Any pipe builders care to explain why it's not viable to build a pipe for the 85' & 86' 250R's?  Aren't you guys tired of working on improving existing pipes, and try something new.  Especially since nobody is doing it.  I'd fork over $700 for a RAW pipe!  Especially for a hand coned sexy chromed like the V2.I doubt it would be hard to outdo the FMF. 

There was not a very large number of 1985 and 1986 LT 250 Suzukis made as compared to the number of 1988 to 1992 LT 250s.  I not sure it would be a wise business decision for a company to make a small run of pipes for the 85-86 LT 250s unless the pipes were priced at level that the company could spread the cost of the engine and pipe development over 25 units or so.

It would not be hard to outdo the FMF for the 85-86 LT 250.... We did that about 30 years ago and many other pipe companies have also done it.  We just had a customers 86 LT 250 on the dyno last week to tune the carb and it had a FMF pipe on it.  It had Xxxxx Tech porting, a milled head, the air box lid removed, TM 34 carb and it made 27 hp to the rear wheels on our dyno.  Our 85-86 LT 250s that were winning championships when these bikes were new were in the 40 to 45 hp range depending upon the engine package selected.   

I cannot build a hand coned pipe and sell it for a price that is competitive with FMF's stamped pipe price that they have had stamping dies for 30 years.  I cannot build a hand coned  pipe using our tried and proven manufacturing techniques and sell them for 400.00 to 500.00 like some other pipe builders are currently doing on their TIG welded pipes.

The TIG welds as viewed from the outside of these pipes are beautiful. These 400.00 to 500.00 pipes are very nice looking, The welds are hammered for appearance only on the outside of the curves of the pipe.  Smoothing the seams and welds along the outside of a curve improves the appearance but does very little for the gas dynamics.
 
Look closely at the inside of these TIG welded pipes.  Most of these tig welds I have seen do not penetrate the thickness of the metal.  The inside of the pipe have burrs and sharp corners along the inside of the curves of the pipe body. 

Hammering the welds and seams smooth on the inside of the curve where the diameter is less than about 3" helps the gas dynamics of the pipe.  Hammering the welds over a curved mandrel along the inside of the pipe body curves, takes a lot of time and requires welds that are annealed and have good penetration to keep from cracking.  TIG welding is much faster than torch welding but produces a weld zone that is more brittle than a torch weld.   

It takes around takes 700.00 in labor and material to fabricate a nice looking hand coned raw pipe and silencer once patterns have been made.   I takes about the same amount of time to fabricate a pipe that works well as it does to fabricate a pipe that works terrible. 

It takes a lot of time to fabricate test pipes and evaluate them in the field and on the dyno to find "those needle in a hay stack pipe and port dimensions" that a specific engine likes.  Once the pipe dimensions for that specific engine package has been established, patterns for hand coned pipes can to be made for low production numbers or stamping dies can be made if the company thinks that there is a market for a large number of pipe sales.

I have been building two stroke pipes for over 40 years for racing two strokes.  The competition used to be so intense that I found that investing the money in stamping dies could never be recouped due to low production numbers and the need for frequent pipe dimension changes to stay on the cutting edge.  In the old days we seldom built more than 50 pipes that had the same dimensions.  In the old days most of the pipes used on the racing circuit were obsolete in  6 months.

Companies that invest in stamping dies, usually commit themselves to using the stamping dies until they are worn out.  Companies that were building engines that were on the cutting edge of performance were constantly testing and updating their pipe dimensions for their hand coned pipes. 

The cost for Updating and changing pipe dimensions for hand coned pipes is about 10  to 30 times cheaper than the cost for making a new set of stamping dies.  We have seen many companies over the years make adjustments to their existing stampings in an effort to  make them perform similar to hand coned pipes that have been improved since their stamping dies were made.  Sometimes it is possible, but most of the time new stamping dies are required to make the small dimension changes that are needed to bring their pipes to a competitive performance level.