I recently installed an Aprilia "SL-Carbon" exhaust on my 2000-1/2 Aprilia SL1000. The twin carbon fiber oval slip-ons are manufactured for Aprilia by RSC (Racing Services Corporation). It comes with an EPROM that they say must be installed for performance and reliable engine life.
Installation was pretty simple--the exhaust comes with a picture book showing installation of the chip and exhaust. I guess the only thing not really covered to my satisfaction was proper electrostatic discharge protection when handling the ECU and chip. Yeah, I'm anal-retentive but ESD damage is often subtle and difficult to diagnose. Wearing a ground strap is easy in comparison. Give yourself an hour for installation and you'll have time left over for a test ride.
See some pictures.
The pipe definitely improves the bike's torque all around. There are no tradeoffs in performance. Most noticeable is the torque below 5k. You can now use 6th gear on the highway without feeling the bike shudder under acceleration. The first two tanks of gas after installing this chip weren't on reserve by 150 miles. I was always on reserve at 125-130 miles before. You'll notice the front end wants to leave the ground in first gear at roll-on rates that were safe before. The bike always pulled strong to redline, in my opinion. It still does, maybe a little better in fact. Aprilia provided a before/after dyno plot with the pipe. Units of power are in CV (cheval vapeur), which is equivalent to one metric horsepower (PS). Multiply by 0.9863 to get James Watt's standard definition of horsepower. Torque is in kg-m. You can convert this to ft-lbs by mulitplying by 7.26. The scale is unbelievable--I'm pretty sure they were measuring crank horsepower. But the comparison is what's important.
Noise? Well, I consider the Falco a noisy bike. I wear earplugs because all that mechanical cam/countershaft/gear/chain noise makes me feel as if I'm hurting the bike when I get on it. Once derestricted, the airbox noise was pretty loud before. Now, pretty much all you hear is the pipe. At idle, you hear every power pulse. Under throttle it is beautiful. And it has a nice deceleration note (no popping). Finally, some soul for the bike. I guess I didn't really answer the question. Yes, it's pretty loud. Not obnoxious like a Harley, but louder than your average 600 cc with slip-on. I can live with it, and I'm not a loud pipe kind of guy. I wouldn't feel right riding it through my neighborhood at 4 AM, though.
Weight is down about ten pounds. I weighed the stock canisters at 9 lbs a side, the carbon canisters at 4 lbs a side. Can I tell the difference? Not really.
Cost? List is $950. I get 10% off accessories purchased at my dealer, plus there's no sales tax. It's a bit steep, I'll admit, but I was pretty confident Aprilia's chip would work. You can now get Arrow round carbon slip-ons in the states now. I think price is $650 plus shipping. I don't know if there is a chip.
To check mixture and performance, I took the bike to a dyno. They had never tested an Aprilia before, so I really had no "before" curves, but I was able to confirm that the bike was not running dangerously lean anywhere. It looked like Aprilia had designed the chip to walk that fine line between performance and economy. According to the dyno operator, most bikes make good power between 4 and 8% CO (steady state). My bike produced around 3.5 to 4.5% CO everywhere. There is a lean spot at 5,000 rpm, the same place the torque dip on the stock and stock/derestricted always occured. I don't think it is dangerously lean, but it is curious why it couldn't have been corrected. The skeptic in me believes it may be lean for cruising MPG, as I've been told there is an irregularity in the map numbers there too. Conversations I've had the helpful people at Factory Pro Tuning make me think there's more power to be had.
Again, I didn't answer the question. Short answer was the bike made 101 HP at the rear wheel on a Factory Eddy Current dyno. For those of you with Dynojet numbers in your head, that's about 116 Dynojet HP. See Factory's website for other bikes they've tuned, including the piped and jetted GSXR750's at 102-104 HP, or more closely related, the a piped and jetted VTR1000 SuperHawk at 98 HP.
Go back to the Falco home page.