The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
After six months of my PC800 Honda Pacific Coast sitting in the garage, I finally took it out around town today. With the pandemic going on, it’s been sitting in the garage collecting dust waiting for fewer people to be in the local hospital. Hopefully it won’t be so long until the next ride but we shall see… this pandemic is going to be going on for years.
Roger from the UK recently wrote me about a stainless steel exhaust system for the Honda Pacific Coast PC800 motorcycle. This is the first time that I’ve seen a stainless steel full exhaust for our bikes. I am sharing some of the information that Roger sent over in case this helps anyone looking for a different exhaust for our wonderful bikes. Roger writes:
PLUS SIDES:
– It won’t rot, it’s easy to fit and it looks neat.
– You can buy the front lower pipe separately. This uses the o.e. sleeve gasket at the collector box, but not at the joint with the header pipe.
– It has a 10 year warranty.DOWNSIDES:
Roger from the UK
– It doesn’t use the o.e. ‘sleeve’ gaskets, just jointing paste.
– The system isn’t balanced – it is two separate pipes and mufflers (which isn’t so important on a softly tuned engine?)
– The R/H mounting bracket requires a 15mm thick spacer in order to use the twin lobes of the original mount on the frame. The system is not rubber mounted like the original.
– To remove rear axle the r/h can has to be swung downwards (remove mount bolt – which is accessible- & slacken joint clamp). Doing this obviously breaks the paste seal on the pipe joint.
– If you want silence than you MUST specify ‘California Spec’ baffles. They’ve sold over 50 sets to date and I’m the first one to complain.
Since they’re going to cut mine open and replace the baffles I asked if they could (at extra expense) weld in a ‘cutaway’ in the r/h can to enable axle withdrawal without having to ‘drop’ it. I’ve no idea whether this is feasible. They obviously have a standard can to which they add brackets and pipes to suit.
Predator Motorsports in the UK sells the stainless steel exhaust system. If you’re ordering it, be sure to ask for what Roger asked for — the “California” silent model which has extra baffles to quiet the exhaust down.
When you go to their website, use the search tool and type in “PC800 exhaust” to get the right parts. You will probably want to email with the company to make sure that you get the quiet version — it’s not what comes default from their factory.
One note that Roger really wants to emphasize is:
Roger from the UK
My complaint [is] regarding the noisy standard baffles – […] their standard baffles are obviously less restrictive than the ‘California spec’ in that apart from the noise element, the tick-over increases by 300/400 rpm – the only adjustment necessary.
If you are planning to buy this exhaust system, be sure to think carefully about how loud you want your pipes and talk to the manufacturer before you place your order to get pipes that are the right volume and level of restriction for your ride.
A recent post on the Honda Pacific Coast PC800 Facebook group highlighted some of the awesome modifications people have done to their PCs over the years. I figured I’d round up the photos and post them here. If you have any photos you’d like me to feature of your PC800 or others that you’ve seen, please email me and I’ll add them to this post.
I have to start things out with the Cack, perhaps the most famous of all PC800 motorcycles.
The Cack changed quite a bit over the years with “Vermin” (Phillip Henderson) riding the bike all across North America. You might notice the custom exhaust setup made to cook canned food while he rides and the shopping cart or milk crate pieces on the back. Cack sure got a lot of customization. But now the bike sleeps indefinitely at the Barber Motorsports Museum.
I don’t have many details on most of the rest of these PC800s. These are photos that came from the Facebook group. Notice this one has a different muffler.
This is a pretty neat paint scheme for a PC800.
I think this one is Canadian.
Pretty wild design! It reminds me of the mid 1980s Goldwings.
This bike might be in France.
Wow what a paint scheme! This one is from Russia.
That’s a lot of fancy air brush work.
A yellow bike with a purple haired rider.
Same bike, different rider.
This Honda Pacific Coast looks to be in Ukraine maybe. I like the name on the back.
This is the only purple bike I’ve ever seen.
Neat snow cammo scheme.
This is a wild paint design.
Another cool European PC800. This one might have a spare gas tank mounted above the air box where the faux gas tank normally is. One or two bikes were custom modified by their owners to have that second gas tank.
Another view of the PC800 with the modified top box.
This bike also has a modified windshield that might have come from a BMW or an ST-1100 or ST-1300.
I think this one is somewhere in Europe. Or maybe in Asia. There are quite a few PCs popping up in Thailand and elsewhere these days.
I like the little scooter panniers that were added to the passenger seat.
This is a neat concept bike. I wonder where this bike is at.
This one had a top box put on the passenger seat.
I dig the paint scheme on this bike. And the exhaust has been modified. I wonder if this PC800 actually has dual exhausts.
This bike is really, really pretty!
A nice deep blue PC800 with a custom saddle and a “Wong Wing” on the trunk. It looks like this bike might also have the lower spoiler. Both are quite rare.
Is this a Red White and Blue America-themed bike or France-themed bike?
Someone did a nice job respraying this bike.
Maybe this bike was sponsored once?
Interesting green color!
I like this light blue color.