 ou’ll oftentimes hear Harley-Davidson referred to as a survivor. That’s because the company has been through some tough times in its history, and yet always managed to come back stronger than ever. The same can be said for Darryl Bassani, who started making exhaust systems in the 1960s, rode out two disastrous downturns in the motorcycle market, and now produces a line of pipes for Harleys offering patented technology, the highest quality materials, outstanding performance, and Bassani’s famous sound.Even if you’re not familiar with the Bassani brand, you can be sure Bassani knows Harleys. “Even though we kind of look like a Johnny-come-lately to the Harley market, we’ve been making Harley pipes since the 1970s. Our pipes were on Hank Scott’s bike when he became the first rider in the history of the AMA to lap a one-mile dirt track at over 100 mph,” Bassani says. The first pipes Bassani made were for his Hodaka motocrosser. He built them with the “cut and try” method and tested them on a vacant lot, aided by a buddy with a stopwatch. “I was doing this in my parents’ garage with no intention of doing it for a job,” he says. “I was an engineering draftsman at Douglas Aircraft. I built pipes for fun, just trying to get my bikes to run better.” The fun turned profitable, however, and Bassani got his first business license in 1969. He relocated his testing from a vacant lot to a dragstrip, and his pipes caught on in a big way in the 1970s. Then, in 1975, the Bureau of Land Management closed millions of acres of riding land, and the off-road market–along with much of Bassani’s business–took a nosedive. A brief upturn, occasioned by the introduction of three-wheelers, came crashing down when ATCs were banned, and when the government began to cast its disapproving eye toward sportbikes in the 1980s, the pipe market declined once again. In 1988 Bassani stopped making pipes with his name on them, and kept the doors open making fitness equipment. In 1991 he struck a deal to make pipes for another manufacturer, but that company lost interest, and for the second time Bassani was practically out of the exhaust business. Tired of depending on the whims of others, he decided to make pipes under his own name again, and in 2008 they’ll be available from Drag Specialties. Bassani offers pipes in three styles: slip-ons for Baggers and some Softails; a Pro Street system that uses an aggressive stepped design and fits Softails, Dynas, Sportsters, and Baggers; and 2-into-1 pipes for Dynas, Softails, Sportsters, and Baggers, a pipe that, according to Bassani, “pretty much beats up on everybody with horsepower and torque.” The 2-into-1 is a megaphone-style pipe that comes with a billet end cap that looks like a reverse cone. “In reality,” Bassani says, “if you put the short core in it, the first 13 or 14 inches of it actually is a megaphone that aids in scavenging and power production.” Bassani has been in the business long enough to know what works and what doesn’t, and that’s why he uses only 16-gauge steel in his Harley pipes. “It’s a more durable material,” he says, “and has more resistance to heat going through the pipe wall because there’s more material there. It holds up better against vibration, too, and doesn’t crack.” Bassani makes his own flange gaskets, made of carbon graphite with a metal inner layer. It’s more expensive, but when you torque down the header the gasket doesn’t deform and obstruct the port like some other cheaper gaskets can. He uses a more expensive material for muffler packing, too, one that can withstand temperatures up to 2,000 degrees, far hotter than exhaust gases ever get. Don’t worry about the packing blowing out of the pipes like cheap fiberglass packing. “We’ve run tests on cars running mufflers right behind catalytic converters,” Bassani says, “and pulled them off after 60,000 miles, and the packing still looks like the day it left the factory.” Bassani builds pipes for everyone the way he’d build them for himself. “As far as I’m concerned there’s only one way to make it, and that’s the right way,” he says. That’s why the spigot on the headpipe is made of a piece of 1-7/8-inch tubing, and not a thin flange. “This way the C-clip has a good flat surface to seal against. At the port end we TIG weld it all the way around. We don’t spot-weld it.” Bassani has come a long way since he first started testing pipes in a vacant lot against a stopwatch, but there’s still value in the old ways, he says. “We still do seat-of the-pants testing but we also give pipes to guys who drag-race Harleys and let them try things for us. We also do some dyno-testing because we realize that’s important, too. But it still comes down to what I think is going to work.” The struggle for aftermarket exhaust sales comes down to the survival of the fittest. Check out the Bassani line in the 2008 FatBook and ask your Drag Specialties rep for all the info. |
