probably ~25K miles on the packing in the supertrapps. I took one of them apart over the weekend, and found a 1/8-1/4" gap between the perforated core and the packing, and the packing was missing from the front 2" of the canister. The packing was a solid mass stuck to the body of the canister, and colored dark grey. Poking it with a finger, it seemed more or less solid, not like it was loose fibers, but like it was a single mass. It's not that bad of a job to do a repack, but I don't want to spend the 2-3 hours it will take if it's not going to do anything. If I did repack, I think I'd go the double-layered route, SS around the core, then the high-temp fiberglass from Silent Sport or Two Bro's. Maybe the repack "kit" from supertrapp, but it's not clear which is the right one for these mufflers. I'm also worried that the lean running conditions (I don't think it's been rejetted) have been kind to the packing. And the lean misfire grumbles on decel probably aren't kind, either. My commute has a 2500' pass that I go up over (from sea level), so it spends a lot of time engine braking, grumbling and popping as it goes.
Just makes it sound better, IMO. The TBR pipe I had on my 95 never got repacked after several thousand mikes and 10 years. It ran lean as well - lean enough on real cold days I could get a flame to shoot out about 4 - 5 foot. Looked pretty sweet, but I'm sure it wasn't the best thing for my packing.
Traps with 8 baffles, the bike is plenty loud, and doesn't have as deep of an exhaust note as I'd like. Although given as lean as it is, I should probably pull out a few baffles to richen things up (or rejet the carbs)
will repacking affect how lean a bike runs if you don't change the FI? I ask because I am shooting flames and using way more gas than I should. My bike pops and spits like an Alabama snuff dippin grandma.
An FI bike should compensate when in closed loop, but may need new maps for open loop mode. I know cars better than bikes. I think bikes are in open loop more often. Do you still have an o2 sensor or are you using a PC with sensor eliminator?
The high altitude will richen the mixture so I don't think your commute has made the situation worse. If the popping is just on decel, it is just a lean idle mixture that is doing it and it shouldn't hurt the packing excessively. If the bike hasn't been rejetted for the pipes, it may also be lean at mid and WOT which is where you will start to damage valves. May want to look into that but if you have gone 25k like this it can't be too bad or you would have burnt a valve by now.
I'm fairly certain that it wasn't rejetted when the supertrapps were added, based on the factory idle screw covers are still intact (complete with the marker paint dab showing non-tampered). The lean misfires are just on decel, which I really don't mind all that much, so long as it's not indicative of other things being wrong. On the question of richening it up, how much fuel can the choke (enrichment circuit) actually provide? I'm guessing not enough to compensate for needing to go up a size on the main jets, but maybe on the slow jet or for needing to back the idle mix screws further out. I haven't done the idle drop, and I really should (after validating that I don't have air leaks with the wd-40 test). My main concern is that the packing itself is done-for, event though 80% of it is still in the pipes. The photos I've seen online of other people taking apart packed mufflers shows it as either loose fibers, or pillow-pack mats. This appears to have once been loose fibers, but it's now a solid mass, with a texture like that of an acoustic ceiling tile. I'm not sure the fibers are capable of moving the way they need to do in order to absorb the sound.
to tell the truth I don't know. I have a 98 CA model. Did they come with one? I am guessing yes and I never removed it and I'm pretty sure the PO didn't. I'll try and look at it Sat or Sun.
