Joined Sep 2017
595 Posts | 121+
Lansing Mi
Playing around with some carbon fiber the past 2 nights. Shift-tech warns that their exhaust might not clear the strada bags but I was willing to take the risk because I love the look. I have it pointing up slightly higher which doesnt help but I love the look. I planned to make a heat shield when I bought the canister but decided to just see what happens. When looking g at it in the garage it looked like it would barely clear. Last time I had to do over night travel I just went with it. After a few hundred miles I had melted a hole in the bag. Not horrible but motivated me to try and make a shield. What I learned from melting the hole, the case is made of a thick heat moldable plastic that is very forgiving. If someone were looking to run strada bags with an aftermarket exhaust they would just need to unzip the liner, heat up the case from the inside with a heat gun or porpane/mapp gas then push a cylinder indentation into the case. You can do this without damaging the appearance of the outside, you will have the indentation but the texture will be unchanged. In my case, I used mapp gas and pushed a drinking glass into the heated case and let it cool. Then I covered the case with blue painters tape(to assure I leave no more damage to the case) followed by thick aluminum tap that I smoothed out with a spoon. I then sealed off the rest of the bag to prevent unintentional damage. I then used 4 pieces of 3x3 twill fabric with west systems 2 part laminating epoxy. I layered my release film and absorbent material on top then placed it all in a vacuum bag along with my pump line and sealed it up. Fired up my "oven"(basically a high power space heater in a small enclosed are) and fired up the vacuum pump n let it sit for an hour then pulled it all apart and began whittling away till I had a shape i was happy with. I clear coated with high heat matte clearcoat still need to swap out the screws that dont match and I might paint the aluminum screws black but all in all I'm happy with it. There is plenty of clearance now and I think it looks good ...plus it's something I made myself which makes me more proud of the bike. It is by no means perfect but I'm happy. Knowing and sharing the possibility of heating the strada bag to make clearance for an aftermarket exhaust might help someone in the future. It is really easy to do has a huge margin for error making it a real possible solution for anyone on the fence in regards to fitment. I used mapp gas and got it really hot, so hot it would bubble and it still didnt affect the outer finish. That was an extreme and does not need to be that hot to make the adjustment. Anyways, thank you for reading.
