No baffle issue
- Thread starter Jeffburke
- Start date
Baffles are there for a reason. With EPA all over the noise and emmissions of Bikes today, we still try to annoy the non mortorcycle public. Up here in NH the so called live free or die state the legislature is trying to pass a noise restriction laws for exactally the reason you are doing here. removing baffles,cutting baffles etc. The reason these manufactuers put them in is to keep them LEGAL. One of the reasons that Myrtle Beach passed all those ordinances last year to illiminate the bike rallies. If we don't start cleaning up our act we're all screwed.
RickyBobby
Active Member
I am from California and you can guess by that statement where I am going with this. In my opinion, this is the most over regulated state vehicle wise there is.
There are millions of people, and millions of vehicles. A small percentage of those vehicles are motorcycles of all kinds. Big 1% clubs have always gotten a lot of press, even movies to some extent. Your average Joe or Jane vehicle operator around here is not on a motorcycle. I would guess a big percentage of the cage drivers are not concerned one way or another about motorcycles or the riders on them. Get next to them in heavy traffic and vibrate the windows of their vehicle with either a motorcycle or a set of unholy bass speakers and you are going to get a bad thought or two headed your way.
I guess in my old age, I try to see both sides of the fence. I love the sound of a air cooled, V twin motorcycle. Ear splitting noise I am not so excited about. I love the rumble of a deep twin, but when they are unbaffled, I really cannot hear the engine for the noise.
All that said, around here cops can and will write you for non stock exhaust. There have been fix it tickets given for Screaming Eagle pipes even. They look for the stamping on the pipes that they are approved and have been known to stick a rod in them to check for baffles. I figure my approach to my exhaust is baffles that when the RPMs are low sound acceptable, but when a good twist of the wrist really makes the pipes bark.
A co worker has a Victory 8 Ball. He has Arlen Ness downcurved pipes with no baffles. So far he hasn't been ticketed, but I call those pipes cop attractors and it is just a matter of time until he is going to get a fix it. He bought the bike like that and doesn't have the stock pipes to install to satisfy the ticket, so it is going to cost him a pretty penny.
I was born and raised in N.H. and my first car was a Chevy V8 that I installed dual exhausts and what was called Smitty Steel pack mufflers on. I could blow a squirrel out of a tree with those pipes. No problem in those days, because N.H. had no muffler laws. There wasn't much to do in N.H. back then, so we would head for Mass. They had strict muffler laws and the State Police where strict. They would wait at the line for us to rocket on by and hand out tickets like they were confetti. We installed devices that with a cable you could switch the exhaust through a Y to a quiet muffler and that is how we kept from getting big tickets in Massachusetts.
I had a triumph for a bunch of years here in California. I had the baffles removed. To beat the system of loud exhausts, I installed a device in both pipes of what was called Snuff or Nots. A simple twist turned a large washer in the pipe from open to choked down puffing. I would get off the open highway and head for town. At the first stop sign or light, I would reach back and twist the knobs and ride respectable in areas that I figured I would get busted for noise. Sure it didn't run right, but it did when those devices where opened and I could blow it out.
That is a lot of words on such a sensitive subject. Pipes might save lives, I tend to agree, but you have to find a happy medium to get along with the rest of the motoring public and of course John Law.
Sorry for being long winded. I am not on a crusade. I am just trying to share my opinion whether it is popular or not. I just don't want anything to happen to limit motorcycles and especially Harleys in any way. It is bad enough that we are probably faced with water cooled engines in the not too distant future.
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Joey_Elm
Member
I have the rush slip ons and they sound good. Actually, I went back to them from VH big shot staggered for mechanical reasons (long story) I've had them since riding from the store. I have to say though, they sound WAY better with the baffles cut in half, still have the wrap on them though, might have to check that out.... But the one thing for sure, the twin cams love back pressure.
