New Exhaust and Power Commander I installed a new Yoshimura RS3 slip-on exhaust and Power Commander III USB today. When I first got the R6 I was fine with the stock exhaust except for how big the muffler canister was. Unfortunately two events changed my mind about the sound and eventually ate away at me until I ordered a replacement muffler. First, I test rode a 2006 MV Agusta Brutale 910 which has an amazing exhaust note for a stock bike. Second, I started going to track days. Hearing the other inline-four cylinder bikes with race exhausts tearing down the straightaways made my bike sound like vacuum cleaner. On a more justifiable note, the Power Commander was purchased to hopefully cure my bike of its jerky throttle response. The 2005 R6 is notorious for this; presumably part of the problem was a lean air/fuel mixture for emissions purposes (which the Power Commander can address). Enough about my reasons... on to the pics and ride impressions.

Stock exhaust. It's so long it extends past the tail.

Another view of stock exhaust hugeness.

The stock exhaust came off in seconds by undoing two bolts - one at the right rear passenger peg mount and the other was the clamp at the midpipe joint. Surprisingly it wasn't any heavier than the Yoshimura muffler I ordered - just bigger.

The only part that was a pain. I (actually my buddy) had to drill a hole through the end of the header pipe for a rivet that keeps the midpipe from rotating.

The new muffler installed. Notice it's a little shorter.

Another view of the finished product. A little shorter and not so big around.

I didn't take any pictures of the Power Commander installation because I got lazy. That wasn't too tough though; the only hard part was plugging the wires in. The fuel injector connectors were a little tough to reach and disconnect, but other than that it was pretty easy. The unit itself is resting in the storage compartment beneath the passenger seat. I made sure the night before that the right map had been downloaded and installed.

It had been raining off and on all weekend but I finally got a chance to ride the bike after it cleared up for a couple of hours. The first thing I noticed is that the new exhaust pipe is much, much louder than the stock one. It's so much louder that I don't think I can just ride around town without ear plugs. It does sound a lot better than the stock pipe, but borderline annoying due to the loudness. I can plainly see there's a place to mount a silencing insert in the tip, so I'm definitely gonna order one (it should bring the noise down a couple of decibels)

As for the Power Commander, it seems like it's done its job to a noticeable extent. Throttle response is a little smoother than before. The notchy throttle response was at its worst when the bike was leaned over in a 2nd gear turn, but I won't fully be able to test the difference until I can get on some of my usual twisty roads or a track day. Speaking of track days, I'm going to Willow Springs on April 3rd. What a great way to test the new setup.

Edit: I received the silencing insert that Yoshimura sells direct for the RS3 ($20). I'll install it this weekend and see what it does:

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