Hello all, Does anyone know of a completely silent, non restrictive muffler out there? Everywhere I look, all I see are mufflers designed to change the sound and increase performance, but nothing to silence the sound and increase performance. By silent, I mean no louder than a laptop fan on full. If not, are there any efforts to create something like this? Also, I keep hearing that making a muffler system is something of an art. Is there anyone who makes these that doesn't subscribe to that? Thanks.
There's no market for such a quiet exhaust. It would likely take your life upon installation. Seriously, I saw an interview with Howard Johnson, not the restaurant magnate, and he claimed to have invented such a device using microwave tech and heavy-duty math skills, whereupon it was appropriated by a 3-letter entity and the public was denied yet again. Invent it again, if it comes OEM, we'll replace it with straight pipes.
It's all about volume. Not in a db sense but in a size of the muffler. You will never be able to completely muffle the sound of the explosions that hare happening. To decrease the sound you will need to increase the size of muffler. Theoretically you could also make some sort of active noise canceling device like a white noise generator?
It would be really hard to ride. What, you going to look at the tach to know when to shift? Partial throttle work in tricky places would be a nightmare without any sound. My wife's Lexus is even hard to drive, with no wind noise and no engine noise, and it's got an automatic.
Compare the number of threads you see about "silent" pipes with the number you see about pipes that make more noise and you'll understand why nobody makes a quieter pipe. Even if it was possible, the demand just isn't there.
Auto mufflers are quiet because there are usually three or four of them. I'm not sure how loud the stock pipe is - mine was Akrapovic'd from new - but on my Strom the exhaust noise was about the same as induction noise when the throttle was wide open. There's little point silencing the exhaust if the intake is still growling. And my recent demo of a Zero electric bike says to me the chain noise is almost as loud again - it's certainly not the "eerie quiet" experience you'd expect.
Well thanks for the replies. Seems that if someone could make a truly silent exhaust they would likely become millionaires overnight by licensing to oem's. lol Myself, I hate noise. I would love a completely silent motorcycle. Surely the chain and the intake can be silenced somehow? Anyways, maybe I'll make a silent muffler myself. I have some good ideas rattling around.
Solves the chain noise problem on the off-roader I tried. If only they could make them less, you know, fuck ugly, I'd buy one for my commute in a flash.
Sure, but the tech could be adapted for any small combustion engine. Think silent gas powered radio controlled aircraft, for instance. Or generators. Licensing would be huge for things like that. I think that a genuine effort to build such a muffler system could have a big payoff in the end. Such a system would certainly be a niche product for the motorcycle industry, but not in the muffler industry as a whole. If someone did develop a small, mathematically derived, silent muffler, then it would be relatively straightforward to adapt it to motorcycles. It just seems that there isn't any new tech in mufflers anymore. :-(
To be fair, there isn't any new tech because the problem hasn't changed much in the last 110 years. There is already perfectly good, near-silent small engine muffling technology - if you're prepared to spend enough, you can buy a gas generator where the thuds of ignition and the clacking of the piston moving up and down is audible over the exhaust. Most modern cars, as previously posted, are also all but silent - my wife's little VW has to have a warning light on the dash to let you know if the engine is running or not, and when it moves the tyre roar is audible well before the car. What there ISN'T is a magic solution where you can do all this without paying a premium in weight and packaging - to achieve a silent-running motorcycle, the exhaust apparatus and sound deadening material would need to be so huge, you'd have to add an extra wheel at each end to hold it all upright, and then you've got yourself a Hyundai, not a motorcycle. Happiness is the art of compromise.
hybrid vehicles, which can be completely silent when running only on the electric battery are required by the DOT to produce some type of sound to protect pedestrians. If you don't hear a car coming, you might be more compelled to cross the street without looking i guess. I think the only way to ride on 2 wheels without any noise would be a bicycle.
It would be impossible to silence this twin.....let alone a single. the more cylinders you have the more can you work on the exhaust pulses to help quiet it down...... But stock is a calm as it get's. Quite a bit of r/d goes into the design of those, as they are damped via physical baffles, rather than acoustic material.,....
There have been some misguided attempts to pass that sort of requirement, but there are no such laws currently on the books anywhere. Anyone who has spent more than 10 secs. near a hybrid car will know that the sound of the rolling tires make enough noise at speed to alert all but the hearing impaired to their presence. The only time a hybrid is "completely silent" is when it's shut off and not moving. As others have mentioned, engine noise, and sounds coming out of the tailpipe are often much quieter than the other sounds that a moving vehicle makes.
Yeah, that's one of the misguided attempts I mentioned. And as soon as some auto-industry lawyers point out that there are a bunch of internal combustion engine cars that emit less noise than hybrids or electrics do, those attempts will have about as much life as the Cub's World Series hopes. But feel free to wake me up if something like that ever happens.
I'm running Remus headers and can. My bike is pretty quiet compared to my friends DRZ400 S with california emissions. I thought that bike was quiet! My bike, if I don't rev it, - purrs. But if I give it some throttle it lights up the silence. The zero is totally stealth, as suggested in this thread. - But, as much as I like quiet pipes, I'm afraid it would take some getting used to, to love the sound of silence. I would probably wear an ipod with motorcycle sounds just to feel normal. Simon and Garfunkle: The sound of silence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTCNwgzM2rQ