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TaylorMade
Racing R1 system:
This
design was a milestone for Taylormade as it took our exhaust designs
to a new level of integration: During a visit to the Los Angeles
International Motorcycle Show in December 2001 I took Paul over
to the Yamaha stand and showed him how Yamaha where the first to
fit an integrated undertray to a production bike.
Talking the design through, we realised we could remove the large
ugly license plate holder to leave the very clean, sharp body design
- but where would we put the exhaust? I pointed out that the LED
tail-light looked like the exhaust of a fighter jet and that if
we could have it there it would be pretty neat!
Paul then began what proved to be considerable research period into
the ceramic coatings neccesary to contain the heat sufficiently
to avoid problems with the bodywork, or passenger comfort.
The Cool Ceramic Technology he subsequently developed was first
shown to me via some photos of a bike which had no visible exhaust!
- the pipe just disappeared into the seat unit. This was exactly
the fully integrated system we had envisaged when first considering
how we could get rid of the huge muffler cans that hang obtrusively
from the side of most sport bikes.
Interestingly, Yamaha have gone in a very different direction for
the 2004 R1, with a twin-pipe homage to Ducati's evergreen 916 exhaust.
We'll leave you to decide which looks better on an R1...
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