I repacked the downpipes (I had taken the precaution of preserving all the packing) and returned them to Armours with a letter containing the following information:

"I thought it might be helpful to show the problem with some pictures enclosed. (Pic A) shows the system fitted with the pipe tucked under the gearbox where I believe it should go. In fact it has to be this close to the center-line of the machine for the silencer mounting to meet the frame bracket. In addition the old pipe takes this line. However, as you can see in the picture it is too low.The only way to raise it, is to pivot it at the cylinder-head port stub. This has the effect of swinging it out and away from the center-line. If it is raised enough like this to become horizontal again (Pic B), the silencer bracket is now 30mm from the frame. This could be addressed with a spacer, although it would look bad. More seriously, the kick-starter fouls the silencer badly (Pic C), making it impractical as well as unsightly. If it was a Speed twin or later Tiger 100, both fitted with the barrel type silencer, it would be even worse.

I do have an old down-pipe which fits OK and have laid it next to the pipe you have supplied (Pic D), both with the port-stubs carefully laid parallel to each other and you can see the difference in angle of the bottom run of pipe. I think this is the problem, the port-stub end and bottom run aren’t parallel (in the vertical plane) as they should be?"

I felt sure I would soon be hearing from them, grateful that I taken the time and trouble to point out a serious shortcoming with their product in such a way that the problem could be redressed. I received my payment back fairly promptly but no contact. After a few days I telephoned and asked in a friendly if they had received my letter. The response left me in no doubt that it was unlikely to be read, let alone acted on.

I was really just being lazy trying to use their pipes anyway. I should have gone with the good quality solution in the first place. Take a pair of rusty old original pipes to Nick Parravani at 'Competition Fabrications' at Attleborough, Norfolk to do the job properly. Even with the cost of chroming the total was still quite bearable. However, there are one or two caveats. The original Triumph pipes looked so good because that first gorgeous bend is very close to the head, and the bending process spoils the perfect circle of the pipe section, making it a bad fit on the port stub. So it’s important the pipe bender has a cylinder head to work with. I think this is the reason that the armours pipe has that ugly straight section at the top. Two other points, don’t buy your off-the-shelf pipes until the bike is built enough to try the pipes on. In this way they can be returned immediately. Better still, do what my pal does, get them unchromed so you can bash them about a bit when they won’t go!