On the surface the problem seems to be the Febur swingarm, a conventional upper-braced swingarm...which actually makes it upside down for a 749/999, which is normally braced on the under-side.
But take a look at the monstrous cut-out on a Corse/Bursi/Lusuardi (or similar) swingarm (the Bursi swingarm in the foreground below, is sitting upside down against my fitted Febur ‘arm):
…the Bursi ‘arm right way up:
...and a close-up of the exhaust cut-out, intended for my exact Termignoni 63.5mm RS/F0 exhaust:
FYI, I was only handling the Corse ‘arm as an intermediary on behalf of an overseas buddy/buyer. It's more brutal than beautiful but it was still very cool to handle such a rare Corse part, if only for a couple of days.
There were some nice "Factory" touches that put a "cat's arsehole" look on your face when handling clunky OEM parts afterwards. Eg the captive axle nut/spacers, and things like the billet brake caliper mount are a study in minimilism at virtually half of OEM weight:
Getting back to my impending sans-anaesthetic self-harm.…in comparison to the radical "exhaust-ectomy" above, my Febur fitting issues look relatively pissant, with the vertical cylinder exhaust header just not quite marrying up with the intermediate pipe:
With this being the relatively small problem area:
A couple months along and I just got sick of looking at the problem. Eventually a couple of beers at the end of a day found me in a “fix it or fuck it” mood:
Nerves of spaghetti, you wouldn’t believe how I sweated bullets trying to remove the bare minimum of material (allowing for suspension movement), fussing over every mm as I crept up on the appropriate cutout.
But eventually I had a patch mocked up:
FYI, the main pivot casting is approx 10mm thick, the fabricated sidewall 2.5mm, and my patch plate is 4mm.
Post welding/tidy up, with another lil' 4mm insert bridging/reinforcing the front corner :
There was no way of blending the mod on what was an increasingly scruffy swingarm, so this seemed like a good time to give the whole ‘arm a cosmetic birthday:
God only knows how many times I'd trial fitted the intermediate pipe when creeping up on making the cutout, but I was still as nervous as a vibrator salesman at airport security when first fitting up the exhaust post-surgery.....
You lil' bewdy! And all thanks to some outstanding supervision:
There were a couple of minor issues remaining:
1. Unlike the OEM setup, the RS/F0 arrangement has an upper exhaust mount on the rear RS/F0 subframe, so a bit more fabrication was required:
2. This is where “Corse Parts 101” bites me on the bum again: The rule being “Corse Part A only works in conjunction with Corse parts B, C and D”: my rear brake master no longer fits in conjunction with the exhaust (see the "problem area" photo above)
I was actually using a 1098 'master mounting bracket, which mounts it slightly further rearwards than a 749/999 bracket, but as it stands the exhaust, 1098 brake master bracket and the brake master itself are all sharing this one crankcase mounting point, and that just ain’t gonna work:
FYI, note the relief on the crankcase rear corner, machined at the Factory to clear this exact exhaust, and the extra (lower) RS/F0-specific oil sightglass, not present on road bikes.
Hmmm, I'm just gonna leave my subconcious to process that last issue for a bit 'cos my concious is completely out to lunch.....
