ention the name Cobra and most people think exhaust pipes. They’re right, of course. Cobra has plenty of pipes to offer, and Cobra actually started out with exhaust components. But it’s long past time to re-think that “pipes only” mindset. There’s a lot more to Cobra than just exhausts.
     Cobra started 25 years ago when Tim McCool and Ken Boyko joined forces. It was a perfect match-up then, and it’s still one today. McCool takes care of the manufacturing and Boyko heads up the marketing side, getting those Cobra products out. There’s a broad mix of products at Cobra these days, too, and the offerings go deep. There are pipes, to be sure, plenty of them. One of the first products this pair of motorcycle entrepreneurs developed way back at the beginning was an exhaust piece called the Sparky. That two-stroke spark arrestor was small, lightweight and an immediate success. Before long Cobra was making expansion chambers for those two-stroke bikes, as well, and the Cobra F1 slip-on for sportbikes was a revolution in that market. Back in the 1980s no one else offered a slip-on replacement silencer for sportbikes. A rider faced with a worn or damaged muffler had only one option, an expensive OE part. The Cobra F1, and later the F1S, changed all that. So yes, Cobra is an exhaust company, but that’s only the beginning.
     As Cobra rolled into the 1990s both McCool and Boyko, motor-cycle and powersport visionaries to the core, looked around and to their amazement realized there was nothing available for the increasingly popular import V-twins. Here was a potentially huge market being totally ignored. In contrast to the Harley-Davidson scene, no one was making custom parts for these bikes, and consequently no one was customizing them, either. Cobra soon changed that, and to demonstrate the viability of the market Ken built a couple metric customs to debut at the 1994 Dealer Expo. He had a Honda Shadow and a Honda Magna turned into full-on customs by Damon’s. Everyone, including the guys at Damon’s, thought it was a wrong move. Magazine editors of the day cautioned that no one would be interested in custom accessories for an import metric V-twin. “No way, no how,” they said.
     With 20/20 hindsight it’s clear now they were dead wrong. Those two motorcycles kicked off the whole metric custom market, and while this new direction wasn’t the launch of Cobra–the company had already been in business for years–it did a good job of kick starting Cobra’s expansion. At that point no one else was in the market.
     Soon Cobra was making fenders and seats and exhaust pipes and floor boards and a host of other parts for the metric-twins, all the while showing riders how to customize their metric bikes and helping them do it with all those parts. Each year Cobra would build more metric customs of their own, too, debuting new ideas and demonstrating even more possibilities.      Some of these customs were so good looking and so right for the market they actually became prototypes for OE production models. Kawasaki took the Cobra Super Chief back to Japan where it served as the inspiration for the first Drifter. That wasn’t the only example, either. Much of what Cobra was doing in its custom program was picked up directly by the OE manufacturers.
     At Cobra today there’s almost an equal split between metric products, Harley-Davidson products and products for ATVs, which have been a part of Cobra from the start. In the past year Cobra’s introduced a whole new line of protective products for those ATVs, too. There are now bumpers and skid plates and nerf bars, and Cobra – ever the innovator – even thought long and hard about how to make all those new ATV products eye-catching in the showroom and easy to sell. The packaging is as good looking as the parts inside. Last year Cobra introduced some new products for Harley-Davidsons, as well, things like the Upswept Speedster pipes and the Fi2000R fuel-management controller for injected Harleys. Cobra’s Harley-Davidson products are all available through Drag Specialties. Parts Unlimited, of course, carries the entire Cobra line for the metric cruisers, everything from those exhaust systems to the custom floorboards to all those custom covers and reservoir caps and sissy bars and pegs and license-plate frames to the fuel-management systems for those bikes, too. And then there’s the whole Cobra lineup of ATV parts.
     Cobra and exhaust pipes? You bet. But there’s a lot more, and even more on the way. Take a look at just some of what’s new from Cobra for 2005. Parts Unlimited / Drag Specialties has it all.

obra’s just-introduced Fi2000R is the fuel-management solution for Harley-Davidson Softails, Dynas, baggers and the V-Rod. This fuel-system controller functions the same as the standard Cobra Fi2000, but the new “R” version features connectors that snap directly into the bike’s injector bodies making the installation easier than ever. It retails for just $239.95. The new Sportbike version will retail for $249.95.
     Modern fuel-injected motorcycles, Harleys, the metrics and sportbikes, need help. They need the Fi2000 or Fi2000R to correct their factory-set lean air/fuel mixtures. Change the exhaust system or air filter on any of these bikes and that need becomes mandatory; with the engine flowing even more air the lean-condition gets worse leading to overheating, backfiring, hesitation, and an uneven idle. The Cobra Fi2000 and the new Fi2000R digital fuel processors quickly, easily and economically solve that problem.
     The original Cobra Fi2000 is better than ever now, too. This little device is foolproof and it makes fuel-injected motorcycles tunable with no computer downloads or re-mapping. Each unit comes preset by Cobra for the particular application. The new Fi2000 and Fi2000R features three adjustment screws (pots) all preset for the make and model. Those adjustment screws allow tuners to independently tune cruise fuel (to optimize fuel mileage), acceleration fuel (to optimize throttle response) and power fuel (to optimize horsepower). Another way to understand it is that two pots adjust low-speed and mid-range settings, and the third adjustment is for the high range, a tuning option for engines with high-flow air filters or extensive modifications like a big-bore kit.
     The Fi2000 and Fi2000R both install in minutes with no computer settings to fiddle with or Internet downloads to figure out. These Cobra units are a simple plug-n-play deal, easy as that. The Fi2000 with its updated case and waterproof circuit board retails for only $199.95.