaned up the welds...
Steve cleaned up the welds on the header pipe with a belt sander and then finished them off with a piece of Scotch-Brite.
Next, he placed the header...
Next, he placed the header pipe in the jig he made to hold the two pieces of pipe together. This jig is set up so the header pipe is at a right angle to the cylinder-head mount.
The baffle pipe was slid onto...
The baffle pipe was slid onto the header pipe and welded. Steve welded the pipes about 2 to 3 inches at a time. This allowed the pipe to cool, thus preventing warping. This was just one more way to ensure that all the pieces for this exhaust system were a perfect fit, making for a true bolt-on system.
Here is a look at the welds...
Here is a look at the welds on this pipe. They're very clean, with small beads. No need to pull out the grinder with these pipes
All the same steps were then...
All the same steps were then performed on the rear pipe.
At this point in the build,...
At this point in the build, Steve would have his customers tell him what they were after performance-wise and where they wanted the powerband. From there he would know how much baffle to install in each pipe, if any.
Next, Steve installed the...
Next, Steve installed the front pipe onto the bike to check alignment of both pipes so that the merge collector could slide right on.
Here is the merge collector....
Here is the merge collector. A true performance merge collector, it was designed to help with the powerband, not just to look cool.
With the welding complete,...
With the welding complete, Steve performed a quick check before everything was sent out to get chromed. All the pipes fit just right.
Here are the pipes before...
Here are the pipes before they were sent out for chrome. They're true tunable performance pipes.
A mounting bung was welded...
A mounting bung was welded on the merge before the pipe was chromed.
While the pipes were out getting...
While the pipes were out getting chromed or ceramic-coated, Steve welded up a mounting bracket.
The pipes were now back from...
The pipes were now back from chrome. Here is how the merge collector mounted to the frame on a Softail.
After the pipes were mounted...
After the pipes were mounted on the bike, Steve wiped all the oil and fingerprints from the pipes before firing up the motor so that the pipes wouldn't stain
Here is a set of pipes from...
Here is a set of pipes from Poole's Pro Built. Since all of the company's pipes are constructed of heavy-walled tubing and a tuned header with merge collector, they sound just like a race car-and yes, they do have baffles for sound and backpressure. Poole's Pro Built will also make one-off pipes from your design.