Bandit captured on dyno

As much as I love my longterm test Bandit 650, the noise level had been bothering me since it arrived. or rather, the lack of one. You could be forgiven for thinking I was testing an electric bike with such subdued noise levels, and there is such a thing as ‘too quiet’ when you can’t even hear your bike over the noise of those next to it, or motorway wind noise.

I wanted something a little louder, but still respectably road legal, so I went to British exhaust firm Micron. The Delta + exhaust offered around 2-3 bhp, while a matching link pipe saved an extra 3kg over standard. And Micron road-legal exhausts are optimised for use with the baffles in, as was proved later.

For fitting and dyno runs to check the power figures and fuelling, I amde the trip to West Walton, near Wisbech, to visit the Chris at X-Bikes (01945-585533). The bike was first tested with the standard can, and you can see the video below.

Having fitted the link pipe, we noticed the quality of the pipework and baffles, and wondered what would happen with just a link pipe? We soon found out, with a healthy 1.6bhp over standard, some subtle flames, and a noise level you could probably put up with.

There were fears that the power gain from the link pipe would be robbed by the end can, but we soon proved this wasn’t the case, as the exhaust was easy to fit, and soon dynoed. In fact, it gave an extra 0.5bhp, giving a total of 2.1bhp for a quick morning’s work and just over £500.

See the videos of all three tests and some lovely flames below.

The Micron Delta + exhaust is £249.99 with the link pipe a futher £249.99. Contact Micron on 01773-87633. For more on the Bandit, see MCN, out June 8.