Welcome. Good bunch of guys and gals here. To my knowledge, I am the only Hinckley Triumph rider in my county, and with the dealers 50 or 100 miles away, and not really focused on Triumph (they are major Honda, Yamaha, Kaw and Suz dealers) it would be a lonely life without this group. So I know where you are coming from.
About drilling out the pipes and a lot of questions: You will find that more often than not your questions have been discussed in great detail in threads that are already here. So I urge you to use the search function which will take you to those threads, and then, if there are further questions, ask them in the thread, which will pop to the top and become "live" once more. Of course, you can always ask any question any time, but "search" can be a really big help.
God bless,
Monte