Hey guys/gals, I ran into a smoking deal on a set of brand new BUB pipes for Sportsters with mid-controls. Thought I would share the experience of modding them to work with forward controls. I didn’t want just bolt on exhaust. Rather I wanted my own style of pipes. I like the 48 I bought that is half blacked out and half chrome/aluminum. Wanted to stay with the theme. So here goes. I bought a set from the HD dealer here in Manitoba for about 170 bucks American (220 for us Canuks). So I really didn’t feel bad about cutting up a nice set. The mid control pipes completely block the forward controls. So some customizing was required. I started with the mounting plate.

Everything is removed.
The rear brake master was in the way so I cut it out. Who needs brakes anyway. Kidding. The plate needed to be cut to clear the brake master resivoir so I chopped the upper forward mount hole off enough to clear the resivori about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. You can see the bracket on the ground here.
Here you can see the mock up. The bracket just clears the resivoir. I also had to cut part of the mount on the pipe itself. Very easy, BUB TIG welded the bracket on in three places so I just ground down the forward TIG welds and popped off the first two inches of the bracket. It’s no use anyway due to the mount being cut, there is no where to put a bolt through except the rear mount hole. All this is for the top pipe (rear cylinder)
Once I removed the forward controls I mounted the bottom pipe (forward cylinder) and marked where the BUB pipe begins it’s bent up. The I cut the stock pipes small cross pipe and filled the hole. Marked exactly where I would need to join the two in order to keep the length the same as the upper pipe and welded the two together. Once that was done I mounted everything up. The lower mount bracket was too far in to I gave her some heat and bent it up to give me an extra 1/2 inch to clear everything
The BUB heat shields will not work so I cut them too where they began their upward bend and smoothed it all out. Once that was done I began the task of wrapping the top part of the pipes with black header wrap. Lots of fun and very itchy hahaha.
And here you have it! Getting lots of good feedback. It’s not for everyone but I like it. Sounds LOUD and MEAN!! Neighbors are gonna hate me at 5 am on my way to work. Just for you guys/gals out there, don’t be afraid of making your bike “yours”. Just make sure you have enough extra cash to fix your mistakes haha. Happy riding!