Gyrobob
Serious Thumper
Offline
Posers ain't motorcyclists
Posts: 2571
Newnan, GA
Gender:
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The lightest weight is a straight pipe. Chrome it, and some even say it is beautiful.
Straight pipes, though, are dumb. They hurt performance (really hard to tune) and they are so loud they are unsafe and they P O the public. We don't need any more folks P O'd at us.
The point? I knew a guy I worked with at Robins AFB who needed something to serve as a muffler, but he had no money to buy one for his SR500. He did have a 2.5' length of exhaust pipe, though, that he clamped on to the existing header.
He brazed a washer just inside the end of that pipe. The pipe was maybe 1 1/4" diameter and the washer had maybe a 3/8" hole in it. Needless to say, the "muffler" was quiet but the thing ran like s**t. It made about 10 hp and wouldn't rev over maybe 2500 rpm.
So, he started drilling 1/4" holes in the bottom of the pipe (so you couldn't see the holes), starting near the end of the pipe with the washer in it. Drill a hole, go for a ride. Drill a hole, go for another ride. He did this many times. He got it up to maybe 15 or 20 holes, and quit there, claiming it felt stock, sounded a little louder than stock, and costed him zilch.
I heard the bike a few times, and it wasn't very loud. The noise it made was hard to describe. Not raucous, not flat and tinny, but yet not sounding like a long pipe. It was just sort of there.
And,.. it was very light weight, and very cheap.
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