Twin pipes on a single-cylinder Royal Enfield? Why not?

Royal Enfield J2: twin ports.

Something seems to fascinate people about putting dual exhausts on a single-cylinder Royal Enfield Bullet.

Royal Enfield itself used twin exhausts on the single-cylinder J2 model, from 1949 to 1956. That rigid frame, 500cc sidecar puller needed two silencers, since it had twin exhaust ports. It was open for discussion whether this added any real power; some said that back pressure was reduced too much.

2003 Bullet with twin-port head.

In 2003 Royal Enfield USA even had a few twin-port heads made up for the Bullets it imported from India. Royal Enfield USA President Kevin Mahoney said they added no performance, but sounded and looked cool with their dual exhausts.

A dummy second exhaust pipe.

Looking cool was the only point to the made-in-India chopper I wrote about here recently. This machine extended an apparently functionless second exhaust pipe to the rear of the cylinder.

A less controversial idea turned up in a picture of another custom Royal Enfield out of India, this one the work of Ricardo Pereira, a very talented customiser in Bangalore. Nishal Lama wrote about it Pereira's work on myBangalore.com

This one works.

Here the second exhaust pops up out of the first; no doubt it does function to change the sound of the motorcycle, at least.

This little exhaust modification is only a tiny fraction of the work Pereira does. It's well worth looking at the myBangalore.com gallery of his Royal Enfield "street rods" — he specifies that they "are not really chopper." Whatever you call them, they are lovely.

Finally, there is the new 2011 Royal Enfield Fury, created for the UK by Watsonian Squire. It is a very distinctive looking motorcycle, inspired by the U.S.-only model of 1959 and '60, but with upgrades like a digital dashboard and — something else the original never had — dual exhausts.

UK-only Fury uses twin silencers.

"The Fury is the first new model in 40 years to feature twin silencers, which allow the 499cc single-cylinder engine to breathe more freely, producing a distinctive exhaust note," Watsonian Squire states on its official blog.

I've stared a lot at the pictures of the Fury, but I can't see where the siamese connection is to the original single exhaust.

Few would deny that twin pipes pack a visual punch, whether they add power or not.

(You can read more about the original made-for-the-USA Fury and a made-in-India Fury I bet you never heard of on Jorge Pullin's blog, My Royal Enfields.)