Anyone had the copper exhaust donuts fail?

[blueironranger]

A Buddy of mine was on my Phazer and about 1/2 through the ride I notice the exhaust pipe wiggling on my Phazer from behind. At the next stop I check and it defiantly was loose and seemed like the donuts/clamps were loose but since the exhaust wasn't any louder than normal we carried on with the ride since were were about 150 miles from home. Took the tank off last night and one of the clamps was off and the other just about ready to fall off. The only thing left of the copper donuts were small pieces of them laying in the exhaust shroud. They have roughly 5000 miles on them, stock were shot at 1,500 miles. I'm trying to figure out if loose clamps killed the copper donuts or if they just got brittle and broke apart, honestly I haven't checked the clamps in 2000+ miles.

 

[Macheater]

What did the other one look like? I would think if it was due to wear that they would wear at least somewhat similarly.
I have the copper's on my Apex but, haven't really logged enough miles to see how they wear on that.

 

[blueironranger]

Both were cracked up, the one in the side that still had the clamp had most of the chunks still in place.

 

[2008lee]

I think loose clamps are the leading cause of the donuts premature failure. graphite or copper. I have no experience with copper but my donuts were shot at 2500-3000 km.
I replaced them with oem donuts and I also filed the clamp spacers too clamp tighter. I just checked them at 5000km and they look like new.

 

[Mooseman]

I've had the copper donuts for over 10k km and they have not failed. However, I have had two pipe failures. One was the pipes broke just before the Y, had it welded and reinforced, it then failed on one side at the flex joint (this one may have been my faulty as the front support bolt was missing). I wound up replacing the entire exhaust and having it reinforced even more than the previous time. See my entire saga here: https://ty4stroke.com/threads/can-exhaust-be-fixed-welded.135024/

For the broken flex, I would have done the fix noted in the last post of that thread but so far, it's holding. If it ever fails again, I would definitely cut out and replace the flex/donuts with them.

 

[blueironranger]

Is the sole purpose of the donuts to make the exhaust easier to remove? I ordered new copper ones since they did last a lot longer than the stock one. If it happens again in a few years I’m just going to weld the pipes together. May even build a new header with mesh joints instead of bellows

 

[maim]

mine has never had copper in it that in it to my knowlge. clamps where loose though. i ground them down and made sure they where tight when i put it all together. sled had 14000 km on it before i touched them.

 

[Mooseman]

I think they're meant as a separation point.

Mine had 4000km when all that was left of the original donuts was mesh and leaked. Copper donuts have been good for 10 000km and still going even though the rest broke a couple of times, which I don't think was caused by the donuts.