Carbon fi ber or bust
By Dale Sanderson A
RECENT INSTALLATION OF
Akrapovic Sport Silencers on my 2013 K 1600 GT caused me concern—not from a performance or sound per- spective, and certainly not from their gorgeous looks. What caused me concern was their appearance in rela- tion to the rest of my bike. Gone are the pebbled aluminum end caps and accent pieces existing on the stock exhaust cans, now replaced by beauti- ful titanium sleeves and carbon fiber accents. Yet the pebbled aluminum catalytic converter covers (“cat cov-
ers”) remain, now isolated in appearance from their stock exhaust mates. I really never did like the looks of the pebbled alu- minum parts, and now even less so since the cat covers stand out like a Harley at a Beemer rally. The lines in my bike had been affected thanks to Akrapovic, and I knew that I had to do something about it. There- fore, the birth of my carbon fiber venture. I quickly realized that the solution to my
problem would be to create a carbon fiber look to the cat covers, a look which would match the carbon fiber pieces on the Akrapovic silencers. I first considered vinyl
carbon fiber wrap, then quickly dismissed the thought, opining that such vinyl wrap would not hold up to the heat emitting from the catalytic converter and/or exhaust pipe. Moreover, I had always considered such wrap to be faux carbon fiber, with its often cheap appearance. No, it had to be the real thing or nothing at all. And nothing at all was not an option. I canvassed the internet seemingly for
hours, varying my parameter searches in hopes of finding some web site or blog ger- mane to my topic. It is not like “carbon fiber cat cover” in a search field yields any
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My carbon fiber catalytic converter covers. BMW OWNERS NEWS May 2016
TECH
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